DETROIT >> You’d watch them before games during the AL Division Series, two pitchers who, at the beginning of the year, were expected to be veteran stalwarts in the rotation, putting on their practice gear, grabbing their gloves, bands and weighted balls, heading out to get their work in.

All revved up with no place really to go.

By the end, Kenta Maeda and Casey Mize, both left off the playoff roster in the ALDS, were reduced to throwing just-in-case bullpens and live BPs.

You couldn’t help wondering what the future holds for both in Detroit.

Maeda, one of the rare players to get a multi-year deal out of president Scott Harris, is on the books for $10 million next season. Mize, the former first-overall pick, will hit arbitration again after the Tigers decline the $3.1 million club option they had no intention of ever picking up, even when they threw it in to avoid arbitration last winter.

The expectation is that both will report to spring training in February, neither with a guaranteed role or roster spot. Those will have to be earned.

Let’s start with Maeda. He was pulled out of the rotation after 17 starts. His ERA was 7.42, his WHIP 1.564 and opponents were hitting .303 and slugging .539 against him. Not good. He was moved into a bulk reliever role and whether it was coincidental or cause-and-effect, his stuff got better and his results got better.

In 12 relief appearances, he posted a 3.86 ERA and a 1.071 WHIP.Harris has put some of the blame for Maeda’s struggles on himself. When the Tigers signed Jack Flaherty, there was a full-court press from the pitching department to give him an off-season battle plan, a prescription to fix what was ailing him in St. Louis and in Baltimore the year before.

They didn’t do that for Maeda.

Maeda will turn 37 in April and will be three years removed from Tommy John surgery, which he had at age 34. The Tigers aren’t planning to use the bulk reliever strategy going into next season. They want Maeda to show up ready to claim a rotation spot.

“There is absolutely a place for him on this team,” Harris said. “He’s demonstrated that he can help any big-league team. He’s still really talented. I think he can be a better strike-thrower. His execution can improve. But it starts with his stuff.

“We talked to him about making some changes to his offseason and we’re going to better support him so that the version that shows up in Lakeland is similar to the version that’s made him a successful starting pitcher in this league before.”

Mize’s case is different. Where Maeda struggled to find his stuff, Mize arguably, after missing two seasons with back and elbow surgeries, came into the season with the best stuff of his life. His struggle became how best to use it.

His four-seam fastball averaged 95.5 mph. That’s 2 mph firmer than his four-seamer pre-surgery. And with his elite 7-1 extension and increased spin and ride through the zone, it should have been a game-changer for him.

It wasn’t. It had a minus-1 run value, per Statcast, with a low 20% whiff rate and 19% strikeout rate. Part of that was command; part of it was hitters not honoring his secondary pitches and sitting on the heater.

Mize did produce a 50% ground ball rate, but the 44% hard-hit rate ranked in the bottom-8 percentile in baseball.

“He still has all the God-given ability in the world,” Harris said. “He is one of the more determined workers we have in our clubhouse. ... He has the ability and he has the work ethic.”