2026 Trade deadline

[alex]

3 hours ago, NorthWoods said:

Selected Andy Ibáñez off waivers from the Texas Rangers.

Signed Brenan Hanifee as a free agent.

Signed Michael Lorenzen as a free agent.

Selected Tyler Holton off waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Traded Carlos Guzman (minors) to the Chicago Cubs. Received Zach McKinstry.

Drafted Kevin McGonigle in the 1st round (37th pick) of the 2023 amateur draft. Player signed July 21, 2023.

Traded Michael Lorenzen to the Philadelphia Phillies. Received Hao-Yu Lee.

Signed Jack Flaherty as a free agent.

Signed Gleyber Torres as a free agent.

Traded Josh Randall (minors) and R.J. Sales (minors) to the Washington Nationals. Received Kyle Finnegan.

Various degrees of "hits" but certainly not misses.

I agree, there are some 'hits' per say and all CEO/GMs when dealing have various degrees of success and failures. You have to try.

IMHO, and have said several times, is that SHarris has not acquired any MLB 'talent' type players in trades. That he is perhaps too hesitant to include even 'good but not top' type prospects to acquire real MLB types. We have yet to see a creative type deal per say. They have been either sell off of vets (Jack, Lorenzen, etc.) or marginal MLB types for lesser Tiger prospects (Morton, Paddock, etc.).

If the team chooses to deal Skubal they need to get talented types back - or just do not do it. This will be a real test. IMHO, a good GM (at trading) should be able to do such. Yet, any deal involving getting younger type players back, top prospects or not, will take time to evaluate. Many felt the JV return, at that time, was a good deal.

[LongLiveMaroth]

Here is what the Athletic has to say about the potential return.

Tarik Skubal

Age: 29
Contract status: Owed $9.5 million in 2026, then a free agent
2026 stats: 6-5, 2.83 ERA in 82 2/3 innings, 2.2 fWAR (14.8 fWAR since 2024)

Comparison: 2015 David Price
Stats: 9-4, 2.53 ERA in 146 innings, 4.1 fWAR (13.7 fWAR prior two-plus seasons)

In the last decade, the only starter with a recent resume in line with Skubal’s who was moved at the deadline was Max Scherzer, traded from the Nationals to the Dodgers in 2021. But Scherzer was dealt alongside Trea Turner, making that trade a difficult comp for others.

So let’s go back to the last time the Tigers were holding a chip like this, with Price in 2015. That Detroit team had turned a decent start into a late-deadline decision to sell; this Detroit team faces similar uncertainty at the deadline, though thanks to a turnaround from a poor start.

In 2015, one year after acquiring Price at the deadline from Tampa Bay, the Tigers sent him to Toronto in exchange for Daniel Norris, Matthew Boyd and Jairo Labourt. Norris was the big get as a top-25 prospect in the sport. Boyd had just made his debut as a potential back-end starter, and Labourt had made the Futures Game despite pedestrian on-field results.

That trio didn’t click for Detroit, largely because Norris pitched below the league average during his tenure with the Tigers. Still, Detroit should be looking for a similar package this time around: a top-25 to top-50 prospect headliner, a valuable second piece that’s preferably in or close to the big leagues, and more of a lower-level flier.

 

[Nate7474]

I haven’t had any problems with the trades that Harris has made in either direction so far. People could say he hasn’t been aggressive enough to acquire offensive talent like during last season but frankly there wasn’t anyone traded that I would have wanted and I wouldn’t have given up any of our top prospects either. He had a pitcher say ok to a trade and then end up using his no trade clause so that hurt and probably could have handled that better in his first year on the job but frankly we just don’t have a good idea of his ability in trades yet. His system evaluates draft prospects well so you would assume that would translate over to evaluating minor leaguers. 
 

The only grip that I have with Harris is I have been underwhelmed by his Free Agency pick ups and felt the money could have been better spent on more proven talent. Other than that he has laid out his vision and I have seen him trying to execute on specifically that. He is open with the fans and media on his expectations and assessments for the most part. 
 

I agree with others who say how he handles this deadline will ultimately determine if he is successful long term here. I actually think the bigger gamble is holding steady or half measure buy and sell. The safest route for his job imo would be to sell as many expiring contracts as possible as that means he has the ownerships support for a couple more years yet. 

[LongLiveMaroth]

I would never discount Dombrowski on anything but there isn't a whole lot I would want from the Phillies. Painter hasn't regained form and Miller has a back injury.

[Tenacious D]

13 minutes ago, LongLiveMaroth said:

I would never discount Dombrowski on anything but there isn't a whole lot I would want from the Phillies. Painter hasn't regained form and Miller has a back injury.

Dombrowski is creative enough to pull in a third team if his desire is high enough and the Tigers are willing.

You don’t hire Dave to develop the farm system to sustain success over a long period.  He’s about immediate results and aggressive enough to pursue that.

[Tenacious D]

25 minutes ago, Nate7474 said:

I haven’t had any problems with the trades that Harris has made in either direction so far. People could say he hasn’t been aggressive enough to acquire offensive talent like during last season but frankly there wasn’t anyone traded that I would have wanted and I wouldn’t have given up any of our top prospects either. He had a pitcher say ok to a trade and then end up using his no trade clause so that hurt and probably could have handled that better in his first year on the job but frankly we just don’t have a good idea of his ability in trades yet. His system evaluates draft prospects well so you would assume that would translate over to evaluating minor leaguers. 
 

The only grip that I have with Harris is I have been underwhelmed by his Free Agency pick ups and felt the money could have been better spent on more proven talent. Other than that he has laid out his vision and I have seen him trying to execute on specifically that. He is open with the fans and media on his expectations and assessments for the most part. 
 

I agree with others who say how he handles this deadline will ultimately determine if he is successful long term here. I actually think the bigger gamble is holding steady or half measure buy and sell. The safest route for his job imo would be to sell as many expiring contracts as possible as that means he has the ownerships support for a couple more years yet. 

I think Harris has been rightfully conservative around trading for position players, because he inherited a solid young core and has supplemented it through drafting and minor deals.  I don’t think he wants to block anyone and would rather invest in acquiring pitching.

If I have a criticism, it’s in his inability to build a shutdown bullpen.  The pen saved us in late ‘24, but we probably lucked out.  Guys like Hanifee and Holton have not been able to maintain the performance from that year. Finnegan was an overpay—he’s really more of a 7th inning guy and Jansen was a bit of a lottery ticket that hasn’t paid off.

I’m glad he avoided caving to fan sentiment and didn’t sign Bregman, Bichette nor Tucker to long-term deals. None of those look very good right now.

[Nate7474]

10 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

I think Harris has been rightfully conservative around trading for position players, because he inherited a solid young core and has supplemented it through drafting and minor deals.  I don’t think he wants to block anyone and would rather invest in acquiring pitching.

If I have a criticism, it’s in his inability to build a shutdown bullpen.  The pen saved us in late ‘24, but we probably lucked out.  Guys like Hanifee and Holton have not been able to maintain the performance from that year. Finnegan was an overpay—he’s really more of a 7th inning guy and Jansen was a bit of a lottery ticket that hasn’t paid off.

I’m glad he avoided caving to fan sentiment and didn’t sign Bregman, Bichette nor Tucker to long-term deals. None of those look very good right now.

I agree with this. Bullpens are tough as it seems like there are only a few guys that are great every year and the rest are hit and miss from season to season. How many seasons did we want Dombrowski to get us a good bullpen and he never did? With today’s game with starters pitching less innings the bullpens are so much more important to have at least 4 guys you can rely on to give you good outings. 

[AlaskanTigersFan]

1 hour ago, Tenacious D said:

Dombrowski is creative enough to pull in a third team if his desire is high enough and the Tigers are willing.

You don’t hire Dave to develop the farm system to sustain success over a long period.  He’s about immediate results and aggressive enough to pursue that.

I predicted at the beginning of the season Painter, Aiden Miller and Crawford...... I think the price is still close to that to get Skubs..... 

[Shinzaki]

Speaking of bullpens...the Padres might move Mason Miller...that would certainly solve our closer issues

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, Shelton said:

I think there is a big disconnect in how the media declares what some teams have to do vs what other teams have to do when presented with very similar scenarios, and I don’t think it’s right to just wave it away by saying “yeah but those other teams have more money” because to me that is irrelevant when the smaller team still has “enough” money, and that’s true of almost every team. 

This strikes me somewhat as being a distinction without a difference, because while I agree that literally every major league team could afford to pay Skubal half a billion dollars over the next 10 years and barely feel the pain in their overall corporate bottom line, there are certain teams who, as insanely wealthy as their owners may be, simply won’t spend that kind of money on players. So we can comfortably say they don’t have the money, since they won’t spend the money. It’s such a hard and fast philosophical thing for them that it is as though the money is not even available.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, TigerNation said:

I'm confused why some people want to trade our 4th best hitter.

Because they are overestimating his value in trade? Just spitballing here …

[Edman85]

I need to confirm, because he has a weird situation with his contract, but I think the Tigers can trade Flaherty and pay down his whole salary and still get a $2M+ CBT break.

[4hzglory]

5 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I need to confirm, because he has a weird situation with his contract, but I think the Tigers can trade Flaherty and pay down his whole salary and still get a $2M+ CBT break.

That definitely gives some options.   If healthly I'd prefer they keep him and effectively gain another reliever come playoff time (if they get there), but if necessary it would be a good way to get under the CBT line.

[monkeytargets39]

5 hours ago, Shelton said:

I think Stavenhagen happened upon Skubal at a particular time and with him in a particular mood and Skubal got caught saying something stupid that he probably didn’t mean to say the way he did.

My guess is that Cody shared the quotes with his editor and they felt like they hit a gold mine and now we have a “Story”.

I think the story being told here is being clouded a bit by hindsight. Whatever was going on with him at the time didn’t stop him from simply pushing through and training and going to the WBC and starting the season. It’s easy to say after the fact, and after the surgery was successful, that he had some suspicions in January. And yes, when you are in a negotiating period of course you are going to be less likely to share anything that might hurt your position. 
 

After getting the contract award on Feb 3 he also didn’t get it checked out, and it seems hard to believe that heading into his contract year he would take a risk of putting something off and potentially costing him a lot more than whatever the arbitration contract dispute was. 
 

So, I think whatever he was actually feeling was incredibly minor, and it indeed took until that start in late April for it actually be a thing. Not sure why he decided to word things the way he did, but it makes him look bad. I’m sure he regrets saying it the way he did, but I suspect he is getting caught up in being the face of the trade deadline.

Yeah I think it’s a pretty hard overreaction to all that and definitely not the first time something like that has happened.

 

I feel like little stuff like this is starting to “leak” out to give the fanbase a soft landing when we actually trade Skubal.  

Edited July 23 by monkeytargets39

[gehringer_2]

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

So you just want to flush Tork? I wouldn’t agree with that.

775 OPS in his last 200 AB. That's not winning any all-star births but they have nothing close to replacing it.

[monkeytargets39]

1 hour ago, 4hzglory said:

That definitely gives some options.   If healthly I'd prefer they keep him and effectively gain another reliever come playoff time (if they get there), but if necessary it would be a good way to get under the CBT line.

I don’t think we would be getting any value in a Flaherty trade anyway.  Teams know he’s a complete wildcard.  I’d be fine with keeping him for the sake of having a post-deadline rotation option in the event we move on from Mize and/or Skubal.  

[monkeytargets39]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

775 OPS in his last 200 AB. That's not winning any all-star births but they have nothing close to replacing it.

If Tork consistently OPSd .800 each year, I wouldn’t complain about him much at all.  That would be more than good enough for this team.  

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, alex said:

I agree, there are some 'hits' per say and all CEO/GMs when dealing have various degrees of success and failures. You have to try.

IMHO, and have said several times, is that SHarris has not acquired any MLB 'talent' type players in trades. That he is perhaps too hesitant to include even 'good but not top' type prospects to acquire real MLB types. We have yet to see a creative type deal per say. They have been either sell off of vets (Jack, Lorenzen, etc.) or marginal MLB types for lesser Tiger prospects (Morton, Paddock, etc.).

If the team chooses to deal Skubal they need to get talented types back - or just do not do it. This will be a real test. IMHO, a good GM (at trading) should be able to do such. Yet, any deal involving getting younger type players back, top prospects or not, will take time to evaluate. Many felt the JV return, at that time, was a good deal.

I didn't like trading Verlander even from a bad team. He still would have more value to us than the return.

But that said, Perez was a good  pitching prospect, his health went down the tubes. It really wasn't all that more improbable that Verlander's career would end early on an injury and Perez make the majors. Pitching injury prevalence makes it hard to make sense of pitching trades. For me the possible issue in the Verlander trade was whether there was something the Tigers could/should have known about Perez's health that they didn't.

Edited July 23 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

This strikes me somewhat as being a distinction without a difference, because while I agree that literally every major league team could afford to pay Skubal half a billion dollars over the next 10 years and barely feel the pain in their overall corporate bottom line, there are certain teams who, as insanely wealthy as their owners may be, simply won’t spend that kind of money on players. So we can comfortably say they don’t have the money, since they won’t spend the money. It’s such a hard and fast philosophical thing for them that it is as though the money is not even available.

I think ownership's outside wealth is usually (not always of course) irrelevant to a team's spending equation - what matters more is the team's revenue, and in the current set-up  that does vary by wide margins between the highest and lowest revenue teams.  If Bezos  -at XXX billion worth - owned a baseball team he wouldn't want it lose money any more than Ilitch does at - XX billion worth, though that said, Steve Cohen may be the example of the 'not always'.

[Edman85]

2 hours ago, Edman85 said:

I need to confirm, because he has a weird situation with his contract, but I think the Tigers can trade Flaherty and pay down his whole salary and still get a $2M+ CBT break.

This is not the case upon further reading. Likely the Tigers get some kind of break if Flaherty is traded, but it is on the order of $300K or so after doing the math prescribed in the CBA.

[Shelton]

6 hours ago, chasfh said:

This strikes me somewhat as being a distinction without a difference, because while I agree that literally every major league team could afford to pay Skubal half a billion dollars over the next 10 years and barely feel the pain in their overall corporate bottom line, there are certain teams who, as insanely wealthy as their owners may be, simply won’t spend that kind of money on players. So we can comfortably say they don’t have the money, since they won’t spend the money. It’s such a hard and fast philosophical thing for them that it is as though the money is not even available.

We’re on the same page. I think at most we disagree on what type of owner Chris is. Because I feel like he has shown enough instances of taking on salary or overpaying for dudes that digging in and spending to keep his first true star is something in his wheelhouse. Just because he hasn’t signed “that” contract yet doesn’t mean he won’t ever do it. I’m not gonna stake my claim either way. I’m just saying it’s well within the realm of possibility. I get the sense you think it’s closer to zero than 10%. And that’s fine because these numbers are made up anyway and the score doesn’t matter. 

[AlaskanTigersFan]

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/07/mariners-reportedly-willing-to-trade-emerson-hancock.html - If they really want Vierling for Hancock, phakin lets go......... Heck I'd give them Gleyber Torres for him straight up easily..... 

[NorthWoods]

5 hours ago, AlaskanTigersFan said:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/07/mariners-reportedly-willing-to-trade-emerson-hancock.html - If they really want Vierling for Hancock, phakin lets go......... Heck I'd give them Gleyber Torres for him straight up easily..... 

Torres and Vierling would solve the payroll issue and give us a bit more room to trade another starter for a haul or use Montero as our closer.

[LongLiveMaroth]

7 hours ago, AlaskanTigersFan said:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/07/mariners-reportedly-willing-to-trade-emerson-hancock.html - If they really want Vierling for Hancock, phakin lets go......... Heck I'd give them Gleyber Torres for him straight up easily..... 

You are not getting Hancock for Torres or Vierling or both. He has 4 more years before FA. That being said I would absolutely throw in Max Anderson with them if that helps get the job done.

[casimir]

I wouldn't do it unless they also threw in Julio Rodriguez.