The Tigers want to have their cake and eat it too. And honestly, they might be able to pull it off.
Detroit sits five games out of the final AL wild-card spot with a 28.3 percent chance of making the playoffs, per FanGraphs. Those odds exist with Tarik Skubal on the roster. Trade him and the number drops fast. But the front office is reportedly exploring a tricky balancing act — selling off their best pitcher while still trying to play meaningful games in September.
Baseball executives call this strategy ‘threading the needle,’ according to Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic. The idea is simple in theory, brutal in execution: trade Skubal for a package that fills the immediate hole in the rotation and also restocks the farm system for the future.
That means the Tigers aren’t just looking for prospects. They want a major-league-ready arm under team control beyond this season, someone who can slide into the rotation and keep them afloat. Rosenthal and Sammon identified six teams and eight pitchers who fit that description. Here’s the list they put together:
- Emmet Sheehan, Los Angeles Dodgers
- Logan Henderson, Milwaukee Brewers
- Ian Seymour, Tampa Bay Rays
- Andrew Painter, Philadelphia Phillies
- JR Ritchie or AJ Smith-Shawver, Atlanta Braves
- Will Warren or Ryan Weathers, New York Yankees
None of those guys are Skubal. He’s a lefty ace with a 2.34 ERA and 132 strikeouts over 107 innings this season. He’s the kind of pitcher who can single-handedly win a playoff game. Problem is, he’s also a free agent after this season, and the Tigers aren’t exactly built to make a deep run.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Every pitcher on that list is under team control well beyond 2024. Some, like Painter, are top-100 prospects when healthy. Others, like Smith-Shawver and Warren, have already shown flashes in the majors. The Tigers wouldn’t just be collecting lottery tickets. They’d be getting cost-controlled arms who could step into the rotation this month and stay there for years.
The math gets complicated, though. If Detroit trades Skubal for a package that includes, say, Sheehan and a prospect, the rotation takes a hit in the short term. Sheehan has a 5.03 ERA this year and is still developing. The Tigers would need someone to eat innings while he figures it out. But if they hold onto Skubal and miss the playoffs anyway, they lose him for nothing but a compensation pick.
Rosenthal and Sammon noted that ‘threading the needle’ can be ‘difficult and disruptive.’ Teams that try to buy and sell at the same deadline often end up doing neither well. The Tigers have just under two weeks to decide which path they take.
Multiple teams are circling. The Dodgers, Phillies, Braves, Yankees, Brewers, and Rays all have the prospect capital to make a serious offer. Detroit’s front office is expected to field plenty of calls before the July 30 deadline.
The question isn’t whether Skubal gets traded. It’s whether the Tigers can find a deal that makes them better in 2024 and stronger in 2025. That’s a tight window. But the names on that list suggest it’s not impossible.
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