The Detroit Tigers may be headed for more than a simple deadline sell-off. Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel’s latest top 50 MLB trade candidates list puts Tarik Skubal right at the top, and the ripple effect could be a full-blown teardown that changes the American League Central picture.
Skubal was listed No. 1 overall, with an 85% chance of being traded. For a Tigers team that has hovered around the division race without ever fully grabbing it, that kind of name at the top of the market says plenty. Detroit enters play today at 40-50, sitting 7 1/2 games back in the division and five games out of the Wild Card with six teams ahead of them.
And Skubal isn’t the only Tiger drawing attention. Passan and McDaniel also included Casey Mize, Gleyber Torres, Jack Flaherty, Kenley Jansen, Drew Anderson, Justin Verlander and Zach McKinstry on the list. That’s eight Detroit players in all, a group that looked like veteran support when the season began and now reads like a deadline inventory.
A Skubal move would obviously slam the door on whatever faint contention hopes Detroit still has. But with the left-hander headed toward free agency, the logic is easy to see: if the Tigers deal him now, they could land a massive prospect return.
Mize is another name to watch. He may not carry Skubal’s profile, but he was an All-Star last season and has put together a 2.64 ERA over 71 2/3 innings this year.
His season has included two trips to the injured list, including nearly a month lost between May and June because of a strained groin. Even so, he came back in the middle of last month and has allowed just a 1.32 ERA across his last two starts, covering 13 2/3 innings.
He’s also an impending free agent and is making just $6.15 million, which makes him a more affordable trade piece than Skubal.
Flaherty is in the same contract bucket as an impending free agent, though his value is different. He’s in the middle of his second straight underwhelming season, so he likely wouldn’t bring back a huge return. Still, moving him would clear a roster spot and give Detroit a chance to see what it has in a younger player.
For Guardians fans, the bigger takeaway is what this could mean if Detroit really does start pulling pieces off the board. Last year, Cleveland handled the Tigers in the regular season before falling to them in the Wild Card Series, with Skubal’s Game 1 performance playing a major role. If this is the end of his run in a Tigers uniform, that could have been his last defining moment against the Guardians as a member of Detroit.
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