Scott Harris arrived in Detroit on September 19, 2022, with the Tigers hoping for a reset after years of stagnation, injury setbacks and the financial baggage left behind by the Dave Dombrowski era. What followed has been a tenure defined by hard calls, limited flexibility and a constant effort to drag the organization into something more modern.
The results have been better than many expected, at least on the surface. Harris’ record as president of baseball operations sits at 327-321, a mark that compares favorably with the people who came before him. But the bigger story has been how often he’s had to fight his way around obstacles that made it difficult to fully execute the baseball ideas he has talked about since day one: “controlling the strike zone” and “playing a complete game.”
One of the biggest hurdles has been money. Chris Ilitch has been cautious about risky contracts after the Tigers’ financial mess following the 2017 season, when the club couldn’t even win 70 games.
That wariness only sharpened after Al Avila handed Javier Báez a six-year, $140 million deal, one of the worst contracts in modern baseball. So Harris spent much of his first couple of years having to work for permission to spend in free agency at all.
The club took a shot at Alex Bregman before 2025 and came up short in the eleventh hour, then went on what the source describes as a random spending spree in the offseason before 2026. Even with that “advanced aggression,” many fans still came away feeling those winters fell short of what the roster actually needed.
Harris also inherited a roster and system that needed more than a tune-up. Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene were supposed to be the face of the future, but neither was showing signs of being that when Harris took over.
The task was bigger than polishing the major league club; he had to tear down a dysfunctional, outdated structure and rebuild the majors and minors into something that looked like a real big league operation. That meant major staff turnover, along with dealing with behavioral concerns from the few holdovers who remained.
And then there was Tarik Skubal, who became one of the defining figures of the era. He wasn’t yet the best pitcher on the planet when Harris arrived, but that’s where things eventually went.
After rehabbing from back surgery that delayed his 2023 debut until July, Skubal produced a three-year run - one that the source says hasn’t truly ended - as the best starting pitcher in baseball. Because Avila had rushed both Skubal and Casey Mize to the majors in 2020, the two already had significant service time but very limited success.
That history also fueled years of trade talk around Skubal, with discussions ramping up under Harris and not stopping until the August 2026 deal that brought back Zyhir Hope and River Ryan. All of it increased the pressure to either pay him or extend him, even though the sort of contract Skubal and Scott Boras were pushing for was not viewed as a smart bet.
Another major part of Harris’ approach has been building depth throughout the system, especially on offense. In his early years, he concentrated on reconstructing that side of the organization, and the payoff is starting to show through an attractive rookie class featuring Kevin McGonigle, Max Clark, Hao-Yu Lee, Eduardo Valencia and Ben Malgeri.
That progress took time because the previous regime had failed to stock the farm beyond a few top names during its six-year rebuild. Even though collecting prospects was supposed to be Al Avila’s main job, he left Detroit with the 25th-ranked organization in MLB.
Pitching depth has lagged behind the offense, though it is beginning to rebound in the lower minors.
Taken together, it has been a difficult run. Harris has had to navigate payroll limits, a thin system and the ripple effects of years of poor planning, all while trying to keep the Tigers competitive.
That context matters, especially since Detroit made the playoffs in each of Years 2 and 3 of his tenure after a decade-long drought. And while it’s easy to assume the current prospects will turn out like the last wave of misses, the source makes clear that the situations are more complicated than they appear.
Four years in, it hasn’t been easy, but it has been the most exciting stretch of Tigers baseball since the early 2010s.
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The Arizona Fall League was supposed to be a valuable next step for Zyhir Hope and Bryce Rainer, two of the Tigers top prospects getting extra at-bats against advanced competition. Instead, it has turned into a reminder that even the most promising young hitters can run into a rough patch when the pitching gets sharper and the margin for error shrinks.
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Comerica Park Could Be A Bigger October Edge Than Tigers Fans Realize
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For a franchise still trying to turn promise into sustained contention, that kind of edge is worth remembering. The Tigers have had memorable playoff moments at home over the years, and if they get back to October soon, Comerica Park figures to be one of the clearest advantages they can carry into a series. The bigger question is whether they can put themselves in position to use it again. [Read more 🡒]