The Detroit Tigers have heard plenty of noise about Tarik Skubal and the trade deadline, but the case for moving him gets awfully shaky when you pull up the franchise’s own history.
A recent look by The Athletic at past deadline returns used David Price as the comparison for Skubal, and that alone should make Tigers fans pause. If the idea is that a haul of prospects is supposed to justify shipping out an ace, Detroit has already lived through a version of that experiment.
In 2015, the Blue Jays sent Daniel Norris, Matthew Boyd and Jairo Labourt to the Tigers for Price, and the return never came close to changing the club’s direction. As Tim Britton noted, “Norris was the big get as a top-25 prospect in the sport,” Britton wrote. “Boyd had just made his debut as a potential back-end starter, and Labourt had made the Futures Game despite pedestrian on-field results.”
Labourt’s Tigers run amounted to six forgettable games. Norris posted a 4.52 ERA and 6.5 WAR over eight seasons in Detroit. Boyd had a stretch where he looked like a league-average starter, but he finished his Tigers career with a 4.61 ERA.
That’s the problem with these deals. The player coming back in the majors is usually the one who matters most.
Prospects come wrapped in hope, but most of the time the package is more ordinary than advertised. The dream is landing the next Kevin McGonigle.
The more common outcome is something closer to Daz Cameron and Franklin Perez.
Detroit got Cameron, Perez and Jake Rogers in the Justin Verlander deal. Cameron finished with -0.8 WAR in a Tigers uniform, Perez never reached the majors, and while Rogers is a useful player, it hardly turns the trade into a clear win for Detroit.
The same fog hangs over other deadline hauls. Who remembers what the Tigers got for Ian Kinsler, J.D.
Martinez or Justin Upton? Not much of anyone, and that says plenty.
More recently, Scott Harris dealt Jack Flaherty for Trey Sweeney, who has -0.1 WAR, and Thayron Liranzo, who has not gotten past Double-A. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the idea that a Skubal trade would suddenly solve everything.
None of this means every deal of a star for prospects fails. Some work out.
Plenty do not. That’s why the argument that Detroit would be making some franchise-wrecking mistake by keeping Skubal feels overstated.
He would be a two-month rental, and the return on that kind of move is not some guaranteed franchise reset. If he leaves after the season, the Tigers can still get a draft pick.
So yes, the Price trade is a reminder that prospect packages can disappoint. But it does not prove the Tigers are cursed to repeat the same mistake, and it certainly does not prove that trading Skubal for a top-100 prospect is the safer path.
For nearly two months, since June 1, the Tigers have been tied for the best record in the American League and own the best run differential in baseball. Betting on that group and keeping Skubal looks like the cleaner, more believable play.
They might miss out on a flashy return. Odds are, they probably won’t miss much else.
In Other News…
Tigers Escaped A First Inning Mess With A Play Nobody Saw Coming
The first inning for Troy Melton could have turned into an early headache for the Tigers, but it ended with one of those odd little plays that reminds you baseball still has ways to surprise everyone in the park. A swinging third strike got away from catcher Dillon Dingler, who briefly lost track of the ball and didnt realize the batter had swung, and the whole sequence started to wobble from there.
Melton bailed it out himself, sprinting home and stepping on the plate before the runner could score to finish the inning with a rare strikeout and putout at the plate. It is the kind of play that barely shows up on a seasons worth of highlight reels, and for Detroit it turned a messy moment into an out that kept the game from slipping any further in the opening frame.
Former Tigers Fan Favorite Jose Iglesias Is Stepping Into A Stunning New Spotlight
Jose Iglesias is about to add a very different line to a career that already crossed plenty of lanes. The former Tigers shortstop, who spent five seasons in Detroit during his 13-year MLB run, is set for his Broadway debut in the musical “Buena Vista Social Club,” stepping into the role of The Narrator in a production built around the legendary Afro-Cuban band and already decorated with multiple Tony Awards and a Grammy.
For Tigers fans who remember Iglesias as a slick defender and a popular clubhouse presence, the move fits a broader second act that has included music under the name Candelita. It also comes with a little extra intrigue, since he has not officially announced his retirement from baseball, leaving his latest spotlight to land in a place few would have expected when he was turning double plays at Comerica Park.
Tarik Skubal Trade Buzz Just Took A More Dangerous Turn
With the MLB trade deadline approaching, Tarik Skubal has become one of the bigger names to watch, and the Rays have surfaced as a possible suitor. Tampa Bay sits near the top of the American League standings, which makes the fit easy to see from its side: a front-line left-hander would only deepen a rotation that has already kept the club in the race. For a Tigers team that has every reason to value Skubal highly, the interest adds another layer to an already tricky deadline market.
The buzz gets more complicated because some analysts view the Dodgers as the cleaner match for Skubal, given their resources and ability to push harder in a bidding war. Still, the Rays have a way of lingering in these conversations when a premium arm is available, and their willingness to chase impact talent could keep Detroit listening. Whether Tampa Bay is simply in the mix or ready to make a real run is the part worth watching next.
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