Detroit keeps long-term focus with Deadline decisions

This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The Tigers’ dealings leading up to last Thursday’s Trade Deadline brought Detroit five pitchers on expiring contracts. But if there was an overarching theme to president of baseball operations Scott Harris’ dealings, it was that the front office sees a longer window for contention than this year or next.

It's not so much about who the Tigers traded for, and more about who they didn’t give up.

“When it came to the actual prices, I will say that a lot of the moves we passed on felt like moves that were going to haunt us for many years to come,” Harris said. “We have what we think is one of the best, if not the best farm system in all of baseball, and that means we’ve got really good players coming.

"We’ve got really good players that are going to be fan favorites, that are going to be playing at Comerica Park for many years and helping us win a lot of games, and some of those guys are going to get there this year. And we felt like at this moment in time in this organization, giving up on young players to chase short-term fixes for this organization is not in the best interest of the Tigers, both in the short and long term.”

That comment immediately turns attention to the Tigers' much-celebrated trio of top prospects at Double-A Erie: Infielder Kevin McGonigle, outfielder Max Clark and slugging catcher/first baseman Josue Briceño, three of the top 51 prospects on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list. Add in injured shortstop Bryce Rainer and Double-A catcher Thayron Liranzo, and Detroit has five Top 100 prospects. None of them were expected to be available leading up to the Deadline.

That was expected to rule out Detroit from the mix of controllable relievers like Mason Miller and Jhoan Duran, though the A’s had been scouting Erie all the way up to the eve of the Deadline. However, the Pirates’ reported interest in Briceño might also have taken the Tigers out of the market for Pittsburgh closer David Bednar as well, though Bednar is under team control through next season.

The Tigers’ Deadline deals cost them no prospect ranked better than 14th on MLB Pipeline’s list. That not only kept the top group together, but also the next tier of prospects such as infielders Hao-Yu Lee and Max Anderson, pitchers Troy Melton and Jaden Hamm, and teenage outfielder Cris Rodriguez.

Some players who were highly-sought veterans at this year’s Deadline, Harris said, were prospects thrown into deals in previous years, and not necessarily top prospects.

“Just off the top of my head, you don’t get seven shutout innings by Troy Melton in the big leagues if you [throw] him into a deal last Deadline,” Harris said. “You don’t get, like, Dillon Dingler’s performance on both sides of the ball behind the plate if you short his future after a really tough second half last year, and you throw him into a deal at the Winter Meetings. You don’t get Wenceel Pérez’s impact if he’s a throw-in on a deal when he’s younger in the Minor Leagues.

“If you move some players that you really believe in, sometimes it makes you worse.”

Asked about the potential window of this team, particularly with Tarik Skubal nearing his contract year next season, Harris said, “I think this idea of a window is an illusion. I think there’s a lot of talent in this organization. There are a lot of players that are in it for the right reasons, who are playing for each other, and they’re playing for the city of Detroit, and they’ve done some special things. …

“There’s a lot of really talented players, both in the big leagues right now and that are coming through this really talented system. So I’m not looking at this as a window. It doesn’t mean that I’m shorting the present for the future by any means, but this whole idea of a window is not really filtering into my head, because it’s my job to get to the postseason every single year.”