The cloud that is a potential Tarik Skubal trade hangs so heavily over the Tigers and their fans right now that it’s hard to really pay attention to anything else. At the end of the day, this is still a pretty good baseball team that’s made the playoffs each of the last two years, and Tarik being shipped before the season would be a really devastating blow to this fan base. I still get the impression that the team wants to improve. I guess that isn’t really saying much. Every team should want to get better, especially one that’s been to the playoffs each of the last two seasons. But after weeks of quiet, we finally have a legit move from Detroit.
Last year‘s trade deadline was pretty much a disaster for the Tigers outside of one move, and that move was acquiring Kyle Finnegan from the Washington Nationals. He came over to Detroit and, despite suffering a groin injury late in the season, was a godsend for this bullpen, which was really messy for the majority of last season. Do I think that Finnegan is going to put up the dazzling sub-2 ERA that he put up in a limited sample size with the Tigers a year ago? No, I don’t, but I think that this organization has done a tremendous job of making sure that they play to their pitchers' strengths. Finnegan is a hard-throwing right-hander, and most organizations would do everything possible to make sure that he’s airing out his fastball. Still, the Tigers took a different approach after they acquired him. The usage of his splitter increased greatly, and he got a lot more swings and misses with it.
This move is fine, and I don’t want to judge every move that the Tigers make with a certain level of skepticism because they might trade their best pitcher at some point. You have to take each move on its own, and I think that this one makes a lot of sense for Finnegan, and it makes a lot of sense for the Tigers. But even looking at it through a relatively positive lens, I still can’t get a really good sense of what the plan is for this offseason. If they’re going to load up on pitching, then go ahead and load up on pitching. Still, if you’re going to load up on pitching, you’re not gonna trade Tarik Tarik, and if you’re not gonna trade Tarik Skubal, I feel like you should probably add offense. It doesn’t seem like they have much interest in doing that because they don’t want to block guys. On its own, I think that this is a solid move, but the team still needs to pick a lane.