{"id":43912,"date":"2025-08-04T05:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T05:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/43912\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T05:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T05:47:15","slug":"scott-harris-discusses-tigers-deadline-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/43912\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Harris Discusses Tigers’ Deadline Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

The AL Central-leading Tigers were one of the league\u2019s busier teams at the trade deadline, even if the team\u2019s moves were more about adding depth and raising the talent floor than raising the roster\u2019s ceiling in pursuit of a World Series.\u00a0 The big focus was on pitching, as Charlie Morton<\/a> and Chris Paddack<\/a> joined the rotation, and Kyle Finnegan<\/a>, Rafael Montero<\/a>, and (when he is healthy) Paul Sewald<\/a> will contribute to the bullpen mix.<\/p>\n

Focusing on relief pitching perhaps led to Detroit\u2019s strategy, as president of baseball operations Scott Harris told reporters (including the Detroit Free Press\u2019 Evan Petzold<\/a> and the Detroit News\u2019 Chris McCosky<\/a>) earlier this week.\u00a0 \u201cSome of the prices around the game were really high for short-term rental relievers,\u201d Harris observed.\u00a0 \u201cWe felt like it was a better approach for us to attack it in volume with some guys that we like, some guys that are doing some things under the hood that we really value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Detroit\u2019s highly-ranked farm system remained pretty much intact in the wake of the deadline, as the Tigers didn\u2019t move any of their best prospects.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t really any sense that Detroit was even considering any of its top minor leaguers, and as Petzold notes, there weren\u2019t many trades involving top-100 type prospects at this deadline.\u00a0 By that same token, however, Petzold also notes the several prominent deals that didn\u2019t involve elite prospect talent, and wondered if the Tigers could\u2019ve just been a little aggressive in outbidding rival teams for the likes of Merrill Kelly<\/a>, David Bednar<\/a>, or Ryan Helsley<\/a>.\u00a0 (Kelly and Bednar were known to be Detroit trade targets leading up to the deadline.)<\/p>\n

This being said, we don\u2019t know what kind of returns clubs were demanding from the Tigers, and Harris indicated that teams wanted a lot.\u00a0 \u201cWhen it came to the actual prices, a lot of the moves that we passed on felt like moves that were going to haunt us for many years to come,\u201d Harris said.\u00a0 \u201cWe have what we think is one of the best, if not the best, farm system in all of baseball.\u00a0 We felt like, at this moment in time, giving up on young players to chase short-term fixes is not in the best interest of the Tigers, both in the short- and long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

The long view is key to Harris\u2019 thought process, as the PBO doesn\u2019t view 2025 as an all-in sort of season.\u00a0 Between the Tigers\u2019 return to the playoffs in 2024 and now their big division lead this season, Harris sees this as the first of many opportunities for the club over a sustained period of time, rather than a window that may align with Tarik Skubal<\/a>\u2019s remaining two-plus years under arbitration control.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be good every year.\u00a0 Really, really good every year,\u201d Harris said.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think we thought about this deadline as different from future years.\u00a0 I always want to sit in front of you and say we\u2019ve got a real good baseball team and we\u2019ve got a lot of chances to get better.\u00a0 I think I can credibly say, we have a really good baseball team by our competitive standing right now.\u00a0 I think I can also credibly say we got better [at the deadline].\u00a0 And I can credibly say that we have some players coming in our farm system, both for this year and for future years, that are going to help us get even better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time will tell if Harris has made the right call or not, and it should be noted that baseball history is full of under-the-radar deadline additions that ended up making a huge impact on a championship team.\u00a0 That said, there are also plenty of example of contenders who didn\u2019t strike while the iron was hot, and injuries and under-performance then scuttled what seemed to be very promising rosters.\u00a0 Detroit fans waiting for the team\u2019s first World Series title since 1984 may not share Harris\u2019 big-picture view, but the executive is fine with being patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to make the best decisions for this organization,\u201d Harris said.\u00a0 \u201cI understand everybody wants to go grab the flashiest name and not give up any good players.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not an option.\u00a0 We can\u2019t do that.\u00a0 If we\u2019re going to grab those players, we\u2019re going to give up some really talented players and I didn\u2019t think that was in the best interest of our organization.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The AL Central-leading Tigers were one of the league\u2019s busier teams at the trade deadline, even if the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-43912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}