{"id":803840,"date":"2026-08-05T19:56:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/803840\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T19:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:56:22","slug":"inside-a-detroit-tigers-clubhouse-that-still-believes-even-after-trading-away-tarik-skubal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/803840\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside a Detroit Tigers clubhouse that still believes, even after trading away Tarik Skubal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seattle\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n Scott Harris, the president of baseball<\/a> operations for the Detroit Tigers, has at least one thing in common with Riley Greene, the team\u2019s 25-year-old former first round draft pick and three-time All-Star outfielder.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI hate selling with every fiber of my body,\u201d Harris told reporters a little more than an hour after the trade deadline<\/a> on Monday night. \u201cI absolutely hate it. I don\u2019t want to be in a position where we\u2019re selling in July.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n And yet, the Tigers sold in July, dealing their best two starters, including Tarik Skubal<\/a> \u2013 two-time reigning Cy Young Award<\/a> winner and the best pitcher in the American League dating back to the beginning of 2024 by any number of metrics (ERA, FIP, fWAR). Skubal was the prize of the deadline, a top-of-the-rotation talent deemed a difference maker by none other than the behemoth Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n This was very likely always going to be his last season in Detroit. In 2024 and 2025, Skubal had led the club to its first two postseason berths in nearly a decade. The hope was to get one more go at it before he departed in free agency.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t go into this season intending to trade Tarik Skubal,\u201d Harris said. \u201cIf anything, it was the opposite. We had opportunities to trade him this winter, and we chose not to because we\u2019re trying to win the World Series here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, they\u2019ll never know what could have been. Even though Harris hated it, he traded Skubal and Casey Mize, the former first overall draft pick.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI mean, I wish we didn\u2019t trade anyone,\u201d Greene said before an 8-0 win over the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Although that is where their similarities on this issue end.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut I\u2019m here to play baseball,\u201d Greene continued, \u201cand that\u2019s not my decision.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Detroit<\/p>\n

\n The Tigers were favorites to win the American League Central at the outset of the season. The AL is, broadly speaking, weaker than expected. Most teams are mediocre.\n <\/p>\n

\n The problem is, the Tigers are one of those teams. When the clock struck 6 p.m. ET on August 3 \u2013 the deadline for deals \u2013 their record sat at a disappointing 54-58. Four games below .500, fourth in the division.\n <\/p>\n

\n What went wrong matters. The organization will need to take an autopsy of the early part of the year, especially a 6-22 May, if it hasn\u2019t already.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI can look back, and I will look back, a lot into how we got to this point,\u201d manager AJ Hinch said on Tuesday before their first post-deadline game. First, though, he had to look forward at the game in front of him, a game they might as well try to win.\n <\/p>\n

\n With 50 games to go after the deadline, the Tigers insist that trading one of the best pitchers on the planet plus another key part of their top-notch rotation does not constitute waving the white flag.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFirm no,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThe season is not over.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI see what we have in front of us \u2013 five-and-a-half [games] back in the AL Central and two-and-a-half [games] back in the wild card,\u201d said closer Kenley Jansen, who was expected to be dealt as well if the team went into full teardown mode. \u201cJust make a push. Why not? It\u2019s not over \u2018til it\u2019s over.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey were the reason why our clubhouse was our clubhouse, and our team chemistry was our team chemistry,\u201d Greene said of the departed players. \u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s going to be a little different, but we still have a job to take care of. We\u2019re two games out of the playoffs. We\u2019re right in this thing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe obviously know that the personnel changes,\u201d Hinch said. \u201cBut the objective doesn\u2019t change, the goal doesn\u2019t change, the standards and expectations don\u2019t change.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Recent history has provided them with a useful example (or is it an excuse?) for hanging their hopes on. Two years ago<\/a>, Detroit dealt starting pitcher Jack Flaherty at the deadline amid a spiral that saw them bottom out at 10 games back of a playoff spot with 0.2% odds of making the postseason, according to FanGraphs in mid-August. Then, they surged to a 31-13 run down the stretch to sneak in the postseason. That was the first of Skubal\u2019s Cy Young seasons.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis team is talented enough to flip the script just like the 2024 team did,\u201d Harris said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Tarik<\/p>\n

\n On Friday, before they traded Skubal, the Tigers\u2019 playoff odds were 26.6%. By Monday\u2019s deadline, they were down to 18.3%.\n <\/p>\n

\n That left Harris with a tough truth to swallow: \u201cDid I make it a little bit harder this week? Yeah, I did.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n They cite injury returns and internal options as exciting reinforcements. One of the prospect pitchers netted in the return, River Ryan, might make it to the big leagues down the stretch. They boast the probable AL Rookie of the Year in Kevin McGonigle as part of a lineup that has gotten red hot recently. And, as Jansen put it, \u201cAt the end of the day, let\u2019s think about it, who plays every day? It\u2019s the position players and the bullpen who is pitching every day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n None of that, though, is as compelling a reason for competitive verve and undaunted confidence as the explanation that it simply beats the alternative.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere\u2019s no other way to approach the game than with optimism that our best baseball is good enough,\u201d Hinch said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Maybe the Tigers will play like they have something to prove down the stretch. Maybe they\u2019ll play with a chip on their shoulder. Or maybe they were always better than their first-half record and now they\u2019re not as good as they were with Skubal and Mize but better than they looked at their worst. Maybe that\u2019s good enough to get in \u2013 although, if they do, they might miss their ace even more come October.\n <\/p>\n

\"Yilber<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard,\u201d Hinch said unequivocally of the personal toll of a job where you can coach someone for six seasons \u2013 mentor them but also rely on them, celebrate as a team but also take pride in their individual successes \u2013 only to wake up one day in the middle of the gauntlet grind of the MLB season to find they\u2019re no longer next to you and, when you do cross paths again, it will be as adversaries.\n <\/p>\n

\n But then he said the part that supersedes all of that. The most honest assessment of a situation that lends itself to unintentional ambivalence and useful platitudes: \u201cWe\u2019re conditioned to deal with it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n On Tuesday, Skubal made his first start for the Dodgers. He pitched pretty well \u2013 six innings of two-run ball with six strikeouts \u2013 but LA lost anyway. His old Tigers team, facing a Mariners club that they\u2019ll need to leapfrog in the standings to snag a wild card berth, enjoyed an emphatic victory. Despite selling, they\u2019re now just one-and-a-half games back in the wild card race.\n <\/p>\n

\n One win down, 49 games to go.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seattle\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Scott Harris, the president of baseball operations for the Detroit Tigers, has at least one thing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-803840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}