The hottest topic leading up to the trade deadline surrounds two-time AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, and whether the Tigers will ultimately move him.
Six weeks ago, that looked like a foregone conclusion, with Detroit sporting the worst record in the majors. Now? Not so much. The Tigers have played their way back into the playoff picture in a weak American League, sitting 6.5 games back in the Central and 5.0 games back in the Wild Card. But is that enough for them to hold on to what would be the crowned jewel of this year’s trade deadline?
“The Detroit Tigers probably cannot trade Tarik Skubal without dramatically compromising their chances of winning the World Series,” Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon write in their latest collaborative piece for The Athletic. “But the Tigers are at least mulling the possibility of securing a package for Skubal that potentially would keep them strong in the present while making them stronger for the future.”
The Tigers know they aren’t going to re-sign Skubal, but they knew that in the offseason too and didn’t move him, hoping to improve on last season’s postseason run. The real question they have to weigh isn’t just whether they have enough to dig out of this hole and make it to October, but whether they can actually make a run at the American League crown. With Skubal in the fold and no real dominant power on that side of the bracket, a strong case could be made that they can.
That thinking could change fast, though, if they slide any further over the next ten days. Trailing by 7-8 games is a much different conversation than 3-4 — they’re one of the few teams whose deadline decision-making rests almost entirely on how they perform heading into August.
MLB insiders have linked the Braves to Skubal for months now, with Bob Nightengale even naming Atlanta the favorite to land him if he’s traded. Now, Rosenthal and Sammon have laid out a hypothetical framework for the deal, reporting the Tigers will be seeking young, controllable starting pitching in return — specifically naming JR Ritchie and AJ Smith-Shawver from the Braves.
Because Skubal is a rental, the prospect cost won’t be nearly as steep as some might imagine. The idea that JR Ritchie could headline a deal that brings in a two-time Cy Young winner is almost incomprehensible — yet that’s exactly what’s now been reported by a bevy of respected insiders.
Parting with AJ Smith-Shawver might sting a little more. He’s just now returning from Tommy John surgery and is touching 100 MPH on the radar gun as he inches toward rejoining Atlanta. There’s a ton of upside if he puts it all together, and I imagine the Tigers would be very interested.
But to land a game-changing arm, the Braves are going to have to give up something. The good news is they have a logjam of high-quality young arms, many of whom have already reached the major-league level. If young starting pitching is what the Tigers are after, the Braves line up very nicely as a trade partner.
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