Chris Paddock acquired before deadline.
The Athletic, the sports section for the New York Times, sorts out winners and losers in the MLB trade July 31 deadline, and puts the Detroit Tigers squarely in the losing column by not putting out the money it should have to attract top talent for the second half of the season.
The Tigers certainly were active. They rebuilt half their pitching staff this week. But Charlie Morton, Chris Paddack, Kyle Finnegan, Paul Sewald, Randy Dobnak, Rafael Montero and Codi Heuer is not a winning deadline. It’s depth. Where are the bats? Where are the stud late-inning relievers? The issue is not that the Tigers lost the individual trades. It’s that they were so unwilling to overpay on elite relievers that they didn’t come close to landing any of them. Instead, they incrementally improved and didn’t raid their prospect stash. Feels great until it’s the ninth inning of a playoff game and you could have had Ryan Helsley or David Bednar trotting in from the bullpen. -- SN
