Tigers "need" to trade All-Star starting pitcher according to insider, ex-GM

One of the toughest decisions to make in Major League Baseball is when to pull the plug at the trade deadline. And in 2024, the Detroit Tigers are teetering right on the edge.

After a series win in Toronto this weekend, the Tigers are 49-51, one of baseball's hottest teams in July but six games out of playoff position. Though Detroit had high expectations of competing for an American League Central crown this season, their playoff odds sit below 10%.

The biggest issue in Detroit isn't the lack of wins on the board. Their core has largely failed to develop. With former top draft picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson struggling to establish themselves as MLB talents, Detroit still looks years away from contending for pennants.

So if the Tigers are going to sell, they have two options. They can move some of their rentals and run back most of the same roster next season. Or they can get a real influx of young talent by trading away marquee starting pitcher Tarik Skubal, one of the best arms in MLB this year.

Jim Bowden, a former MLB general manager and insider for The Athletic, wrote about the necessity for rebuilding teams to trade their star pitchers. In that piece, he urged the Tigers to trade Skubal, who has two years of team control remaining beyond 2024.

"I don’t think they have enough talent on their major-league club or en route from their farm system to hold on to Skubal, who has a 2.41 ERA and 140 strikeouts in 116 innings and is arguably the front-runner for this year’s AL Cy Young Award," Bowden said.

Skubal, 27, has been the breakout ace of the MLB season so far. Historically, teams have rarely moved on from star pitchers so early in their careers. But Bowden believes changes to the structure of the league have caused such a move to become a necessity.

"The old way of rebuilding franchises into world champions went away with the creation of the draft lottery under the last collective bargaining agreement," Bowden said.

Under the previous system, teams could tank for a few seasons, land a string of top draft picks and jumpstart the franchise. It's how the Baltimore Orioles went from perennial losers to World Series contenders, with a prospect pipeline that still dwarfs that of every other team.

But now that the draft lottery is in place, teams can no longer guarantee themselves a top pick by bottoming out. The Cleveland Guardians, who had the best record in the American League at the All-Star break, got the number one pick this draft despite the ninth-best odds a season ago.

So Bowden may be dead-set on the Tigers trading Skubal, but will Detroit actually pull the trigger? We're just eight days from learning the answer.

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