Tigers Wise To Take The Pitch At Trade Deadline

By Will Burchfield
Twitter: burchie_kid
The trade deadline came and went yesterday and the Tigers stood pat. This is not to say they struck out.

Sometimes the best move is the one you don't make.

That's an old cliché – hey, it's a marathon, not a sprint – but it rang true yesterday for the Tigers. The team is surging, there are reinforcements on the way and the market was soaring out of control. There was no need for GM Al Avila to overpay for assets the organization possesses within.

Do the Tigers need another starting pitcher? Absolutely, but Jordan Zimmermann and Daniel Norris are both on the verge of returning, Norris as soon as Thursday. And while there is an element of unpredictability in their performance, so there is for just about any starter that was moved in the past couple weeks, from Drew Pomeranz to Rich Hill to Hector Santiago.

Do they need another reliable late-inning reliever? Of course, but it just so happens that the Tigers have one of the most dominant minor-league closers waiting in the wings in Joe Jimenez, the flame-throwing righty who looks poised for a September call-up. And though he is unproven at the Major League level, he lacks nothing compared to such sought-after relievers as Mark Melancon, Jeremy Jeffress and Joe Smith.

Joe who?  

Exactly.

The trade deadline has an intoxicating effect on general managers around the league, making mediocre players look like potential saviors. Rich Hill entered the 2016 season as a little-known 36-year-old southpaw with a career 4.53 ERA. One would have thought he was 2002-Randy Johnson the way teams were lusting after him based on four months of solid work.

Tigers' GM Al Avila was able to maintain perspective amid all the chaos, refusing to give into the market's stratospheric demands. He would have had to part ways with at least one of Matt Boyd, Norris or Jimenez to reel in a back-of-the-rotation starter or a middle reliever, which represents the collective floor of that trio's potential. A trade of Boyd (and others) for, say, Santiago, would have done little to improve the Tigers in the present while setting them back in the future. Where's the gain?

There were those who suggested Avila should have made a run at Jeremy Hellickson to fortify the rotation, as if a pitcher with a 4.56 ERA in the past four seasons is such an upgrade over Boyd, Norris or even Mike Pelfrey. Hellickson would have made somewhere between 10 to 12 starts for the Tigers down the stretch, provided marginal utility at best and then signed elsewhere in free agency. And the Tigers would have lost a promising young arm for his services.

Avila didn't value the future at the expense of the present. He didn't eschew significant short-term improvement in the name of long-term sustainability. There simply wasn't a move for him to make that would have made today's Tigers significantly better than yesterday's. And for those that harp on the all-important notion of experience, of veteran know-how, let's not forget that Hellickson, Hill and Santiago have a combined three postseason starts between them. They aren't exactly proven big-game pitchers.

Given the price tags attached to starters and relievers leading up to the deadline, Avila didn't come up empty by not making a trade. He left the bat on his shoulder because the offers weren't inviting, refusing to swing for the sake of swinging. Wait for your pitch, hitters are told. Take first base if it's offered. Presented with spitballs in the dirt, that's exactly what Avila did.

These Tigers were built to win in the offseason. And though they have holes that need patching, those holes can be patched from within. That was the knowledge informing Avila's deadline approach all along, and he was wise to keep it in mind. The Tigers are getting healthy and coming into their own, all at the right time, and boast a roster that's plenty capable of making a late-season run.

So, good for Avila for staying within himself, as the saying goes. He didn't need to go chasing to make his team better and he certainly didn't strikeout by sticking to that credo.