By: Trevor Hooth
All signs for the Detroit Tigers are foreshadowing one outcome when the trade deadline rolls around: sell, sell, sell. They have lost 14 of their last 19 games, and their playoff hopes are slipping by the inning.
The team is six games out of first place in a weak AL Central. The division-leading Cleveland Indians currently have a worse record than the Wild Card leader New York Yankees. It is not a hopeful sight to see the Tigers in the bottom half of a division like that.
One thing that cannot be denied is that the team needs to step up in every facet of the game. In his most recent outing, Daniel Norris did not even make it out of the fourth inning. It took Justin Verlander five batters to record an out the night before that.
With the bats not performing much better, there will be some Tigers wearing different uniforms in the near future. The biggest name for trade is right fielder J.D. Martinez.
He is the perfect trade candidate. Martinez will be a free agent at the of the season, and the Tigers likely will not have the available money to sign him again. The team will be able to get value for him, as opposed to losing him to free agency at the end of the year. And they would lose him.
Closer Justin Wilson is another name that has come up in trade rumors. As solid as he has been this season, he is expendable to this current Tigers team. If there are no playoff hopes, the closer role is really an added bonus. In the case of the Tigers, they can give some late-inning experience to other arms in their bullpen, which could possibly pay off down the road.
Of course, that could leave a hole in the closer spot when 2018 rolls around. Don’t forget about Joe Jimenez, though. He is still one of the Tigers’ top prospects, but spent most of last month on the DL with a lower back injury. He should be ready to step into closer role next year.
Finally, another player on the move could be catcher Alex Avila. The son of GM Al Avila has turned some heads around the league this season. Avila leads the team in batting average and on base percentage. He has 11 home runs this season, and 31 walks (3 behind Miguel Cabrera for the team-lead in 79 fewer at-bats) If Avila is dealt, John Hicks and James McCann can split time behind the plate.
There are certainly other guys that could be dealt, but these three have some significant value to other teams. The objective of getting rid of them is simple: acquire future talent. Detroit Tigers management cannot get trigger happy with their players, though. they need to take the right offers with the right prospects. And if they can’t find a deal, it shouldn’t be for a lack of trying.
Trevor Hooth is from Farmington, Connecticut. He is a senior Communication major at Millikin University where also plays baseball.