Coming into the 2025 season, one of the top questions on the American League side was whether the Detroit Tigers could follow up on their feel-good playoff run from last year. As late as August 22, the Motor City underdogs, who had not finished above .500 since 2016 and as recently as 2019 slogged through a 47-win season, the seventh-worst in MLB history, appeared dead in the water.
On that date, the Tigers sat four games under .500 and 8 1/2 games behind the Kansas City Royals from the AL’s third and final Wild Card spot. And then â everything changed.
The Tigers won 24 of their final 34 games to blast their way into the playoffs, and made it to the AL Division Series round before falling in the full five games to the Cleveland Guardians.
Giant Killer Detroit is Now the MLB Giant
Would the fairy tale story continue into 2025? Not only has it continued, but if the 2024 Tigers were Jack the Giant Killer, this year, they are the giant. And so far, no one has come close to knocking them down.
With a win over the Tampa Bay Rays Wednesday night, Detroit would become the first team in either league to reach 60 wins. The Bengals have won five in a row heading into the July 9 schedule, and eight of their last 10. They appear to have already wrapped up the AL Central Division with a gaping 14-game lead over the second-place Royals.
The division leader with the second-largest margin is the Houston Astros who top the AL West by 6 1/2 games over the Seattle Mariners.
But should the Tigers go all-out at the trade deadline to make themselves even better?
An argument could be made that they owe it to their fan base to “go for it.” With losing seasons in all but one year from 2015 to to 2023, the Tigers have not appeared in the World Series since 2006 â and have not won a World Series since 1984. And before that, 1968.
Trade to Make MLB-Best Tigers Even Better
Just a month ago, Detroit lost its top young pitcher, Jackson Jobe, to Tommy John surgery which will keep him out for this season and a significant portion of 2026 at least.
But one baseball insider, veteran MLB writer David Schoenfield of ESPN.com, on Tuesday proposed that the Tigers attempt a swing-for-the-fences trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates to obtain the game’s best young pitcher â and possibly best pitcher overall with the exception of the Tigers’ own reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal.
Of course, that pitcher is Paul Skenes â last year’s NL Rookie of the Year and All-Star Game starter (and an All-Star again in 2025). And though the Pirates have publicly stated that they are not looking to trade Skenes, whom they made MLB’s overall No. 1 draft pick in 2023, Schoenfield believes that Detroit is the one organization that could present Pittsburgh with a trade package that “could get it done.”
The Tigers, per Schoenfield, would send their current top two prospects, per MLB Pipeline, shortstop Kevin McGonigle (No. 1) and outfielder Max Clark (No. 2) for Skenes.
McGonicle is MLB Pipeline‘s No. 9 prospect in all of baseball and Clark is ranked No. 12.
Detroit Can Afford to Give Up Prospect Haul
But that’s not all. The prospective package would also include the Tigers’ No. 2 and No. 3 prospects from 2024, both of whom are in the big leagues this year. Those players are, respectively, infielder/DH Colt Keith â currently putting up an .801 OPS with eight home runs at the Major League level â and Jobe who obviously would not be available until next season sometime.
Financially, Skenes remains affordable. He has earned $12.8 million in his brief, 42-start (so far) career, mostly from bonus payments and incentive clauses. But his base salary is just $875,000 this year, and Skenes is locked in with one more year before he becomes eligible for arbitration, and three years of team control to go after that.
“A playoff rotation with Skenes and Tarik Skubal? Thank you very much,” Schoenfield wrote. “It will take one of the best farm systems in the sport to acquire Skenes, and Detroit is incredibly well positioned to make this kind of deal, with depth at both the major league and minor league levels, not to mention a payroll with only one expensive long-term commitment in Javier Baez.”
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