It was not a rousing day for the Tigers as the MLB trade deadline came and went on Thursday, with Detroit settling for minor moves and largely missing out on the big fish to which they were loosely connected in what was a reasonably busy market. They did not get Eugenio Suarez, who was instead traded away to the Mariners.
They did get Charlie Morton, all 41 years and 399 career starts of him, in a buzzer-beating deadline deal. And they got a raft of new relief arms that will afford manager AJ Hinch the opportunity to retool his entire bullpen on the fly.
Tigers Attempting to Fill Rotation Gaps
Certainly, no one can accuse the Tigers of not being busy at the deadline, even if they did not find themselves trading in top-shelf players. One of their relatively low-end acquisitions, Chris Paddack from the Twins, has already paid dividends, going 6.0 innings and allowing just one run on Wednesday in a win over the Diamondbacks.
Paddack will remain in the rotation, and Morton will take a prominent spot, too. The Tigers have seen their starting pitchers pretty well knocked around lately, with Tarik Skubal remaining the Cy Young favorite and the rest of the rotation appearing to be shaky, at best.
News that Reese Olson will be out for the season with a shoulder injury leaves Detroit with, essentially, one reliable starter and the hope that Jack Flaherty’s awful June is firmly behind him. Paddack and Morton will be expected to plug the gaps at Nos. 3 and 4 in the rotation.
Charlie Morton Comes With Experience
It would be tough to have significant belief in Morton as a 2025 starter. He is 7-8 this year, but has a 5.42 ERA in 23 appearances, 17 starts. He has thrown 101.1 innings this season and has a WHIP of 1.559.
But Morton has something the Tigers value, especially now with the team having won four straight after a disastrous start to July–experience. Morton has 17 playoff starts under his belt and has been part of two World Series teams, in 2018 in Houston and again in 2021 in Atlanta.
Morton is 7-5 (including a sterling seven-game winning streak that stretched over 2017-20) with a 3.60 ERA in his postseason career, including a Game 1 start in the 2021 World Series in which he threw 16 pitches on a broken leg.
Tigers Bullpen Hits the Refresh Button
In addition to Morton and Paddack, the Tigers added five–count ’em!–arms to the relief corps, with closer Kyle Finnegan of the Nationals being the highlight of all the transactions. Finnegan was an All-Star in 2024, and was having a very good 2025 before a recent stretch knocked his season stats out of whack.
Finnegan had a 2.36 ERA in 34 appearances back on July 10, but fell apart in four outings after that. He allowed 10 hits and 10 earned runs in 2.2 innings from July 12-21, though he bounced back with back-to-back scoreless appearances in his last two times on the mound.
The Tigers entered the deadline with 422.1 bullpen innings pitched, which ranks fourth in baseball this season.
They also added Rafael Montero (5.50 ERA in 36 games) from the Braves, Randy Dobnak (1.69 ERA in one game) from the Twins and Codi Heuer (6.75 ERA in one game) from the Rangers. Paul Sewald (4.70 ERA in 18 games) is coming over, too, from the Guardians, but he remains on the DL.
As part of a roster-clearing necessity, the Tigers also added 18-year-old Phillies outfielder Josueth Quinonez for Matt Manning.
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