Detroit Tigers: Trades Abound In The Motor City

Here at the Corner, we round up Detroit Tigers news and rumors around the Tigers blogosphere so that you don’t spend hours surfing the web searching.

Detroit Tigers General Manager Al Aliva has garnered criticism in the past for some of his trades. He’s even been given poor grades for his tenure so far in the Motor City. Anthony Fench, of the Detroit Free Press, however, thinks that some of the trades made by Aliva are looking better in hindsight.

Rob Rogacki, over at Bless You Boys, thinks that now is the perfect time to trade away Nick Castellanos.  Rogacki argues that Castellanos’ trade value has already reached its peak and prolonging a trade might be costly for the Tigers.

The Detroit Tigers still have some moves that they need to make. Andy Patton breaks down the viable remaining trade candidates that are left. The team also added former Cub James Russell to a minor league deal.

Jason Beck, of MLB.com, broke down just what Detroit Tigers fans can expect out of Russell:

Russell has never been a power lefty; his fastball consistently averaged 89-90 mph during his big league tenure, according to FanGraphs. But when he’s on, he complements it with a diverse offspeed arsenal, including a slow slider he leaned on in the past, a breaking ball, cutter and changeup he mixed in.

The lefty will be competing for a spot in the Tigers bullpen. The bullpen, of course, has been a sore spot for the Tigers over the past several seasons.

With teams rebuilding, there is always talk about teams “tanking”. Over at Bless You Boys, they argue that tanking in no way is bad for baseball. You can read their argument here.

Next: Best & Worst Case Scenarios For 2018

There is also the question of how 2018 will play out for the Detroit Tigers. We broke down some of the best and worst case scenarios for the Tigers in 2018. You can read them all here.