Bleacher Report's rival trade proposal involving Tigers would simply never happen

The name of the game for the Tigers' offseason will be pitching. This year's late-season and postseason pitching chaos was thrilling, and AJ Hinch managed it to (near) perfection right until the end.

However, it's not a sustainable strategy through the whole of another 162-game season, and the Tigers will need to rebuild the rotation around Tarik Skubal. Casey Mize and Keider Montero's futures are still very much up in the air, so the Tigers could be looking for as many as three starters in free agency or on the trade market.

A few potential targets have been identified — Walker Buehler, Andrew Heaney, Luis Severino — but they aren't exactly top tier. Potentially very expensive guys like Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, or Blake Snell have histories of excellence that the Tigers could try to recover, but they feel out of Detroit's price range.

Last offseason, the Tigers picked up their two biggest additions off of the free agent market rather than the trade market, which seems likely to be the same route they go this year as an organization that prizes its prospects.

However, Bleacher Report proposed a truly bonkers inter-division trade between the Tigers and White Sox that would involve one of Detroit's biggest prospects: Chicago ace Garrett Crochet for Bryce Rainer, Owen Hall, and Ethan Schiefelbein.

Bleacher Report proposed a ridiculous Tigers-White Sox trade involving Bryce Rainer and Garrett Crochet

If Crochet actually goes on the trade market in earnest this year (the White Sox seemingly decided to keep him in the final hour of this year's trade deadline), then any buying team would almost certainly have to give up a top-five prospect for him. But the Tigers wouldn't (and shouldn't) dream of handing off their first-round draft pick, Rainer, just months after they selected him.

Hall and Schiefelbein were also picks from this year, selected in the second and Competitive Balance rounds. The Tigers — and, frankly, any team in their right mind — wouldn't gut the top of their 2024 draft class for a starter who just became a starter this season. Not to mention, why would the White Sox help improve a division rival, even if it meant getting some good prospects? This rarely happens in baseball.

There are plenty of avenues the Tigers could explore that don't involve basically calling this year's draft a wash. Again, the free agent market will be the Tigers' friend this season. They've proven that they're a competitive club with a lot of promising talent, and that they can turn a declining pitcher into a winner again, so attracting free agents might not be as much of an uphill battle as it was in years past.

Save the prospects, buy starters.