Criticism of Tigers' free agent spending misses major point regarding Detroit

Framber Valdez's blowup against the Cubs prompted a predictable conversation among fans about Scott Harris and the Tigers front office's free agent spending.

The Tigers made Valdez one of baseball's highest-paid pitchers by AAV, but his first season in Detroit has been disappointing, to say the least. Jack Flaherty is back on the IL for the second time this year. Justin Verlander might never pitch again. Kenley Jansen occasionally still looks like the future Hall of Famer he is, but he's also having the worst season of his long career overall. Javy Báez ... is Javy Báez.

We maintain that Harris made a valid, informed decision with Valdez — he was the best starter available on the free agent market and has a career 3.36 ERA — and anyone pretending like they always hated the signing is lying, but it's undeniable that things haven't gone well this season. All of these signings were received pretty well initially, but their poor performance or health issues ultimately haven't made them a credit to the front office.

And fans aren't happy about it, which is understandable. But the sad fact is that Detroit simply hasn't become a free agent destination yet.

Tigers' struggle to become a free agent destination has definitely affected their offseasons

This could be for any number of reasons. The Tigers haven't been truly dominant since the early/mid-2010s and went through a long and oftentimes fraught rebuild. They've occasionally demonstrated a straight-up aversion to spending on free agents. Sometimes players just prefer to live on one of the coasts. Others have probably bought into the same anti-Detroit propaganda that a distant relative who has never stepped foot in the city heard through a friend of a friend.

Flaherty wanting to come back after his bounce back year between the Tigers and Dodgers was a great sign. It felt like it could be the start of something.

But just because the Tigers have become competitive again doesn't mean that a less-than-stellar reputation cultivated over many years will be totally erased. It certainly doesn't help that they've slipped this year, too, and are more likely than not going to lose their best pitcher in free agency at the end of the season, if not sooner.

Fans can and should keep the Detroit vs. Everybody mentality alive and well. We want players who want to come here. But the Tigers have a little more work to do on their end, too.

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