Jack Flaherty's dominant NLCS start with Dodgers has Tigers fans pondering trade

At the trade deadline this season, most observers agreed that the Detroit Tigers were extremely unlikely to make the playoffs and a minor sell-off was warranted. On July 31, the Tigers had just a 1% chance of getting into the postseason and with some players set to hit free agency after the season, getting some long-term value back for them made a ton of sense. As a result, Detroit ultimately made the decision to trade Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers.

Again, the Flaherty trade was completely defensible at the time. Flaherty pitched well with the Tigers, but he was going to be a free agent in a few months and Detroit looked like they were going to be at home in October. The Tigers' return for Flaherty is fair to debate, but the thought process was sound.

Unfortunately, Tigers fans are probably wondering what might have been if Detroit had kept Flaherty as he just shoved for the Dodgers in the NLCS against the Mets while the Tigers fell just short of advancing in the playoffs.

Trading Jack Flaherty may have hurt Tigers' 2024 chances, but it was still a win-win deal

Seeing a guy that the Tigers traded away this year perform well at a position of weakness for the team definitely stinks. As much as was made of the Tigers' "pitching chaos" strategy and how it helped get them to the playoffs, it sure would have been nice during their playoff run to have a quality starter outside of Tarik Skubal to limit the bullpen's usage a bit. They couldn't have known it at the time, but moving Flaherty probably hurt Detroit's short-term chances a bit.

That said, it didn't hurt them as much as you would think. In addition to Detroit's bullpen game circus actually being effective, Trey Sweeney did help provide some consistency to the Tigers' lineup as part of that deal. Sweeney may not end up being a star in the league, but he at least showed enough with Detroit this season to potentially factor in the team's long-term plans.

Ultimately, this trade is going to live or die by how prospect Thayron Liranzo performs. If he can even approach how he was performing at the plate in the Dodgers' organization going forward, Tigers fans will still consider this trade a win even if the result hurt the team a bit this season.

Besides, Flaherty is a free agent this offseason and it wouldn't be all that crazy to see the Tigers make a play for him in a few weeks. It isn't like they haven't signed him before.

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