Kerry Carpenter hitting IL may officially force Tigers' trade deadline hand

On Monday, the Tigers officially moved Kerry Carpenter to the IL with plantar fasciitis and recalled Eduardo Valencia. Carpenter had been dealing with a foot issue on-and-off over the last week and was pulled from Sunday's game after four innings to undergo evaluation. The IL move was basically inevitable at that point.

Carpenter has been one of the Tigers' more disappointing bats this season. He already spent most of May on the IL with a sprain, and he was hitting just .208 with a .692 OPS before and between stints. His defense hasn't gotten any better either, hampering Detroit's already weak outfield.

So Carpenter's loss is far from the end of the world for the Tigers, who have now lost three in a row and have all but forced the front office's hand into dealing Tarik Skubal.

But if the front office's rumored position — sell Skubal while trying to convince players and fans they're still in this — is real, there's only one way to pull it off. They can trade Skubal, but they also need to add on top of him.

There might a world in which the Tigers could get the controllable starter they want (and need) and a viable major league bat from the team that gets Skubal, but if they can only get the former, they're going to need to work overtime to also acquire the latter. Carpenter's absence only highlights that need.

Tigers might need to take a hybrid buy-sell approach at the trade deadline if they have a hope of staying alive

The chances that the Tigers actually do this seem pretty slim. It's far more likely that Scott Harris will trade Skubal, maybe Casey Mize, maybe Gleyber Torres, and settle with the returns from those deals. Pitching seems to be the name of the game with Harris at basically all times — otherwise, he's happy with the offense he has (which, one could argue, is partially what got the Tigers into this mess in the first place).

There's also still the tiniest possibility that the Tigers decide to be pure buyers, though that looks almost entirely unrealistic now that they've lost three in a row and literally can't get to .500 before the deadline. But if the Tigers keep Skubal and decide to go all-in, a bat won't just be a want, it'll be a need.

In the meantime, it'll be nice to see Valencia get a few more turns at the plate in Carpenter's absence. With so much undecided between now and next Monday, that's really all we have to go off of right now.

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