MLB.com predicts huge signing for Tigers (but only if the worst thing happens)

If you’ve been a Detroit Tigers fan for more than five minutes, you already know the drill: every time national media sends a shiny toy in our direction, there’s always a catch.

Anthony Castrovince's latest round of “Bold (but plausible)” Hot Stove predictions for MLB.com fits that template perfectly. They have the Tigers making a legitimately big, franchise-shifting pitching addition in… Ranger Suárez. A lefty with postseason pedigree and a stabilizing innings-eater –– sounds great, right?

Well, there’s one minor detail: It only happens if the Tigers trade Tarik Skubal.

Let’s be real. Suárez is an excellent pitcher. He’s durable, he’s playoff-tested, he’s left-handed, and he’s a perfect stylistic fit for Comerica Park. In almost any other context, this would be the kind of aggressive, forward-thinking move fans beg Scott Harris to make.

But if it comes at the cost of your homegrown, two-time Cy Young winner –– the best left-handed starter in baseball –– it goes from “big swing” to “emotional hostage negotiation.” If you're Harris, you don’t get to pat yourself on the back for patching a hole when you're the one who created that hole.

On a normal winter, Suárez would be the exact kind of “win the offseason quietly” signing that smart teams make while everyone else fights over the Scott Boras clients of the world. He’d slide comfortably into the No. 2 or No. 3 slot next to Skubal –– not replace him.

But this isn’t a normal winter if you’re talking about a Skubal trade. After all, you can't replace Skubal; you can only survive losing him.

The Tigers should only sign Ranger Suárez to complement Tarik Skubal, not replace him

Signing Suárez after trading Skubal is like trying to replace your Ferrari with a really nice Subaru. Suárez is good — sometimes great. But Skubal is generational. You don't trade pitchers like that. You don't ugrade from pitchers like that. You don't pivot from pitchers like that. You just absorb the fallout and pretend everything is fine.

No matter how well Suárez performs, Tigers fans will always see him as the guy they got after selling off the guy who was supposed to define the franchise’s next decade. The real fear isn’t that Suárez would struggle, but rather, that he would succeed –– and ownership would spin it as proof they "handled losing Skubal well."

Here's the rality fans already know: if the Tigers want to be taken seriously in 2026 and beyond, they don’t trade Skubal. Period. They lock him down, build around him, and make other big signings like Suárez –– not Skubal replacements. Anything else is a rebuild disguised as a retool disguised as a payroll reset, and Tigers fans are too smart to fall for that.

If the Tigers sign Suárez and keep Skubal? That is how contenders behave. But if they sign Suárez because they trade Skubal, that's how teams trapped in eternal mediocrity justify their worst impulses.

For Tigers fans, signing Suárez would be a dream –– but only if the nightmare doesn’t come true first.