Tigers 2024 trade deadline: Winners and losers from the AL Central

Although we all know that the season post-deadline isn't really a true second half, it does mark a time for teams to really take stock of where they stand and either gear up for the postseason or figure out how to try to make it that far next year.

This year's deadline, July 30, featured a huge wave of moves across the league, with all 30 teams having done something by the end of the day. But we'll narrow our focus down to the AL Central to see how the Tigers fared against their closest competitors.

AL Central trade deadline winners: Guardians, Royals

The Guardians only made two pickups: Alex Cobb from the Giants and Lane Thomas from the Nationals, but when you already have the best winning percentage in baseball, how much more do you need to do? Cobb was a bit of an iffy choice for Cleveland, given that he has yet to pitch in 2024 after hip surgery last year and a finger blister that kept him from making his season debut last week, but they only had to give up a light prospect and a player to be named later to do it.

Thomas was also a nice pickup; although his power has declined significantly this year, he's still a speedy player (28 stolen bases) and will be able to slot in nicely in the outfield, perhaps supplanting rookie Angel Martínez, who's been struggling as of late.

The Royals made three good trades, making them perhaps the AL Central winners of the deadline. They added former Tiger Michael Lorenzen from the Rangers, shortstop Paul DeJong from the White Sox, and reliever Lucas Erceg from the Athletics.

Walter Pennington was a fan favorite in Kansas City, but the four lefty relievers in the Royals bullpen already just didn't leave space for him, and he was deployed nicely as a chip. Lorenzen has been having a pretty respectable year in Texas, having pitched 101 2/3 innings for an as-yet career-best ERA as a starter: 3.81.

AL Central trade deadline losers: Tigers, Twins, White Sox

We'll gloss over the White Sox a bit, because they were always going to be this year's losers. That was sort of the whole point, given that they're on pace for a 120-loss season and needed to do something — anything — to try to rebuild their terrible farm system and, at best, poke their heads above .300 next year. Ultimately, they let go of five players (but, notably, not Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr.) and got six players in return (five prospects/minor leaguers, one major leaguer in the Dodgers' Miguel Vargas). According to the talking heads, they underwhelmed for Erick Fedde, somehow failing to blow the doors off a seller's market as the league's worst team.

The Twins were losers mostly just because they didn't do much. They made only one move on trade deadline day to get Trevor Richards from the Blue Jays while giving up one unranked prospect, Jay Harry.

Now to the Tigers. Detroit gave up four players: Carson Kelly, Andrew Chafin, Jack Flaherty, and Mark Canha, in exchange for seven prospects. The Chafin trade probably turned out to be the best of them, as the Tigers got a top-30 Rangers prospect and a reliever who could be ready to come up to the majors soon, but the real loss was taken with the Flaherty trade. The Dodgers only had to give up two prospects for him, and while both are ranked and show a lot of promise, we're still reeling from the absurdity of how little it took to make this one happen.

Not too much needle-moving happened in the AL Central with this trade deadline, at least through the rest of this season. The Royals are giving the Twins great chase for second place in the division, but are still a few games above the Red Sox for the last Wild Card spot.

For the Tigers, none of their trades will have an immediate positive impact on the club; if anything, trading Flaherty and leaving them with just two healthy starters has made them even worse off than before.