Tigers: 4 trade deadline mistakes Scott Harris must avoid at all costs

Trade deadlines for the Detroit Tigers under Al Avila...did not go well. That's blantantly obvious. Thankfully, he's no longer the Tigers GM. Scott Harris is the team's president of baseball operations, and this will be his first trade deadline.

There's two days to go. The official deadline to make trades is Aug. 1 at 6 p.m., which means Harris has less than 48 hours now to make some deals. One thing is for sure: he has plenty of mistakes to learn from in recent Tigers history.

Last season may have been Al Avila's worst trade deadline yet, and that's saying something. He had several movable assets, including LHPs Andrew Chafin and Gregory Soto, and RHPs Michael Fulmer and Joe Jimenez. The only one that got moved was Fulmer, to the Twins in a last-minute deal. Robbie Grossman was also dealt to the Braves for a random prospect in A-ball.

This team simply cannot afford another bad trade deadline. Scott Harris needs to work some magic here. The word is he's pretty savvy, so we're going to see what he's got. But with that said, here are four trade deadline mistakes he must avoid.

1. Standing pat (not making any trades)

Standing pat does the Tigers absolutely no good. They aren't in contention, and there's no reason to keep guys like Michael Lorenzen and Jose Cisnero since they are veterans on expiring deals. One could argue they could keep Eduardo Rodriguez and try to re-sign him, but that's a conversation for another day.

Harris cannot afford to sit on his hands and make no deals. That's basically what Avila did last year, and you could argue that cost him his job. That wouldn't happen to Harris in just his first year on the job, but it certainly wouldn't be a very good start to his tenure.

We'd like to believe that Scott Harris is better at this job than Al Avila was, at least when it comes to trades. Simply making a move or two would be a good start.