Tigers on verge of screwing up Jack Flaherty's trade market after Astros revelations

Through all of the uncertainty that the trade deadline brings, one thing that has been abundantly clear for a while now is that the Detroit Tigers are going to trade Jack Flaherty before the deadline passes. Given how the market has developed over the last couple of days, it is a certainty that the Tigers would receive more than what they would get from giving Flaherty a qualifying offer after the season. Passing up that sort of opportunity, with how the season has gone, seems very unwise.

However, predicting WHERE Flaherty will end up is a bit trickier. The vast majority of buyers this year would love to add rotation depth, and rentals like Flaherty are usually very highly desired this time of year. On Monday, it felt as though the Yankees were closing in on a deal for Flaherty before that chatter quieted as the day went on.

Detroit holding out for a true premium could be the cause of Flaherty's Tigers purgatory. According to reports from The Athletic and others, the Astros checked in on Flaherty over the weekend, and things never materialized. They must have found the asking price so high that they preferred to overpay for Yusei Kikuchi instead.

Detroit Tigers may be overplaying their hand with Jack Flaherty's trade market

There is a lot to parse here. If the Tigers' asking price was actually higher than what Houston paid to land Kikuchi, then Scott Harris and co. need a stern talking-to. Flaherty is having a strong season, but in no way should he command anything close to that as a rental arm. Now, if Detroit's asking price is high for a rental, but not that high and the Astros just preferred to explore the market for pitchers with extra team control, that is a different thing altogether. Somehow, along the way, they were tempted into dropping off several high-end prospects in exchange for another rental in Kikuchi, though, so the plan went awry either way, with the Tigers left holding the bag. Maybe the Astros know something about the names they surrendered that James Click doesn't.

Only the Tigers know what offers they have on the table from other teams and, given the high price tags at the trade deadline this year, we can probably assume Flaherty is commanding a premium at the moment. Another factor is that Detroit may be holding out for a bidding war closer to the actual deadline later on Tuesday, as contenders have fewer options to choose from.

That is all well and good, but the Tigers are playing a dangerous game if "waiting for a team to get desperate" is their play here. The Astros have already been deemed desperate for their Kikuchi package, and may have halted the market.

It is true that the deadline creates urgency for playoff teams in need of roster upgrades, but the number of those buyers is going to decrease as the hours tick down. There is a realistic possibility that Detroit could find themselves needing to accept a lesser offer because the other potential bidders spent their prospect capital elsewhere instead of trying to meet an exorbitant asking price for Flaherty.

Odds are that the Tigers will still end up with a trade package for Flaherty they are happy with. As to whether it will be the best package they could have gotten, that is much less clear now.

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