Tigers' failed 2025 trade deadline emphasized after former pitcher signs with Marlins

There's no way of sugarcoating it: the Tigers' 2025 trade deadline, outside of the acquisition of Kyle Finnegan, was a complete failure.

After their late-season slide started before the All-Star break and continued closer to the trade deadline, they acquired pitchers Finnegan, Chris Paddack, Charlie Morton, Rafael Montero, Paul Sewald, and Codi Heuer.

Paddack was demoted to the bullpen after five starts (and a 5.40 ERA), Morton was DFA'ed after nine starts (7.09 ERA), Montero was decent but never trustworthy, Sewald was on the IL until mid-September, and Heuer pitched just 3 1/3 major league innings before being released in September.

Finnegan was the saving grace, and fans were happy to see him return on a two-year deal, but that shouldn't (doesn't) excuse the front office's flailing around the deadline. They were going for quantity, not quality, and it cost them the AL Central and almost a Wild Card spot.

Paddack lingered on the free agent market late into the offseason, to no one's surprise, but the team he ended up with on Monday just emphasized how much spaghetti the Tigers were throwing at the wall last year.

Per Jon Heyman, he signed a one-year, $4 million deal with the Marlins.

Tigers trade deadline flop Chris Paddack signs one-year deal with Marlins

It's full-circle for Paddack, who was drafted by Miami in 2015. He was shipped off to the Padres in exchange for Fernando Rodney before he made his major league debut.

The Tigers didn't have to give up that much to get Paddack and reliever Randy Dobnak from the fire-selling Twins — catcher Enrique Jimenez, now Minnesota's No. 28 prospect per MLB Pipeline — but the red flags were there before Detroit pulled the trigger on a trade. Maybe they were heartened by his last outing as a Twin (six innings, one earned run, eight strikeouts) and it led them to disregard his two previous starts: 10 innings, 11 earned runs.

Paddack kept getting shelled after he came over to Detroit and, unsurprisingly, he failed to make either the Wild Card or ALDS rosters.

Signing Paddack for that little money isn't necessarily a bad move for the Marlins, who have put together an interesting offseason headlined by their acquisition of top Cubs prospect Owen Caissie, but they still have a very long way to go before they're actually competing with the rest of the NL East.

Letting him walk after the season ended was a no-brainer. We wish him best of luck in Miami, but we're also pretty glad he's not in Detroit anymore.