Tigers insider's Alex Bregman update could change everything for Detroit fans

The Tigers' surprise deal with Jack Flaherty on Sunday night reignited a new energy in the fanbase. After Scott Harris had publicly said that the Tigers were done adding starters to the rotation following the Alex Cobb addition, there was little reason to do other than take him at his word, no matter how disappointing it was.

Flaherty solves a lot of questions for the Tigers rotation; now, there's only one available spot for four pitchers to fight over during spring training (Keider Montero, Casey Mize, Kenta Maeda, and Jackson Jobe). Given Flaherty's great work in Detroit before the trade deadline last season, it immediately made the Tigers look like they were actually serious about making a postseason run again.

It was also evidence that the Tigers actually can be more liberal with their spending than fans have been led to believe, and that immediately injected more hope for the Tigers' pursuit of Alex Bregman. If the Tigers were willing to go in on Flaherty when no one expected them to, maybe they could finally get things over the line with Bregman. And there are some rumblings suggesting that.

Here's what Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic said on Tiger Territory: "Tigers people seem to be feeling more optimistic about the Bregman situation. Like I don’t know — this has been a whole weird saga, but people I’ve talked to seemed to be just in good moods the past few days."

Insider provides promising update on Tigers' pursuit of Alex Bregman after Jack Flaherty signing

Early in the week, Twitter was split by totally unsubstantiated claims that Bregman was either imminently signing with the Tigers or the Cubs. Of course, nothing's actually come to fruition yet, but Tigers fans are certainly even more hopeful now, and it helped to have an insider confirm that hope wasn't totally off the mark.

A lot of big statements about what Bregman could mean for the Tigers have been thrown around, a lot of which fall along the lines of "the Tigers would immediately be contenders if they sign him." It's perhaps little hyperbolic, maybe, but also not totally untrue. With Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter, and Parker Meadows poised for big seasons, the bullpen among the best in the game, and the rotation immediately improved by re-adding Flaherty, Bregman could make up that last bit of distance.

The Cubs have some enticing incentive for Bregman to come to Chicago — former Astros teammates Kyle Tucker and Ryan Pressly, mostly — but the Tigers have seemingly been dogged in their pursuit of him and have broken their usual status quo in the process. If "Tigers people," as Stavenhagen put it, are feeling good, then Detroit fans are, too.