Why the Detroit Tigers shouldn't trust their young core this season

Bringing Jack Flaherty back in free agency was a big win for the Detroit Tigers. It gives the team a legitimate arm to slot in alongside reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal and also takes some of the pressure off guys like top prospect Jackson Jobe and fellow rotation mate Casey Mize.

Make no mistake: if the Tigers are going to defy the odds and return to the postseason again in 2025, they're going to need serious contributions from Jobe, Mize and other young arms. The same goes for the team's young position players, headlined by slugging outfielder Riley Greene, who is projected to be the team's most valuable position player at 4.4 fWAR.

Greene seemed to put it all together last year with a 133 OPS+ in 137 games, showing why the Tigers took him with the fifth overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft. But he can't carry this offense alone. Veteran Gleyber Torres will help, projected to be the club's second-best position player, but this is a lineup with a ton of young, unproven talent logging everyday reps, especially in the lower half of the batting order.

Former first-rounder and Dodgers prospect Trey Sweeney, acquired in the Flaherty trade last summer, will be a key cog in the machine, but he's got all of 119 plate appearances at the big-league level. Betting on him being a prodigy is unrealistic and the same can be said of Jace Jung, another former first-rounder who will have an opportunity to make his mark for Detroit in 2025 (but has less than 100 trips to the plate at the MLB level).

Tigers have the money (and prospects) to make a big splash at the trade deadline

Come July, if the Tigers are playing well and in the hunt, Scott Harris and the front office have to be aggressive. This team has a lot of young talent, but there's such a high degree of uncertainty around almost all of them that pushing your chips in solely on their success doesn't make sense.

Detroit is still more than $100 million shy of the first CBT threshold and there's clearly room in the budget for significant upgrades after given the details of their failed pursuit of Alex Bregman (six years, $171.5 million). How the front office takes advantage of that budget flexibility effectively with in-season upgrade(s) could be the difference between a return to the postseason or watching from home next fall.