Tigers deal RHP Jack Flaherty to the Dodgers

If not for Tarik Skubal’s ascendency to true ace status and the current unofficial leader in the AL Cy Young chase, Jack Flaherty’s 2024 season might have stood out even more in Tigers history. The duo has been the best seen in Detroit since a decade ago when Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer stalked the mound at Comerica Park as the most lethal starting duo in baseball. Now, Flaherty will be dealing alongside Tyler Glasnow in LA.

Currently, the 28-year-old Flaherty holds a 2.95 ERA/3.11 FIP with the second best K-BB percentage among all starters with 100 innings or more, second only to Garrett Crochet. Flaherty has punched out 32 percent of hitters faced and issued walks to just 4.6 percent of them. He’s been outstanding.

Tigers fans will miss him, and the dream of a Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Jackson Jobe, Reese Olson starting four, but as Flaherty likely only has one crack at free agency and is also a union rep, he was never going to sign any kind of team friendly extension, or any extension at all, until he got to test the market for his services. It’s also a dubious proposition for a team with a low payroll limited by ownership, and badly in need of a major infield upgrades, to commit big dollars to a starting pitcher with a lengthy history of shoulder and back issues.

The big move the Tigers helped the veteran right-hander make this season was in ditching his cutter out of concerns that throwing it was hurting both his fourseamer, which features a bit of cut at times, as well as his outstanding slider. Both pitches have been much improved by the adjustments, and Flaherty’s slider-knucklecurve combination has been absolutely lethal this season. Once again, Chris Fetter and his staff proved themselves among the best in the game, figuring out a puzzle the St. Louis Cardinals nor the Baltimore Orioles could not.

Hopefully, it will prove worthwhile in terms of the return.

The Tigers will receive C/1B Thayron Liranzo, is currently ranked the 73rd prospect in baseball per FanGraphs, and the number 3 prospect in the Dodgers farm system, although he lands just outside Baseball America’s top 100 currently.

Liranzo just turned 21 years old, and is a switch-hitter with huge power. He also walks a lot, but is still striking out a lot at the High-A level this season as well. In 2022, Liranzo was one of the better Low-A hitters in the game, launched 24 homers in 94 games with a 155 wRC+ and had a 48 percent hard-hit rate in 2023. He’s a posted exit velos as high as 114 mph and M.J. Melendez seems like a decent comp as a starting point.

There’s significant risk in a profile like that unless his catching becomes more of a certainty. The Tigers are very good at coaching catchers, but presumably so are the Dodgers. Liranzo can clean up his receiving and blocking. The question is whether he can improve enough to let a fringe average arm play at the position. Probably, he’s better suited to first base where his power from both sides of the plate and eye for the strike zone could make him a very dangerous hitter in another year or two.

The other piece coming back in the deal is shortstop Trey Sweeney, who draws a 45 FV grade from Baseball America and 40+ from FanGraphs, where he’s the the Dodgers 28th ranked prospect. The right-handed hitter is a quality defender overall, but at shortstop profiles as a fringy defender better suited to second or third base do to subpar quickness and range at the shortstop position.

The 24-year-old Sweeney was drafted by the Yankees in 2021 and reached Double-A in his first full season. In 2023, the Yankees work to improve his left-handed swing and pitch recognition starting paying dividends as he hit 13 home runs in 100 games with a 13.8 walk rate against a 19.1 percent strikeout rate, good for a 118 wRC+. He has above average raw power according to FanGraphs, and already has 13 homers in 96 games at the Triple-A level this season, albeit in a more homer friendly environment to a degree than the International League where the Toledo Mud Hens play.

We’ll go a lot deeper into these two players tonight, but overall I think it can be characterized as a solid but not a great return considering the market. Liranzo is a good main piece in the deal, but the sketchy odds that he’ll pan out as a catcher undercuts the power and plate discipline profile at the plate. He’s a perfectly fine centerpiece to this deal, but with enough red flags that we would’ve hoped for more from the secondary pieces. The Blue Jays got more from the Astros for Yusei Kikuchi, but they also may have prioritized Kikuchi specifically for his fastball and to give them a left-hander in what has become a right-handed rotation with Luis Garcia on the injured list.

Sweeney makes sense as the Tigers shortstop depth is really weak. He’s not going to solve their shortstop problem by himself, unfortunately, but he does give them a pretty good left-handed hitting infielder who can play all infield positions well, with the exception being shortstop, where he’s a little fringy as mentioned. He has power, and if the Tigers can help him improve against breaking balls, he should be ready to contribute in 2025.

All in all, seeing the deals getting made around the league for starting pitchers, we would’ve hoped for a better second piece in the deal than Sweeney. For a quality rental starting pitcher, we’d be thrilled. For the best rental starter available, it’s a bit underwhelming but certainly gives the Tigers another high end prospect to add to the farm system. The Tigers are betting on Liranzo here, and his future will decide how this deal ultimately turns out for them.