No, said Scott Harris, the Tigers didn't overvalue their assets at the deadline. And no, the outcome wasn't a disappointment. The lone reason why is Hao-Yu Lee, the 20-year-old infielder the Tigers acquired from the Phillies for Michael Lorenzen.
"Lee is the type of position playing prospect that we’ve been after," Harris said. "He’s hit at every level, he swings at the right pitches, he makes a ton of contact, he drives the ball in the air. We also think the power is on the come, and he can play multiple positions on the dirt. We need more of those types of bats in our system, and we’re excited to add one."
Of course, they had a chance to add multiple. Harris said the Tigers "came into the deadline wanting to be active." And between Lorenzen and Eduardo Rodriguez, "we set out to move multiple starting pitchers in two very different markets and we reached agreements on both players. Definitionally, that means we saw eye to eye on asking prices for the players we wanted to move."
But in reality, they only moved one. And considering Rodriguez would have netted the bigger return, a lefty with a career-low 2.95 ERA and playoff wins on his resume, Harris was asked if the deadline was in some respects a failure or a disappointment for the Tigers.
"I do not find it disappointing. Again, we acquired Lee, who’s a player that we’ve been after for a long time. He’s going to go straight to (High-A) West Michigan and he’s going to really help us and be one of our top prospects. Having access to that level of talent is a big win for the organization."
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Signed out of Taiwan in 2021, Lee had an .811 OPS across three years in the Phillies' system. He hit .283 with a .773 OPS this season in 64 games in High-A and "has the chance to be a very good hitter," per MLB Pipeline. Indeed, with legit bat-to-ball skills and a good feel for the strike zone, Lee fits the offensive profile the Tigers are looking for under Harris. His upside is that "of a big league regular" at second base.
Harris also pointed out that the Tigers acquired 22-year-old infielder Eddys Leonard in "a small trade" with the Dodgers, "another player who’s performed really well at the lower levels and does a lot of the things that we like in hitters." Leonard had a .738 OPS for the Dodgers' Double-A affiliate this season and will report to Triple-A with the Tigers.
In regard to Rodriguez, Harris said "there were some very stiff contractual headwinds that affected his market," i.e. his 10-team no-trade clause that Rodriguez used to nix a trade to the Dodgers and his opt-out after this season that rendered him a hazy investment for interested teams.
"You can’t just take the performance and look at the return it should access and assume that is achievable," Harris said. "We have to live in markets and ultimately accept what the market will bear. So I think we operated really well as a staff.
"We got better at this deadline because we added a lot of young talent, and we got better in July because we added a lot of young talent in the draft. We need months like this in the organization where we’re adding players that we feel like we can build around."
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