Daniel Norris did his best to ignore the rumors ahead of the trade deadline. He didn't want to think about pitching for a team other than the Tigers.
"But I have some friends and family that do pay attention to it," he said with a chuckle, "so I was hearing about it a lot."
He probably heard that the Rays were pursuing him. He probably heard that the Tigers were listening to offers. But in the end, the rumors were just that.
Detroit held onto Norris, and was never all that close to dealing him in the first place.
"I was definitely relieved," Norris said Wednesday.
He knows what it's like to be shipped at the deadline. He arrived in Detroit from Toronto in 2015 via the David Price trade. A celebrated prospect at the time, Norris has had an up-and-down tenure with the Tigers, but he's back on the rise this season.
So is the team.
"I'm happy to obviously still be here," he said. "That's what I wanted."
Norris, 27, is part of the core of players who endured the worst of the Tigers' rebuild. Now that the club is starting to win again, you can understand why he wants to stick around.
The Tigers are 17-17 and 1.5 games out of the final AL playoff spot with less than a month to play. Norris is confident they can close the gap.
"I think definitely we can make the playoffs," he said. "(Matthew) Boyd and I got coffee this morning and that's all we talked about. I don't think that's really a hope thing. It's like, okay, we just gotta keep doing our thing and get there."
Norris has been doing his thing this season, if not the thing he's used to. Since moving to the bullpen in July, he's 3-0 with a 1.72 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings. (Hence his value at the deadline.) By WAR, he's been one of Detroit's three most valuable arms.
"Obviously I love starting and that's ultimately what I want to do, but look at us -- we're right in the hunt of the playoffs," Norris said. "So whatever I can do to bridge the gap (in the bullpen), I'm down for whatever."
It wasn't long ago that the Tigers looked headed for another grim season. A nine-game skid dropped them five games below .500 in late July. Then they clawed their way back with a six-game win streak.
Norris said the hard lessons they've learned in the past are starting to pay off.
"Turning it around, it was just a matter of time," he said. "We all know we've been young in the past several years, but with that, you learn and you grow and you help each other as a team. I think we're really starting to reap the benefits of being patient and working hard."
Norris is proof. His time in Detroit has been marred by injuries and underperformance and a general sense of frustration. But he turned a corner toward the end of last season, and now he's here, right where he wants to be, a key player on a team making a push for the playoffs.
