Tigers Notes: Flaherty, Briske, Baez

The Tigers’ signing of right-hander Jack Flaherty has proved to be one of the best moves of the 2023-24 offseason through the first half of play this year. The 28-year-old has looked nothing short of fantastic since signing with Detroit on a one-year deal over the offseason. In 89 innings of work across 15 starts, Flaherty has posted a solid 3.24 ERA (129 ERA+) with a 3.04 FIP.

That’s a quality performance that virtually any club would like to have at the front to middle of their rotation, but his underlying metrics have been even more elite. Flaherty has struck out an eye-popping 33% of batters faced while walking just 4% this year, giving him the league’s second-highest K-BB% behind only White Sox lefty Garrett Crochet. While home runs- which have been an issue that has plagued Flaherty throughout his career- have remained an issue as 18.3% of his fly balls have left the yard this year, the right-hander has also generated grounders at a full-season career best clip of 44.2%. All of that has combined to give Flaherty an MLB-best xFIP of 2.29 and a SIERA of 2.45 that trails only Crochet.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they aren’t particularly well-positioned to make the most out of Flaherty’s time in the organization. While fans in Detroit are surely dreaming on the right-hander pairing with Tarik Skubal at the front of a playoff rotation, the Tigers are sitting at a record of just 37-45 headed into the second half. The AL Central division already appears more or less out of reach for the club as they’ve fallen 15.5 games behind the Guardians, and even an AL Wild Card berth would take a herculean climb up the standings as the club currently sits 7.5 games behind the Royals for the third Wild Card spot.

Between that reality and the fact that Flaherty would surely be the most attractive rental pitcher moved at the deadline if the Tigers were to deal him, it may seem like a forgone conclusion that the right-hander will be changing teams next month. That might not be the case, however, as Chris McCosky of The Detroit News reported earlier this week that president of baseball operations Scott Harris and his front office are preparing not just for a potential sell-off, but also for a hypothetical scenario where the Tigers look to add at the deadline.

While the club’s weak position in the standings makes that possibility appear extremely unlikely at first blush, McCosky notes that the club figures to have plenty of control over its own destiny…