Detroit Tigers were never close to signing Rusney Castillo

The Detroit Tigers were wheeling and dealing at the trade deadline this summer but their attempts to put the best possible team on the diamond as possible didn’t end when the non-waiver trade deadline arrived.

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Rusney Castillo has swept up the baseball with where he was going to sign and before he agreed to a deal with the Boston Red Sox, there was interest from the Tigers in signing the Cuban prospect.

Detroit Tiger general manager Dave Dombrowski spoke about the Rusney Castillo rumors and noted that while the Tigers were indeed interested in the Cuban prospect, they were out of the running to land him and never really came close despite what the team thought was a solid offer.

"“I don’t think we were ever really close,” Dombrowski said. “We were interested in him and we made we thought was a real solid offer, but we went where we thought we were prepared to go, which was somewhere in the rumored neighborhood of what was out there.”"

Dombrowski stated that despite the offer and the interest — and the rumors as late as Thursday that the Tigers were front runners — Detroit was told as early as Monday that they were no longer in the running to sign Castillo.

"“We were basically told earlier in the week — I think first thing Monday — that we were no longer a participant,” Dombrowski continued. “We haven’t had any discussions the rest of the week.”"

The rumors were that the Tigers and Red Sox were the front runners but the truth might have been that those two teams were the last two teams in the running. If that’s the case, then Castillo arrived as his decision to sign with the Red Sox a lot sooner than Thursday when the story broke.

Be sure to stay glued to FanSided’s MLB Rumors page to stay up to date with the latest action and rumbling from the baseball hot stove this trade season.