At 60-40 on the season, the Detroit Tigers are the best team in baseball in the latter part of July. They got off to a hot start, propelled by the momentum they put forth to make a deep postseason run a year ago. This team is loaded, but it has been a painfully long time since 1984, or 2012 for that matter... The Tigers could use some help in their relief corps, but they will not get any from a rival.
In Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan's "top 40 trade deadline candidates" post for ESPN, you can find three members of the Cleveland Guardians in the top 10. While left fielder Steven Kwan is a fantastic player, I want to take some time discussing the trade chances of relief pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Cade Smith. They only have a 20-percent chance of being dealt, but there is a major concern as well.
Both Clase and Smith have the Los Angeles Dodgers listed as their best fits. Though they have the same seven teams listed in the exact same order to potentially in on them, Detroit comes up sixth for both star relievers. In between them and the Dodgers are Philadelphia, both New York teams and the Chicago Cubs. Texas is the only other team that is being listed as a trade possibility for both players.
This means Cleveland would rather ruin baseball than even think about making a deal with the Tigers.
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Why Cleveland may not make a deal with Detroit for a star relief pitcher
Even if Cleveland is not going to catch Detroit in the AL Central race, this franchise has a lot of pride. Despite having one of the smallest payrolls in all of baseball, Cleveland usually does a good job of fielding a competitive team most years. This is just not one of them. While the Guardians may want to accumulate more prospects to reset it a bit, it is too punitive for them to make a big trade in-division.
I am never of the belief that it is a great idea to trade with anyone in your division in any sport, but I may be very old-guard in that. My concern about guys like Clase and Smith not going to Detroit is if they go to the Dodgers, nobody outside of Los Angeles is going to be happy about that deal. The Dodgers are the reigning World Series champions for a reason. They will simply outspend everyone.
More importantly, the Dodgers have still been able to develop its homegrown players in-house to help pull off one blockbuster move at a time. Cleveland good get a haul for either guy at the Tigers' expense, but the Guardians should only look out for their own best interests. Helping the Tigers out is probably worse than giving Jeff Passan another reason to slobber over himself about Shohei Ohtani.
There could be other relief pitchers out there, so the Tigers must look outside of the AL Central now.