Detroit Tigers Trade Rumors: Still Out on Jonathan Lucroy
By Matt Snyder
The Detroit Tigers aren’t back in the mix Jonathan Lucroy despite market appearing to soften.
The Jonathan Lucroy saga is getting very interesting. First he used his no-trade rights to reject a deal to the Cleveland Indians, then he seemed to be destined for the Texas Rangers, but now it seems the Rangers and Brewers are at an impasse as the two sides have (reportedly) yet to speak today. Ken Rosenthal speculated that perhaps another team — like the Detroit Tigers — were getting into the mix.
Source: #Rangers have not had contact with #Brewers on Lucroy since last night. Possible that another team (HOU? DET?) is jumping into mix.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016
But if new teams are getting back into the bidding, it does not appear that the Tigers are one of them. Rosenthal checked with his sources and confirmed that the Tigers are still out on the All-Star catcher.
Sources: #Tigers not on Lucroy. Will not give up pitching to get a catcher. Also doubtful to land SP. Not willing to trade off MLB roster.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016
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The Tigers are on Lucroy’s no-trade list so acquiring him would be very complicated, but he might not have had the same issue with going to Detroit that he had with Cleveland.
Lucroy has no-trade to #Tigers, but future playing time with them would not be the issue that it would have been with #Indians.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2016
The claim that Lucroy rejected the deal to Cleveland because they wouldn’t guarantee him the starting position next season when Yan Gomes returned from injury always seemed silly. I’m still of the belief that he rejected the trade because Cleveland wouldn’t waive his contractural 2017 club option.
If that is the case, going to the Tigers would present the same issue as the Tigers certainly wouldn’t pay a king’s ransom for a two month rental.
If the Tigers were to acquire Lucroy, they’d option James McCann to the minor leagues for the remainder of the season and head into next season with Lucroy as the starter and McCann the backup giving him (i.e. McCann) more time to grow into the everyday big league role.
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But it looks like Lucroy is a pipe dream now as the Brewers won’t back off their insistence on getting one of the Tigers’ top young big league pitchers. That type of trade simply wouldn’t make sense from Detroit’s standpoint.