One Detroit Tigers pitcher got all the attention before the August 3 MLB trade deadline.
We all know that was Tarik Skubal.
They had another pitcher in the last year of his contract that they also traded, though: Casey Mize.
Mize went to the San Diego Padres, and while Skubal has been awesome for the Los Angeles Dodgers, it wasn’t the same for Mize on the West Coast.
With the Padres’ season done, Mize will become a free agent. It’s not clear the Padres will want him back.
The Tigers have to already feel great about the fact that they extracted any value for Mize.
Tigers Side of Casey Mize Trade
The Tigers traded Mize and Gage Workman to the Padres on August 3 in exchange for two left-handed pitching prospects.
Kash Mayfield became the No. 6 prospect in the Detroit system at the time of the deal.
Jackson Wolf wasn’t ranked by MLB Pipeline when the trade was made but pitched well after the deal.
This is what Tigers reporter Lynn Henning wrote on X on Saturday:
“Padres couldn’t activate Casey Mize for the playoffs, because of a bad ankle, and perhaps just as much because of bad post-trade numbers. His final stats in San Diego weren’t pretty: 7.46 ERA, 1.68 WHIP, 44.2 innings, 56 hits, 19 walks, 25 strikeouts, 13 — 13 — homers. Meanwhile, the Tigers really like lefty starter Kash Mayfield (hamstring slowed him but he’s fine), as well as lefty reliever Jackson Wolf, who was excellent in seven games at Toledo, with a 1.62 ERA and 0.99 WHIP.”
Clearly, the Tigers didn’t miss anything from Mize. Detroit didn’t make the playoffs, so any value at all out of Mize would’ve been good.
And this amount of value? A great outcome for the Tigers, who seem likely to get MLB innings in the future out of both Mayfield and Wolf, while Mize wasn’t in their future plans anyway.
What Padres Do Now
The Padres really can’t justify keeping Mize, but they’ve got a really interesting offseason coming up that could shake up their entire pitching staff.
Michael King is the biggest name hitting free agency from the Padres. The stud reliever Adrian Morejon will also be a free agent.
Walker Buehler is heading for free agency, too, and then there’s Mize.
That doesn’t mention Griffin Canning and Lucas Giolito, who were technically under contract but had injury troubles that kept them out of the picture anyway before they re-enter free agency.
San Diego may have to consider pursuing one of its free agent starters again. They may have even assumed when they traded for Mize that they’d want him longer.
Now? Mize seems like he’ll have to fight for a short-term deal elsewhere just to prove himself again.
Tigers Won Casey Mize Trade With Padres