SEATTLE — Detroit Tigers president Scott Harris, in the runup to Monday’s trade deadline, prepared for two possible objectives: One, keep this roster together and try to fortify it for a final push toward October. Two, trade two-time Cy Young-winner Tarik Skubal and All-Star Casey Mize before they hit the open market this offseason.

“I hate selling with every fiber of my being,” he said in a 40-minute zoom conference Monday night. “I absolutely hate it. I don’t want to be in that position. But, the situation we were in, I thought it would be irresponsible not to do it, given the market we had for Tarik and Casey.

“I didn’t think it would be in the best interest of this organization to pass on injecting the level and the volume of young talent that we’ve injected with these moves.”

Skubal was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers late Saturday night for two, top-100 prospects — outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-hander River Ryan — plus right-hander Brady Smith, the Dodgers third-round pick two years ago.

Mize was traded right at final buzzer Monday, sent to the San Diego Padres for two left-handed starters, 21-year-old Kash Mayfield, the Padres’ No. 2-rated prospect, and 27-year-old Jackson Wolf.

“We didn’t formally make the decision until after the Baltimore series,” Harris said, referencing the gut-punch, 12-inning, series-deciding loss last Wednesday after Skubal left the game in the seventh with a seven-run lead. “I wanted to give this team every opportunity to make a compelling case that we shouldn’t do that. We just didn’t make that case.

“But it’s not the players and it’s not the coaches. It’s on me. If there is anyone you should point to, it’s me. We didn’t collectively make the case compelling enough to add this team at the deadline. We didn’t make a case compelling enough to not subtract. It costs real parts of your future to decide to hold. It’s not a cost-less decision.”

That was the crux of the entire agonizing process, from the front office’s point of view. Harris said he was tasked with answering two questions:

Question one: Was the organization in a position to be aggressive and add to the team, at the cost of highly-regarded prospects already in the system, to make one last run with Skubal and Mize?

“I think the answer based on the first 112 games was no,” he said. “I don’t think we played well enough. I don’t think I did enough for this organization to justify trading a significant part of our future for the present.”

Question two: Was there any justification, given where the team is at right now, for keeping the group intact and not trying to acquire significant young talent for players who will be leaving in free agency at season’s end?

“The answer to that question was also no,” Harris said. “If we didn’t make these trades, we’d essentially be trading Kyhir Hope and River Ryan and Kash Mayfield and Brady Smith. We’d be trading those players just to keep this group together. I don’t think, based on the way we played over the first 112 games, that it would make sense to do that.

“Once I came to peace with the answer to those questions being no, then I thought it was in the best interest of this organization to make the trades we made.”

The Tigers, as they begin a series against the Seattle Mariners Tuesday, are 2 1/2 games out of the final wild-card spot. Seattle is one of the teams they are chasing. Given that the race was still on, Harris was asked if the trades might signal the hoisting of a white flag.

“That’s a firm no,” he said. “Our record on Aug. 3 doesn’t define us. It doesn’t tell us what this season will ultimately tell us about this group.”

Harris cited the late run to the playoffs in 2024, which happened with a group of young players after several veterans were dealt at the deadline, admitting that none of those players were named Skubal.

“There is still a lot I really like about this team,” he said. “The internal additions have made us more athletic. Our at-bat quality has gotten a lot better and we are riding some real momentum coming out of Sacramento.”

Much of what happened in the three-game sweep of the Athletics was driven by a group of rookies – Kevin McGonigle, Max Clark, Eduardo Valencia, Hao-Yu Lee and Ben Malgeri. Keider Montero and Troy Melton have stepped seamlessly into prominent roles in the rotation.

Jackson Jobe is in the final leg of his rehab stint. Ryan, who is rehabbing a hamstring strain, could also be an option in September.

“There are going to be additions to this team,” Harris said. “But they are going to have to be internal additions right now. Adding Max was huge boost and there are more players coming. This team is talented enough to flip the script, just like in ’24. Did I make it a little harder this week? Yeah, I did.

“It may seem like a contradiction but I don’t think that it is at all. We have to hold those two thoughts in our head, and we have to recognize what is actually happening on the field and the momentum we built coming out of Sacramento. Am I saying we’re definitely going to make the playoffs? No. But we’re not raising the white flag and we’re not giving up on the season.”

As for the two deals, Harris said he had multiple, high-quality offers for Skubal. He laid them out on the table and selected what he and his staff felt was the best one. He was bemused by the media-driven notion that he might’ve got a better deal had he waited right up to the deadline.

“Respectfully, the notion that we should have waited 24 or 48 hours later and extracted more value, that’s garbage,” he said.

Truth is, for a top of the market talent like Skubal, there’s no real haggling. It did become a bidding war, but the teams that wanted him put up their best offer right away and Harris, as he did, can request alterations. But the best offers were on the table well before he made his pick.

The last time a team got two top-100 picks for a rental player was in 2004.

“I kept reminding myself, if we’re going to trade Tarik, we’re going to lose an impact player,” Harris said. “And he is an impact player in every sense of the description. So if we’re going to lose him, we were going to gain potential impact players in return. And with the return we got, I am very confident that we did.”

As for Mize, Padres president A.J. Preller targeted him early in the process and, with so many starters still on the market Monday, both sides took it to the wire, with the Tigers holding out for Mayfield.

“We really liked him in the draft and we’ve had an eye on him,” Harris said. “He’s got all the attributes you look for in a starting pitcher and he is just now growing into his ability and ceiling. And think there are ways that we can help him.”

As for the deals that weren’t done: The Tigers didn’t move veterans Gleyber Torres or Kenley Jansen, both pending free agents.

“When you look at the return for Tarik and Casey, it would be irresponsible to pass,” Harris said. “The markets for our other players, it was a lot clearer to us that the value of potentially winning and keeping these players and continuing to build on the momentum was more important than the added value we could get.”

Harris, for the first time publicly, admitted that he did, at one point, go to Skubal’s agent Scott Boras with an extension offer. He wouldn’t say when he did that.

“Yes, we explored an extension once,” he said. “From the response I got from Tarik’s agent, it was pretty clear he was intent on going to free agency and exploring the market. Which is totally his right and nobody should be upset about that. He put himself in a position to be able to explore a market and he decided he wanted to do that. And he should not be criticized for it.”

History will have the final say on Harris’ haul. But, counting two pitchers the Tigers got in return for Jake Rogers (right-hander Zane Barnhart) and outfielder Jahmai Jones (left-hander JoJo Ingrassia), he added six pitchers and one highly-touted, power-hitting and speedy outfielder.

But he wasn’t letting himself off the hook for being in any kind of seller’s posture.

“I take responsibility for all of it,” Harris said. “I should’ve build more depth. I should have found a way to keep our players healthier. I should have found more buckets to clear more water in May so we don’t have a 6-22 month. A lot of these things I reflect on. There’s a lot of things in my job I can do to better position this organization.

“And believe me, I'm losing a lot of sleep over it and trying to come up with concrete takeaways I can use moving forward to make sure this season doesn’t happen again.”

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