Was Tigers Closer Kyle Finnegan Best MLB Trade Deadline Acquisition?

MLB.com analyst Brian Murphy broke down the players moved at the July 31 trade deadline delivering the best results for their new clubs, and he placed Finnegan at the No. 6 spot.

"The top bullpen arms traded at the Deadline -- Mason Miller, Jhoan Duran, Tyler Rogers -- have been stellar," Murphy noted. "Finnegan, however, has been spotless. After registering a 4.38 ERA across 39 innings with the Nationals, Finnegan has thrown 13 1/3 scoreless innings with Detroit. That has included three hits, three walks, 18 strikeouts and four saves in as many chances."

Finnegan just continues to deliver for the Tigers, and while it's unreasonable to expect him to continue to remain at this exact level, it's clear that the move from Washington to Detroit has helped him to unlock new facets of his game.

His strikeout rate has spiked massively, going from 7.4 punchouts per nine innings with the Nationals to 12.2 per nine as a Tiger. The best way to prevent runs is to allow as few opponents to even put the ball in play at all as possible, and Finnegan is now better at that than ever.

He's also proven that he can fit seamlessly into Detroit's pitching philosophy. While he was a traditional closer in Washington, Hinch has been aggressive in deploying Finnegan in the highest-leverage situations he can find, whether that comes in the ninth inning or not.

In Friday night's 5-3 win over the Kansas City Royals, Finnegan got two outs in the seventh and worked a scoreless eighth inning to set the table for Will Vest to pick up his 20th save of the season in the ninth. Finnegan struck out Vinnie Pasquantino and got Salvador Perez to ground out before his one-two-three inning in the eighth made it so that Bobby Witt Jr. only came up again as the last out in the ninth in a two-run game.

Finnegan's ability to get more than three outs and work in any inning will be crucial to Hinch's plans for the postseason when convention goes out the window and the smartest teams are the ones who give themselves the most possible avenues to a victory.