Who is Most to Blame For Tigers Absurd Potential AL Central Collapse?

Harris had himself a team with the best record in the American League for a significant majority of the first half of the year, but it was apparent to anyone who watched that they needed real help.

While he certainly deserves flowers for the Kyle Finnegan acquisition, it's tough to argue that any of the other moves have made a positive impact here down the stretch.

This fact was punctuated by the weekend DFA of aging veteran Charlie Morton, who they acquired at the last second of the deadline. To make that move look even worse, they parted ways with now Washington Nationals breakout star PJ Poulin to create a spot for Morton.

Getting rid of Morton is just the latest sign of the failure that was the end of July for Harris.

Paul Sewald has been a disaster over his first two appearances with the team, and while Rafael Montero has not been bad, Chris Paddack certainly was before Detroit moved him to the bullpen.

The larger issue, though, is the complete lack of moves for a lineup for which a second-half regression was extremely predictable.

Tigers Offense Has Been Second Half Disaster

In the first half of the season, numerous guys were having career seasons, including the resurgence from Javier Baez as well as the sudden breakout for Zach McKinstry.

Rather than adding to that lineup with more pieces at the deadline, Harris did not plan for the regression, and it looks like the team is going to pay as a result.

Since the All-Star break, Detroit is 20th in baseball both in runs scored and team OPS, even ranking outside the top-20 in terms of hits. Without the kind of pitching needed to carry a bad offense, it's not much of a wonder why things have been so bad in the win-loss column.

Whether or not Harris could have added a difference-making bat without giving up top prospects cannot be known, but as the Tigers continue to struggle and at times look completely helpless, it's hard to understand why he for the most part stood pat at the deadline.

If Detroit really does finish off this collapse, Harris is going to have some extremely difficult questions to answer, not only to just the fans and media, but also to his methodology in building a winning roster.

The Tigers will have six more chances this week to prove his strategy correct, but time is running out.