"It is really tough to decide who you need to protect and who you don't," president of baseball operations Scott Harris said in mid-October. "The short answer is, I don't know yet, but we're going to spend a lot of time on it.

"However, I don’t think it would be wise for the Tigers to move on from him quite yet. His value is as low as it has ever been in his young career as of this moment. On top of that, the first base free agency market could be a tough place to bank on for landing value.