Skubal was never our biggest "need," nor is BP help.
BUT... in lieu of another bat, you take a strength and make it overwhelming. The Dodgers could have beaten us with a mediocre offense last year... and they had Betts, Ohtani, Freeman, Smith, Muncy... now the best player on the team we played in the NLDS.
As for the REAL Sproat, I am as bullish as anyone. I've said I'd rather trade Henderson and... understandably whoever it was that replied to me said they didn't even think it was close. One has struggled while the other has been remarkably consistent... and consistently good.
But I don't think you can count on any true consistently dominant version of Sproat. I'd be more than happy for him to step into the Chad Patrick role and just give us a dominant pen(when he's on, or because he only has to pitch to 3-6 batters.
Skubal/Misiorowski/Harrison/Woodruff->Ashby->Sproat->Uribe->Megill. That's more than we need, but that's a helluva formula in the post-season and probably more than we need. But that would be an ideal setup.
End of the day, it's going to come down to our core. We cannot win if Turang, Contreras, Yelich, Chourio, Vauhgn, Bauers... and Frelick are all contributing(I'm a bit reticent to add Mitchell, as I don't trust him, but he's been getting it done).
I just don't see who will be available you could slide in there. Taylor Ward?
He'll likely be more expensive than he should be....
.283/.364/.464 and .827 OPS vs LHP
You play matchup's perhaps?
It's difficult as I think this team is REALLY good, but they're lacking and the two most obvious area's we need to improve, SS/3B.. we have so many players on their way up... it's hard to trade for a position where you have 7-8 prospects either up or in the pipeline and there's really no other position where there's a substantial upgrade.
So, again, we're back to making a strength and overwhelmingly dominant strength... not that I'd pay, I don't even know if the Tigers trade him, the logic though, that's easy enough to understand.