The unofficial start of the Detroit Tigers' rebuild has long been seen as the trade deadline in 2017, when the team began to clean house.
That's when they sent away stars like Justin Verlander and J.D. Martinez as well as other key pieces in Justin Upton, Justin Wilson and Alex Avila.
But looking back, the rebuild truly began on this day seven years ago, when Al Avila was named as the new general manager, taking over for his long-time boss, Dave Dombrowski.
The Tigers, who had one of the top five payrolls to open the season every year between 2008-17 (with the exception of 2011 when they were 10th), were no longer going to be spending at that level.