When do you know your rebuild didn't work?
For former Tigers general manager Al Avila, the answer to that came last Wednesday, when Detroit announced his firing, ending his 22-year career working for the franchise in various roles.
The news was hardly surprising, given the circumstances. Last season, after a four-year stretch in which Detroit lost nearly 100 games for every 162 it played, the Tigers climbed to 77 wins. Thanks to high draft picks during the lean years, they had amassed a trio of highly-ranked pitching prospects already in the majors (Casey Mize, Matt Manning, Tarik Skubal) and two of the game's highest-rated hitting prospects ready to join them (Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene).