No, I'm being serious: who said no one who's any good would ever want to sign with the Tigers ever again? Because that wasn't me. I made a qualified statement that no one want to sign with a team with a recent-memory history of blowing it up and tanking, which is definitely true, and which applied to us.
We did break a seal with Valdez, but he was also a distressed asset who, apparently, had to make a choice between us and the Pirates, which is a no-brainer for roughly ten out of ten players. However, breaking that seal, and then signing Verlander, was pretty important and, assuming we make the playoffs again and perhaps go even deeper, should help during the next normal offseason.