All winter, it’s been pretty clear that the Tigers needed another outfielder, and with an apparently soft market for Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton, it seemed perfectly logical for the Tigers to jump in and make a play for one of the better remaining players on the market. After all, this is a win-now team that threw $110 million at a good-not-great starter at the start of the off-season, and has a core of quality players who aren’t getting any younger; leaving a gaping hole in the outfield for the sake of cost effectiveness, at this point, was a strange proposition.

Apparently the Tigers now agree, and look like they’re going to be the landing spot for Justin Upton.

Sources: Upton six-year deal with #Tigers expected to be in $125M range. Agreed upon in principal, per @BNightengale.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 19, 2016

The crowd projected Upton for 6/$120M before the off-season, while I came in at 7/$140M, so the price seems right in line with what was presumed to be reasonable before the market looked to have softened. Given that Chris Davis and Ian Kennedy — also presumed to be dealing with little leverage — also landed larger than expected contracts in recent days, it may be time to stop assuming that the remaining free agents are going to have to take big discounts to get a long-term deal at this point. There’s clearly still plenty of money hanging around.

For the Tigers, Upton is a significant upgrade, even though he’s also more of a good player than a great one. If he can retain some of his non-offensive value as he ages, this contract should turn out okay for Detroit. It’s not any kind of steal, but it’s a good player at a reasonable price for a team that needed win-now production and probably shouldn’t be too concerned with their long-term future. The inevitable crash is coming to Detroit in a few years, and at this point, the only question is if they can get a title out of this roster before it happens. Adding Justin Upton to the 2016 roster makes that more likely.