This story was excerpted from Jason Beck¡¯s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The Tigers defied expectations last year by going on a late-season run to the playoffs after dealing away many of their veterans at the Trade Deadline. But with Jack Flaherty¡¯s pending return on a two-year, $35 million contract agreement, they¡¯re about to do another rarity: Bring back a player as a free agent after trading him away at the previous Deadline.

Just over six months after the Tigers traded Flaherty to the Dodgers for shortstop prospect Trey Sweeney and catching prospect Thayron Liranzo, Flaherty is on his way back. It¡¯s the type of turnaround that doesn¡¯t happen often. Perhaps most famously, the A¡¯s traded Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson to Toronto at the 1993 Deadline, then signed him back as a free agent five months later after he helped the Jays to their second straight World Series title.

If Flaherty can help the Tigers return to the postseason after they got there without him last year, he could be a legend. Here are some memorable Tigers reunions, though not quite so soon as Flaherty:

OF Kirk Gibson (free agent 1988, returned 1993)
Gibson, a key part of the Tigers¡¯ dominance in the 1980s and a 1984 World Series hero, left with acrimony after then-owner Tom Monaghan called him ¡°a disgrace to the Tigers uniform¡± and said the team would be better off without him. Gibson won National League MVP honors and a World Series title with the Dodgers in 1988, including a walk-off home run off Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the Fall Classic. Mike Ilitch, who bought the Tigers in 1992, brought Gibson back as a free agent in 1993. Gibson played three more years in Detroit, with 23 home runs in his age-37 season in 1994. He earned the fan vote for an outfield spot on the Tigers¡¯ all-time team in 1999.

C Brad Ausmus/LHP C.J. Nitkowski (traded 1996, traded back in 1999)
The Tigers and Astros were frequent trade partners in the late 1990s, when Randy Smith was Detroit¡¯s general manager and his father, Tal Smith, was Houston¡¯s president of baseball operations. Ausmus, who was traded from San Diego to Detroit in the summer of 1996, was flipped six months later with Nitkowski, who had been acquired from Cincinnati a year earlier. The nine-player deal brought Todd Jones, Brian Hunter and Doug Brocail to Detroit. Just over two years later, Randy Smith brought Ausmus and Nitkowski back in a seven-player trade, only to send Ausmus and Brocail back to Houston in a six-player trade after the 2000 season.

RHP Jose Lima (traded 1996, traded back in 2001)
Also on the Detroit-Houston shuttle was Lima, a former Tigers prospect who had two rough seasons in Detroit before going to the Astros with Ausmus and Nitkowski in 1996. Lima became an All-Star in Houston but struggled after the Astros moved into hitter-friendly Enron Field. Randy Smith brought him back to Detroit in a midseason trade in 2001 in hopes a move to spacious Comerica Park could resuscitate his career. It didn¡¯t go as hoped, but between his personality and his ups and downs, it wasn¡¯t boring. His last two outings as a Tiger in 2002 included seven innings of one-run ball against the Mariners, followed five days later by 11 runs over 2 2/3 innings against the A¡¯s.

RHP Todd Jones (traded 2001, returned 2006)
Jones racked up 142 saves over 4 1/2 seasons in his first Detroit stint but was supplanted at closer by Matt Anderson before going to the Twins at the 2001 Trade Deadline. When Dave Dombrowski wanted a veteran closer for 2006, he passed up higher-profile free agents for Jones, who became a stabilizing force for hard-throwing youngsters Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney. Jones saved 93 regular-season games and four in the postseason in his second Tigers stint before retiring in 2008.

C Alex Avila (free agent 2016, returned 2017)
Avila blossomed from a fifth-round Draft pick into an All-Star and became Detroit¡¯s primary catcher for its run of four consecutive AL Central titles. He left as a free agent to make way for James McCann in Detroit. But after a year with the White Sox in 2016, Avila returned to platoon with McCann and turned in a 2.1 bWAR before his dad, Al Avila -- by then the Tigers¡¯ GM -- traded him to the Cubs for then-prospect Isaac Paredes.

Honorable mention
? RHP Dan Petry (traded 1987, returned 1990)
? 2B/SS Omar Infante (traded 2007, traded back 2012)
? INF Ramon Santiago (traded in 2004, returned 2006)