Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Detroit Tigers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no disputing that Spencer Torkelson had a disappointing rookie season. Drafted first overall by the Detroit Tigers in 2020 out of Arizona State University, the 23-year-old first baseman went into last year with sky-high expectations only to finish with a 76 wRC+ and just eight home runs in 404 plate appearances. Moreover, he was demoted to Triple-A in mid-July and proceeded to put up a middling .738 OPS with the Toledo Mud Hens before returning to Motown for the final month of the campaign.

Last February, our lead prospect analyst, Eric Longenhagen, had written that “Torkelson’s bat is his ticket to the big leagues, and it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t think he’ll be a terrifying presence in the box for years to come.” Despite his abysmal debut, the potential for Torkelson to become that terrifying presence remains strong. Rejuvenated after an offseason of reflection, the confident slugger logged an impressive hard-hit rate during spring training — my colleague Davy Andrews wrote about it in late March — and he’s continued to scorch a fair number of balls in April, albeit without much to show for it; of the 12 balls he’s hit with an exit velocity of at least 98.2 mph, seven have gone for outs. Belying his slash line — a hard-luck .235/.250/.353 that seems bound to improve once squared-up balls start falling — his average exit velocity ranks in the 74th percentile, his max exit velocity in the 90th. Last Tuesday, Torkelson torched a 424-foot home run off of a 98.9-mph Ryne Stanek heater when the Tigers played in Houston.

Torkelson talked about his history as a hitter, and the keep-it-simple approach that comes with it, during spring training.

———

David Laurila: When did you learn to hit?

Spencer Torkelson: “Gosh. I learned at a pretty young age. I kind of just fell in love with hitting the ball over my backyard fence when I was two. I’d walk around asking everybody to throw to me. I’d say that my uncle and my dad had the biggest influence on my hitting. My dad always preached to use the whole field, and my uncle always preached quick hands, quick hips. I had a lot of repetitions with both of them and those things kind of clicked.” Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Vierling’s 2022 with the Phillies was a mixed bag. He started off slowly enough to merit an option to Triple-A Lehigh Valley in May before rejoining the club with a bang in June in the form of a game-winning pinch-hit home run off Josh Hader in Milwaukee. Over the rest of the regular season, he struggled to develop much of a pattern of offensive production while splitting center field duties with first Odúbel Herrera and then Brandon Marsh, and filling in in the corner outfield – and even in limited action at first, second, and third – as needed.

When all was said and done, the righty managed only a .246/.297/.351 batting line, good for a meager .285 wOBA and 81 wRC+; Vierling’s 110 wRC+ off lefties was negated by a 63 mark against same-handed pitchers. The defensive metrics don’t agree entirely, but he graded as below average – to different degrees – by DRS, UZR, and OAA. He ultimately came in at -0.1 WAR. His versatility, 97th-percentile sprint speed, success against lefties, and ability to defend more capably than Kyle Schwarber or Nick Castellanos, though, did not go unappreciated, and Vierling earned himself a spot on each of the Phillies’ postseason rosters, eventually even starting two World Series games. Read the rest of this entry »

The ribbon has been cut on the 2023 season and I wanted to push a few prospect updates live to The Board, including a few tweaks to the Top 100 list. This update also includes publication of scouting reports such that every rookie currently on an active roster now has a current record on The Board, and a few additions the farm systems I’ve already audited during this cycle based on things I saw during spring training.

Let’s start with injury-related updates to the Top 100. Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter has a partially torn UCL and is approaching the end of his four-week shutdown period. Rule of thumb: Among a similarly talented group of players, you’d most want to have the healthy guys. Painter slides from fifth overall to 12th, right behind newly minted big leaguers Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker, who are comparably talented, healthy, and making a big league impact right now. This is just a cosmetic change to the list; Painter’s evaluation hasn’t changed. If it turns out he needs Tommy John, whether or not I slide him any further will depend on its timing. If rest doesn’t work and his surgery is timed such that he also misses all of 2024, that’s the worst case scenario for Painter and the Phillies. We know for sure that Nationals pitching prospect Cade Cavalli needs Tommy John, so in a similar fashion he falls within the 50 FV player tier, sliding from 63rd overall to 99th, right next to Mason Miller of the A’s, with whom he now shares injury-related relief risk.

Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe, the third overall pick in 2021, is going to miss three to six months due to lumbar spine inflammation. This injury is more novel than a TJ, and Jobe isn’t exactly coming off a great 2022. Unfortunately, this situation merits a more meaningful shift, but I still want to reflect the upside of a healthy Jobe, so he downshifts to the 45+ FV tier, where the most talented of the young high-variance prospects reside. Assuming he comes back late this season, he’ll be one of the higher-priority evaluations in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Duffy is in camp with the Kansas City Royals on a minor-league contract, and as is common for veteran players in his situation, he has multiple opt-out clauses. Whether he ends up exercising any of them remains to be seen. The 32-year-old infielder is on the bubble with days left before the start of the regular season, and even if he doesn’t make the Opening Day roster, there is a chance that he would accept a Triple-A assignment with a call-up in mind. All Duffy knows for certain is that he wants to keep playing.

“I’ve kind of made the decision that they are going to have the rip the jersey off of me,” said Duffy, who has battled injuries throughout his seven big-league seasons. “If I were to call it a career at some point in the next five years, I would find myself saying, ‘Man, I wish I’d have played one more year.’ Life post-baseball is going to be so much longer than anything the grind can throw at me. At the end of the day, I really enjoy what this game does for me in terms of pushing me to learn something new.”

Duffy is 12-for-36 on the spring, and he can provide more-than-adequate defense at multiple positions. Assuming he can stay healthy, he can help a big-league team — be it the Royals or someone else — for the foreseeable future. Even so, he knows that the clock is ticking. While many players who are asked about their post-baseball plans deflect the question, Duffy is forthcoming on the subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, I participated in a panel at the SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix. It was a ton of fun, and I enjoyed getting a chance to nerd out about baseball with a bunch of like-minded people. The awards show wasn’t bad, either. I look forward to Michael Baumann and I making subtle references to it the rest of the year (or maybe just me; Baumann is less arrogant than I am).

The topic of my panel, where I was joined by Yahoo Sports’ Hannah Keyser and moderator Vince Gennaro, was players we love for the 2023 season. I love Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout most for the 2023 season, but more specifically, it was about players we love who aren’t widely regarded as superstars. I came prepared; I picked two hitters and two pitchers who fit the bill.

A panel isn’t the same as a presentation, and our discussion ranged widely around these and other players (Hannah loves Wander Franco and Hunter Greene, Vince loves Dylan Cease), but I thought I’d lay out my research here as well. If you’re a frequent reader, you probably already know how much I like these guys, but it never hurts to reiterate a point. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about recent WBC highlights, whether the WBC should be held more often (7:44), extensions for Corbin Carroll and Keibert Ruiz (19:50), MLB preparing to take over streaming for some teams amid the Diamond Sports bankruptcy (21:22), Trevor Bauer departing for Japan (31:17), and an Effectively Wild theme song contest (35:43), then continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Tampa Bay Rays (42:57) with Adam Berry of MLB.com, and the Detroit Tigers (1:15:04) with Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic, plus a Past Blast from 1980 (1:53:29) and trivia answers (1:57:34).

Audio intro: Jaquan Grant, “Baseball Rich”
Audio interstitial 1: David Lawrence, “I Wander On”
Audio interstitial 2: Camden, “You Little Tiger”
Audio outro: Gilles Cardoni, “Super 80”

Link to Puerto Rico “perfect game”
Link to Mitch Bratt story
Link to Meneses homers
Link to Zach Buchanan on Meneses
Link to Ohtani homer
Link to Ohtani strikeout
Link to story on Satoria
Link to Satoria interview
Link to Pool A tiebreak story
Link to “change my mind” meme
Link to Caribbean Series wiki
Link to Baseball World Cup wiki
Link to MLBTR on Carroll
Link to Buchanan on Carroll
Link to tweet about Carroll
Link to MLBTR on Ruiz
Link to story on Diamond and MLB
Link to MLBTR on Bauer
Link to Jim Allen on Bauer
Link to story about P-G strike
Link to union info about strike
Link to strike fund
Link to FanGraphs playoff odds
Link to FG payroll breakdown
Link to Rays offseason tracker
Link to Rays depth chart
Link to Emma B. on Brady Williams
Link to Adam’s spring preview
Link to Adam’s author archive
Link to Tigers offseason tracker
Link to Tigers depth chart
Link to Dan S. on breakout hitters
Link to Cody’s spring preview
Link to Cody on Comerica dimensions
Link to Cody on Maton
Link to Cody on injury prevention
Link to Cody on Turnbull
Link to Cody’s author archive
Link to Cody’s Tigers podcast
Link to 1980 article source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter
Link to Damon on the Bananas
Link to MLBTR on Diamond
Link to EW episode on sharting
Link to Hernández tweet
Link to Shane McKeon’s Twitter
Link to Shane’s website

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We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:

First, the bad news. Kelenic and Adell were both just awful, and I would definitely call 2022 a giant miss for both players as they enter their post-prospect period. I suspect there’s more hope to still be had for Kelenic than Adell, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself prescient about either. Kepler’s breakout didn’t happen at all, and his power all but disappeared. Anderson I’ll call an incomplete because of injury, and while Higashioka did match his entire previous career in WAR, that was largely due to defense, which I can hardly claim credit for predicting. Hiura did hit far better than he had recently, but he also didn’t exactly get a ton of playing time with the Brewers, who appeared to have lost interest in him. There were a few triumphs, however: Kwan and Lux both had excellent seasons, especially the former. Read the rest of this entry »

Alejandro Kirk slashed a solid .285/.372/.415 with 14 home runs and a 129 wRC+ last year in his first full big-league season. Moreover, the 24-year-old Toronto Blue Jays catcher drew 63 free passes while going down by way of the K just 58 times. His 10.7% strikeout rate was third best in the junior circuit, behind only Steven Kwan’s 9.4% and Luis Arraez’s 7.1%.

How similar of a hitter is Kirk to Arraez? I asked that question to Blue Jays manager John Schneider prior to Thursday’s game in Dunedin.

“When you talk about contact, not a lot of swing-and-miss, yeah, they’re similar,” replied Schneider. “There’s a little more damage potential with Kirky. But more walks than strikeouts is tough to do at any level, [especially] the big leagues. So, I think when it’s just strike zone command, on-base, and contact-ability, they are pretty similar.”

Arraez, now a member of the Miami Marlins, won the American League batting title with the Minnesota Twins while slashing .316/.375/.420 with eight home runs and a 131 wRC+. Following up on my initial question, I asked Schneider if Kirk has the potential to capture a title of his own. Read the rest of this entry »

Colt Keith started to tap into his power last year. After going deep just twice in 2021 — his first professional season — the 21-year-old third baseman homered nine times in 48 games with High-A West Michigan before landing on the injured list with a dislocated shoulder in early June. Returning to action in October, Keith proceeded to hit three bombs in 19 Arizona Fall League games.

The increased power production by one of the top position-player prospects in the Detroit Tigers organization was by design.

“I changed my approach a little bit,” Keith told me during his stint in the AFL. “I started trying to hit balls out in front, and backspin them to all fields, looking for a little bit more power. A lot of people had told me I just needed to keep doing what I was doing, but looking at guys in the big leagues that I want to play like, they’re hitting 25-30 homers a year. I felt like I needed to move in that direction. At the same time, I want to keep my hit tool. Batting .300 with some home runs is what I’d like to do.”

That is what he did this past season. The 6-foot-3, 238-pound infielder — Keith has added meaningful size and strength since entering pro ball — augmented his regular-season round-trippers with a .301/.370/.544 slash line. In 2021, he’d slashed .320/.437/.422 with Low-A Lakeland before scuffling over the final month as a 19-year-old in the Midwest League. Read the rest of this entry »