Detroit Tigers Top 39 Prospects

Jobe was the consensus top high school arm in the 2021 draft and earned a bonus of nearly $7 million as the third overall pick. He had a somewhat rocky first full season in pro ball and his velocity was down a bit compared to his peak pre-draft look. Hitters seemed unfazed by Jobe’s trademark curveball despite its elite spin and huge depth. He struggled to throw strikes and the visual quality of his stuff regressed. Then Jobe was put on the IL to start 2023, and missed two and a half months recovering from lumbar spine inflammation. When Jobe returned in mid-June, he did so with a vengeance; he tallied 103 strikeouts and just 11 walks in 79.2 IP (including his Fall League stint), and his fastball often touched 98-99. The first half of Jobe’s 2024 season was interrupted by a hamstring strain, but he returned in June and by the end of July had stretched back out to six inning per start while holding his peak stuff. He debuted in Detroit’s bullpen late in the season.

Jobe scrapped his curveball in 2023 (more on that in a second) and now utilizes a firm 87-92 mph cutter and a low-80s sweeper (averaging 3,000 rpm), while also having upped his changeup usage considerably. Neither of Jobe’s new breaking balls has consistent quality of finish just yet; both are a little better than average. His changeup is his nastiest and most reliable secondary pitch right now, as Jobe uses it against both lefties and righties and leans on it when he falls behind. The changes he’s made in response to the ineffectiveness of his 2022 breaking ball made Jobe a more complete pitcher, but the cement isn’t totally dry here. A few days before Top 100 publication, The Detroit Free Press reported that Jobe was going to reintegrate a curveball and add a sinker to his repertoire in 2025. He’s thrown a handful of them in Grapefruit League action leading up to Tigers list publication, and the pitch looks good; it’s 82-84 mph with plus depth and bite, and it has utility as a back door and back foot pitch to lefties, as well as your usual righty chase. Jobe was also sitting 98 out the gate in 2025. Will we see this kind of velocity from him across 120-140 innings? We didn’t quite get to know the answer to the workload question in 2024 because of his IL stint, but at the end of the season he looked healthy, nasty, and, from a craftsmanship standpoint, fairly ready to pitch in the big leagues. He is arguably the top pitching prospect in baseball behind Roki Sasaki if you value Jobe’s proximity and stability relative to Andrew Painter’s upside.

Clark was a well-known, top-of-his-class high schooler several years before he was draft eligible because of his consistent, superlative performance in travel ball tournaments. He entered pro ball as a dynamic, old school leadoff hitter prospect, and so far that’s exactly what he looks like. Clark spent most of his first full pro season at Low-A Lakeland and was promoted to High-A West Michigan for the final month and a half of 2024. In 107 combined games, he slashed .279/.372/.421 and tallied 36 extra-base hits and 29 steals in 33 attempts.

Clark’s lightning-quick hitting hands are best at snatching pitches around the top of the strike zone. He slices and hooks lots of hard, low-lying contact from line to line, then uses his speed to take extra bases. His swing doesn’t feature big lift, and Clark lacks overt, frame-based power projection, but the amount of contact he makes and its quality should enable him to hit for plenty of in-game power in pro ball — it will just likely manifest as 40 or 50 doubles rather than 30-plus home runs.

Clark still has some developing to do in center field. He easily has the speed to play the position well, but he often looks uncomfortable at the catch point. None of Clark’s underlying data is particularly nutty when compared to big league averages, but it’s impressive across the board for an up-the-middle player his age. He’s still tracking like a traditional leadoff-hitting center fielder with a well-rounded game.

Liranzo is a huge-framed, power-hitting catching prospect with several very raw attributes. He was part of the Dodgers’ Wilman Diaz/Rayne Doncon/Josue De Paula position player group on the complex and in Rancho Cucamonga, where Liranzo hit 24 bombs in 2023. Promoted to the High-A Midwest League in 2024, Liranzo struggled early in the season, as many hitters in that league do when they shift from training in Arizona to playing in 40 degree weather in Michigan; he hit .159 in April but slashed .262/.399/.424 the rest of the year. He was traded to Detroit as part of the Jack Flaherty deadline swap, went on a torrid run after the deal, and then continued to rake in the Arizona Fall League.

Liranzo is what I’d call a Michael Myers Prospect: slow-moving but inevitable. He’s raw enough that as he enters 2025, his 40-man platform year, he’s probably still a couple of seasons away from reaching the big leagues, and will need a few more after that to hit his ceiling. Chief among Liranzo’s developmental imperatives are his ball-blocking and throwing accuracy. When he has a clean exchange, Liranzo’s arm is lethal. He has uncommon athleticism for a guy his size and is capable of firing rockets from his knees or from funky arm angles, à la Patrick Bailey, with some pop times hovering around 1.80 seconds late in the 2024 season. So why has Liranzo allowed stolen bases at an 85% clip the last two years? He too often fumbles his exchange and can’t even get a throw off, or has the carry on his throw impacted by having a poor grip on the baseball. His stone-handed issues are evident when he tries to pick short hops, too, though Liranzo began receiving on one knee in 2024 and is learning how to use his size as a ball-blocking barrier from this body position. The physical tools to not only be a viable catcher, but a very good one, are here, and Liranzo is built like a lot of other late-blooming catchers whose size tends to win the war of attrition they’re all constantly fighting.

We can be hopeful that Liranzo will make similar progress on offense. He already has plus power from both sides of the plate at age 21 and will probably have another grade of it at his peak. He isn’t a skilled hitter — Liranzo’s swing is grooved and he’s looking to run into mistakes that find the very middle of the zone — but he is very dangerous from both sides of the plate if he gets one. Again, we must remember this scouting axiom: Switch-hitters tend to develop late, as they have two swings they need to get a feel for. There’s evidence this has been happening for Liranzo. His contact rates improved four percentage points (both overall and in the strike zone) in 2024 compared to 2023, though at 69% and 77%, respectively, both marks would rank near the bottom of the primary catcher population. The natural launch in Liranzo’s best swings combined with his ability to mis-hit contact with enough strength to produce whoopsie doubles should allow him to get to power even though he’s going to strike out a ton. Projected as a flawed-but-good primary catcher overall, Liranzo should have some peak power-hitting seasons that make him an All-Star.

Briceño had a monster 2023 spent mostly on the Lakeland complex, slashing .319/.402/.529 with seven homers. He was among this system’s hard-hit leaders at a whopping 42%, one of the few lower-level hitters consistently hitting the ball 95-plus mph that year. He missed most of 2024 due to a strained PCL suffered in mid-May that kept him out until the end of August. He was only able to amass 176 regular season plate appearances and hit .278/.381/.377 (but repeated the 42% hard-hit rate), then Briceño went to the Arizona Fall League and won the League MVP with an absurd .433/.509/.867 line and 10 homers in 25 games.

Briceño has plus pull power and has now had consecutive years with strikeout rates around 14.5%. His power can be neutered if pitchers execute to the outer third of the zone, but Briceño is capable of going the other way to produce singles and doubles. Briceño didn’t catch at all after his knee injury, but he looked pretty good back here before he got hurt, much better than the year before. He does everything fairly well — receiving around the edge of the zone, ball-blocking, throwing — and has improved pretty quickly for such a big, young catcher. He should return to catching in 2025 and projects as an average defender at peak based on his early-2024 look. Another positive development here is Briceño’s conditioning. He looked much more lithe and limber in Arizona, and seemed to have cut weight without sacrificing power. Whereas Briceño looked maxed out in 2023, he suddenly has positive physical projection. It’s rare for players who miss half the season or more with injury to have also had an overwhelmingly positive year, but that’s the case for Briceño, who looks like a future primary catcher.

Ranked 19th on the 2023 Draft Board, McGonigle was arguably the high school player from that class with the highest floor because of his middle infield fit and contact ability. McGonigle’s stocky build capped his power projection and, theoretically, his ceiling, but his early-career contact performance has been special enough that he might become an impact player, even with modest raw pop.

McGonigle missed the beginning of the 2024 season due to a hamstring injury and the end of it due to a broken hamate. In between (60 games at Low-A Lakeland and 14 at High-A West Michigan), he slashed a fantastic .309/.401/.452 with more walks than strikeouts and 22 stolen in 24 attempts. His more granular data, albeit in a relatively small sample, was sensational, as McGonigle posted an 88% contact rate and 41% hard-hit rate. There aren’t any big league hitters with marks that high in both categories, which, though impressive, is also an indication it’s probably not sustainable. Regardless, McGonigle’s short levers and terrific barrel feel, especially at the top of the strike zone, is real. He’s incredibly hard to beat, even when he expands the zone (which he does much more often with two strikes). McGonigle’s hard-hit rate comes more from contact consistency than big raw power. He has below-average raw and, at a maxed-out 5-foot-10, is unlikely to grow into a ton more. But his early count selectivity, and his ability to impact the ball with lift at the top of the zone, should still allow him to get to an okay amount of power for a shortstop.

McGonigle’s hands weren’t as crisp in 2024 as usual, but he still has enough arm for short, a well-calibrated internal clock, and great actions around the bag. He’s a low-variance everyday middle infielder tracking for a late-2027 debut.

Melton was one of the youngest college prospects in the 2021 draft as well as a plus on-mound athlete, so when he had a really rough season with an ERA just over 6.00, it was easier to swallow a return to San Diego State. In his fourth year as an Aztec, Melton reworked his arm action and climbed into the fourth round of the 2022 draft.

Melton and the Tigers have continued to make substantial alterations to his stuff, and he has had both bat-missing and strike-throwing success up through Double-A. In 2024, he generated six feet, 10 inches of extension and was sitting 95-97 mph with plus vertical movement from a low release height across 100.2 innings of work. Melton has added roughly five ticks of velocity to his breaking ball since college, and his splinker-style changeup (often mis-classified by automatic pitch tagging) generated plus chase and miss.

Melton is a strapping 6-foot-4, he throws strikes, and he has two plus pitches and several late-bloomer traits. He was young for his graduating class, was mostly a catcher in high school, missed a season due to the pandemic, and now has a fairly new delivery and breaking ball. He was homer-prone in 2024 (20% HR/FB rate), which is a big part of why he carried an elevated ERA, but that’s an unsustainably high rate. Melton was also shut down with a shoulder impingement at the very end of the 2024 season, but he was hitting 98 in a bullpen just before Top 100 publication and seems fine. He’s on pace to debut at some point late in 2025 and compete for a more permanent spot in the middle of Detroit’s stacked rotation in 2026.

Rainer pitched and played all over the field with high school Team USA, and he was generally seen as pitching prospect until things began to shift in the fall and winter of 2023, when he was suddenly hitting for big power against good varsity prep pitching. He reinforced notions that he had ascended into the middle of the first round as a hitter at 2024 NHSI, and moved up to 10th on the FanGraphs Draft Board. He was drafted 11th overall and got $5.8 million to sign, but he didn’t play after the draft.

Rainer has a huge arm, which he showed off at various positions with Team USA (including first base), and this roaming is probably part of why it took him longer to really break out. Rainer sits in the mid-90s on the mound, and has a 70-grade infield arm and an 80-grade arm when he crow hops throws from the outfield. As he’s gotten stronger, Rainer has gotten faster, and he still has the footspeed to play short even as he’s grown into meaningful power. Rainer’s low-ball swing is vulnerable to velocity up and away from him in a significant way, and he had a sub-70% contact rate on the showcase circuit in a nearly 500-pitch sample. He shows very little barrel variability, though he can alter the timing of his footwork to match the pitch type, and his swing has natural loft. He was a Top 100 exclusion as we wait to see how he handles pro-quality pitching. Lefty-hitting shortstops with power like Rainer is likely to have are rare, and he has the upside of an impact, All-Star-level player if it turns out he can actually hit.

The 20th overall pick in 2021, Sweeney adjusted to pro ball pretty quickly despite his small school pedigree. He reached Double-A during his first full season, and was sent to the Dodgers for Victor González and Jorbit Vivas the following year. Then in 2024, he was traded to Detroit as part of the Jack Flaherty deal and made his debut in mid-August. He’s a career .254/.356/.435 hitter in the minors. Sweeney’s carrying tools are his rare raw power and bat speed for a lefty-hitting shortstop. He posted a 46% hard-hit rate and a 105.4 mph EV90 in 2024, both comfortably above the average of a big league shortstop. But Sweeney has never quite been able to access all of his power in games because of the downhill nature of his swing, which also causes him to swing over top of a lot of breaking balls, and because he lacks great feel for flush contact. His chase rate also really popped during his 36-game big league sample at the end of 2024, though that has not tended to be an issue for him historically.

On defense, Sweeney is a bit slower and heavier-footed than the typical big league shortstop. He does enough to be playable there, but he’s definitely below average. Some of the sweet looking plays he makes at the very extremes of his range an average big league shortstop would make look more routine. Sweeney is built like Josh Jung, and it’s rare for an athlete that size to be an impact shortstop glove. He’s got a second-division regular’s look.

Over 30 years after Mickey Tettleton played his last game for the Tigers, they’ve finally addressed their lack of a power-over-hit type who tilts his barrel toward the backstop and offers above-average left-handed thump. Jung made his major league debut last August, two years after a dominant run at Texas Tech made him a top-15 overall pick – and five years after his older brother Josh did the same. Jung’s big league arrival came in spite of a June wrist injury that eventually required offseason surgery, and while he posted his typical walks-and-pop shaped batting line at Triple-A (.257/.377/.454), he underperformed against same-handed velocity and saw his power production ebb after hitting 28 homers in 2023.

Jung’s unique setup and steeply vertical bat angle betray his choice of launch over contact, and his uppercut whip of a swing reinforces those expectations, producing plus exit velocities and fly ball rates in the 40s throughout his time in the minors. The majority of Jung’s hard contact comes on pitches middle-away, but he can turn-and-burn on inner half heaters regularly enough to remain a threat across the zone. While Jung’s power didn’t show up in his first 94 plate appearances in Detroit and he struck out at a 30.9% clip, a peek under the hood reveals that he makes a below-average but not cripplingly low amounts of in-zone contact, and he rarely expands the width of the strike zone while running deep counts.

While Jung doesn’t have the height of the prototypical corner masher, he certainly moves like one. A shift to third base last season helped hide his well-below-average foot speed, but he’ll make less use of Comerica’s Park ample foul territory than others might. Rather than flash much lateral range, Jung’s best plays see him charging in, as he typically takes several steps toward first to make his below-average arm strength play across the diamond. There’s enough power, patience, and serviceable glovework here for Jung to be the bat-first strong side of a third base platoon right now, but his bid to be an everyday regular might not survive if he slides any further down the defensive spectrum.

Hamm had an incredible first pro season for a small school starter, as he carved up the Midwest League to the tune of a 2.64 ERA. He struck out 122 and posted a 1.05 WHIP in 99 innings, though he tended to work only about four frames per start. It was a gentle increase from the 91.2 innings he threw the season before combined between Middle Tennessee and his post-draft pro spurt.

Hamm throws strikes with four different pitches but arguably still has some relief risk due to the nature of his delivery, which features a ton of trunk tilt, an atypical look for a workhorse starter. He shares bodily and mechanical characteristics with former Twins prospect, and current Tiger, Jordan Balazovic 발라조빅. The aspect of Hamm’s game that stands out immediately is the vertical movement on his fastball. This is a 20-inch induced vertical break guy, though when you adjust for Hamm’s release height (higher releases generate more IVB, and Hamm’s is six-and-a-half feet) he’s not generating elite ride, but he is deceptive and creates really tough angle on this pitch. More impactful is the way Hamm’s release allows his curveball to tunnel with his heater. The two are almost indistinguishable from one another on most of their flight paths, before Hamm’s low-80s curve suddenly descends into the zone or beneath it. Hamm’s curveball generated a 43% miss rate in 2024, one of the better whiff-inducing curveballs in the minors last year. Off of that he’ll show you a changeup and a slider/cutter with distinct lateral shape; both of these pitches live in the mid-80s and are about average.

Though Hamm’s stuff probably won’t overwhelm big league hitters, he throws strikes, he has a deep repertoire, he’s deceptive, and he has now sustained success across about 100 innings for two years in a row. He has more of a multi-inning relief look mechanically, but in all other ways, he’s tracking like a stable no. 4/5 starter.

A prototypical high school pitching prospect, Hall ranked 32nd on the 2024 Draft Board due largely to his projectable build and breaking ball quality. It only took a modest $1.75 million to sign him away from a Vanderbilt commitment.

Hall is a skinny 6-foot-3 righty with a condor’s wingspan whose fastball velocity was pretty variable during pre-draft looks; he was up to 97 the summer before his draft year but sat 92-94 at times. He works with a high-three-quarters arm slot, but a more vertical hand position on release creates playable riding action on his heater despite its downhill plane. Hall also hides the ball well; his arm action is efficient and should become more consistent as he matures and improves his release consistency. Though Hall often struggles to finish his breaking balls below the zone, both pitches — an upper-70s curve and a low-80s slider — have aesthetically pleasing shape and depth and could be plus if they’re thrown harder as Hall’s frame fills out. We also have optimism surrounding Hall’s changeup projection because of his arm speed and action. Hall is a high-variance project with mid-rotation ceiling. His FV is a shade higher than most prep pitchers who get shy of $2 million.

Perhaps the most physically impressive prospect in the 2025 international class, Rodriguez is built like a young Larry Fitzgerald and signed with the Tigers for a little more than $3 million. He became enormously strong over the year or so leading up to the 2025 signing day, and he puts on quite a show during BP. Rodriguez has plus power right now and is very likely grow into even more as he keeps filling out. His is a turbo-charged right field profile with enormous power and arm strength, akin to a high school player who would go in the mid-to-late first round of any given draft. His hit tool and contact ability garner mixed reviews from scouts, as his lever length and opposite-field tendency might be an issue against pro velo. A corner-only fit on defense combined with hit tool risk creates a low floor for the profile, but 30-plus homer upside exists if Rodriguez can actually hit. Tigers fans have heard this refrain before, as many of their recent high-profile signees are K-prone corner guys, but while Rodriguez shares this sort of risk, he has a different level of physical projection than the others.

Acquired from Minnesota for Michael Fulmer, Gipson-Long has carved out a place on Detroit’s 40-man roster and appeared poised to play either a spot start or long relief role in 2024 after making his debut in 2023. Instead, he had a groin issue, and then in his first rehab start from the groin, he blew out his elbow; he had TJ last April and hip surgery last July. He’ll begin the season on the 60-day IL but should contribute to the big league club throughout 2025, with Detroit’s starter depth perhaps making it more likely that SGL ends up in the bullpen, at least initially.

Both Gipson-Long’s changeup and slider are comfortably plus pitches, and they actually played a little better than that when he was last healthy. His changeup has ridiculous trapdoor action that allows it to work as a bat-misser against hitters of either handedness, and his cross-bodied delivery and low-three-quarters arm stroke makes his slider a nightmare for righties. There was a long stretch where Gipson-Long was only walking about 5% of opposing batters. On paper, that looks like high-end command, but the eyeball scouting report doesn’t corroborate that, especially toward the end of 2023. Gipson-Long bullies hitters in the zone, but he doesn’t have surgical touch-and-feel command, especially of his fastball. Hitters who struggle with low-slot righties aside, Gipson-Long’s fastball is fairly hittable, especially once opponents get a feel for his delivery, and he has been rather homer-prone, especially since joining the Tigers org. This is why he might be best suited for long relief, where he can lean even more heavily on his secondary pitches and elevate his fastball. It means he’ll be a less efficient strike-thrower, but that’s fine in relief. Make no mistake, if SGL can return to full health, he is going to be an impact arm of some kind — his secondary stuff is too good for him not to be. Even in the bullpen, he warrants a pretty big FV grade here.

In the three full seasons since the Phillies signed him out of Taiwan for $570,000, the fire hydrant-shaped Lee has yet to play 100 games in a season, and the lumbar spine issue that ended his breakout 2024 campaign in mid-August has echoes of the significant lower back injury that the 22-year-old dealt with in high school. Before that specter descended upon him, Lee torched Double-A pitching to the tune of a .298/.363/.488 batting line, and he isn’t allergic to hustle doubles or action on the basepaths (16 of 17 on steals) despite 40-grade run times. The footspeed is a hindrance to projecting him as a league average defender at the keystone, but Lee’s arm is strong enough to finish the plays at the end of his range, which has also enabled him to dabble at third base during his time in big league camp this spring.

While he murdered sliders last year, more intriguing than the surface-level results were the signs that Lee had started to address his anemic 2023 performance against velocity, which drove the more bearish earlier projections for him here. Despite having the bat speed to post plus exit velocities, a particular skill for avoiding expanding the zone, and a shorter stride with two strikes, the way Lee’s hips aggressively pull open to the third base side has produced unusual batted ball results for a short guy regularly taking big hacks at fastballs all over the zone. Lee has steadily opened his stance over the past year, which has made for a less extreme journey to a similar landing spot, but he’s still missing heaters at an average rate and he hasn’t even been exposed to a lot of big league-caliber velocity and action yet. Even with the improvements, it’s still a relatively rare sight to see Lee drive velocity in the air to the pull side, and a lot of inside-out swings stand in the way of him putting as many balls over the fence as a 104 mph 90th-percentile exit velocity would suggest he should.

Middle infielders who mash in the Eastern League in their age-21 season get lots of attention for a reason, but Lee’s swing path prompts questions about his outer-half plate coverage against well-commanded velocity, and his glove won’t make him more than a reserve infielder with thump until he answers them.

Mattison had a breakout 2023, as he added two and a half ticks to his fastball and was sitting 94-96 mph rather than just peaking in that range. Mattison’s fastball has always punched above its weight because of its carry and his deceptive delivery, but now it’s also fast, giving him three bat-missing offerings. Mattison also has a vertical curveball that sometimes has some arm-side movement, which makes it a weapon against both lefties and righties. He still only uses his tailing mid-80s changeup occasionally, but that pitch had an absurd miss rate against lefties in 2023, north of 50%. The leap in Mattison’s velo, repertoire depth, and ability to attack hitters of either handedness makes him more exciting that most middle relief prospects. He had TJ in March of 2024 and missed the whole season, but was still added to the 40-man roster this winter. He is expected to return sometime in the first half of the season, per The Detroit Free Press.

Miller barely pitched at Valpo, logging just 10.2 innings combined as a freshman and sophomore before he was deployed as a starter in 2022. He entered pro ball as a dev project with good mechanics and has developed a damn good changeup that wasn’t present in college, growth that has happened with very few reps because Miller barely pitched during his first full pro season due to triceps and forearm strains. In 2024, he worked 87.1 inning, mostly in relief, and posted a 0.94 WHIP and 1.85 ERA while racing from Low- to Double-A throughout the year. He was a bit more Jekyll and Hyde in the Arizona Fall League after that, but he still struck out well over a batter per inning in 16.2 innings there.

Miller’s mid-80s changeup has nasty late sink and plays as a bat-misser against both lefties and righties. It’s often around 85 mph, but he’ll throw it hard enough to activate a flux capacitor at 88 mph. The rest of Miller’s repertoire is closer to average but plays up a bit thanks to deception, as he shows hitters the ball very late and his arm slot creates rise/tail action on his heater. Miller’s slider, which was his go-to secondary in college, is average on pure stuff and is reliant on his command. It has a sweeper-style look, with much more lateral action than vertical depth, and is the slowest of his three offerings at 80-83 mph. His repertoire is on the starter/reliever line at the moment, but Miller improved it while also setting a career-high innings mark in 2024. At the rate he’s developing, he might look more comfortably like a big league starting pitcher 12 months from now. Even if he ends up continuing to work in long relief (which seems well within reason based on Miller’s 2024 look), that’s still a great outcome for an eighth rounder from a smaller program. Likely to begin 2025 at Erie, Miller is on track to be added to Detroit’s 40-man after the season and debut in 2026.

Schiefelbein starred at Corona High School in California, a program that will produce a couple of the top draft picks in the 2025 class. Ethan is more of a low-variance backend starter prospect who will show you lots of 88-92 (albeit with above-average carry even though it’s a two-seamer) and bump 95. Schiefelbein’s mid-70s knuckle curveball has above-average depth and bite. Its shape pairs nicely with his fastball, and the quality of his curve allows for projection on a second breaking ball. He also commands an upper-70s circle changeup that lacks bat-missing movement right now, but should improve with reps because of Schiefelbein’s compact arm stroke and general feel to pitch. He has a lower center of gravity, his build is atypical compared to most high school pitching prospects, and we aren’t sure how projectable he is, but also he has precocious touch-and-feel command, and an effortless and fluid delivery. Similar to Cleveland lefty Michael Kennedy, Schiefelbein has a pretty high floor for a high school draftee thanks to the quality of his secondary stuff and his command. If he can somehow throw harder (again, given his build, that’s not a slam dunk), the rest of his skill set is in place for a sizable breakout.

Madden is a six-pitch righty with a plus slider. In 2024, he carried a bloated ERA at Triple-A before he was moved to the bullpen upon his promotion to Detroit at the end of August. Madden’s fastball is vulnerable to big damage, and if he continues to start, he should probably lean on his other stuff more heavily. He was doing a version of that in his six big league outings, which saw Madden mix in his slider, cutter, and changeup fairly evenly. All of them generated plus miss rates throughout 2024, but as Madden’s delivery has included more and more effort, his ability to throw strikes with those secondaries (especially his changeup) has backed up and is now comfortably below-average. Madden’s durability has been a positive aspect of his prospectdom, and he has worked about 120 innings each of the last three seasons, but he’ll begin 2025 on the shelf with a strained rotator cuff. Upon his return, his immediate role will probably be dictated more by Detroit’s needs than by his skills — the Tigers’ pitching depth coupled with his injury will probably force him into a spot starter role at Toledo, or maybe even into the bullpen — but in a vacuum, he looks like a backend starter or swingman.

Sanchez was released by Texas in the fall of 2022 and in two years with the Tigers org, he has gone from the DSL to High-A, where he finished the 2024 season. Across all of last season, Sanchez worked 61 innings in 40 appearances and posted a 31.5% K% and 11.5% BB%. He was not only able to maintain mid-to-upper-90s velocity across twice the number of innings he threw in 2023, but Sanchez’s velo was up, and he continued pitching during the winter in Venezuela. The tailing shape of his fastball causes it to play down a bit, but Sanchez’s mid-80s slider is often plus and missed bats much more consistently than his fastball did in 2024. Eighteen months ago, Sanchez was just an arm strength sleeper in the DSL. Now he looks more like a lock to be a middle reliever even though his fastball is likely to play down a bit.

Salcedo is a bigger-bodied righty whose mid-90s fastball features nasty natural cut; he also has a sinker variant with a little less movement. Salcedo’s mid-80s sweeper features plus-plus spin and late movement, which helped him strike out 28.9% of DSL hitters in 2024, and some of his breaking balls have slider velo and curveball depth. The 2024 campaign was Salcy’s second season down in the DSL, and he is relatively maxed out for a pitcher his age. His profile includes substantial relief risk because of his build alone, but his stuff is nasty enough to consider him a priority teenage pitching prospect in the org.

Montalvo is a slender 6-foot-2 righty who came to Detroit from Texas in last year’s Andrew Chafin trade. He was dominating the Sally League with Hickory — 59 IP, 2.44 ERA — before he tore a ligament in his foot and landed on the IL for the month leading up to the trade; he was less dominant after the deal, but he still threw strikes at West Michigan. Across the entire season, Montalvo worked 78 innings and had a 3.00 ERA, a 27.2% strikeout rate and an 8% walk rate.

This is a high-floored fifth starter prospect. Montalvo sits in the low-90s with above-average rise/run action, and he tends to command his heater to the upper arm-side quadrant of the zone. His bullet-style slider, which resides in the 81-85 mph range, is his best pitch. He commands it to his glove side and it generated a 43% miss rate in 2024. He also has a mid-80s changeup that flashes bat-missing tail, but it tends to have early action that puts hitters off the scent, and Montalvo uses it sparingly. Though he’s a graceful athlete who repeats his delivery well, Montalvo’s arm action is so curt that it’s quite deliberate and not especially fluid or natural looking. How this will impact his ability to develop a better changeup is tough to say; at the very least, he should be able to command it better over time. Montalvo should spend most of 2025 at Double-A Erie and is a postseason 40-man candidate on track to make some spot starts in 2026.

“I like to swing, it’s not a secret,” is both a favorite old José Abreu quote and the operating ethos of Anderson, the former second rounder who let it fly two standard deviations more often than the average minor leaguer in his first year of pro ball. Despite his clear predilections, which trickle all the way down to a combative two-strike approach and combine with a clearly demonstrated hole in his coverage against velocity above the belt, the burly second baseman posted the sixth-lowest strikeout rate in the Midwest League while spending the vast majority of the year at High-A West Michigan and slashing .270/.321/.392.

For someone who faced plenty of questions about his unorthodox swing after emerging as a pop-up prospect in his junior year in Lincoln, Anderson puts a lot of balls in play with a purpose (45% hard-hit rate), and while he’s not the most projectable athlete, his top-end exit velocities are already solidly in line with the big league average. But Anderson’s deeply crouched chop of a swing produces almost no pull-side airborne contact, and practically never against velocity. A groundball rate north of 50% and an aggressive approach hunting for pitches thigh-high and below are further impediments to his power playing up in games.

Anderson is a 40 runner, and his movement at second base is similarly limited. While he doesn’t have a standout arm, it’s suitable for action if Anderson returns to third base, his primary position in college, which could fuel an existence as a multi-position reserve. Still, a full season spent at Double-A Erie figures to be less forgiving to his demonstrated weakness against elevated velocity.

Peck had a bit of a down junior year at Pepperdine but looked great at the Draft Combine and, despite his flaws, he’s shaping up to be a pretty slick seventh round pick. He has uncommon power for a shortstop, a position where Peck projects to stay thanks to his terrific hands and body control. Peck’s swing looks exactly like that of Brewers prospect Eric Brown, with his hands starting way over his head before they load deep behind him. Peck is a bit of a bucket strider but still tends to spray contact to the opposite field, especially against fastballs. He has the strength to do damage that way, but his bat path is also vulnerable to whiffing against lots of elevated fastballs as a result of how deep his load tends to be. Peck was among the Tigers’ org leaders in hard-hit rate last year at a whopping 51%, but his strikeouts exploded after he was promoted to West Michigan. He’s more likely to be a power-over-hit utility type than an everyday shortstop.

Campos, who signed for $3 million in 2019, is a physical corner outfield prospect with roughly average pull power. He repeated High-A last season and his performance took a substantial leap, from a 98 wRC+ in 2023 to a 120 in 2024. He is so geared to pull that he often swings inside sliders and over the top of changeups, but Campos is a dangerous fastball hitter who looks like a big leaguer in the uniform. His underlying contact data (72% contact rate, 38% hard-hit rate) is in line with the big league average, and it’s feasible Campos could play the short side of a corner platoon at maturity.

Try as he might to hide behind a thematically ill-fitting name, short stride and low-three-quarters arm slot, Petit is undeniably enormous. The size gives his running fastball a downhill angle, sapping it of any above-average bat-missing quality despite its mid-to-upper-90s velocity. The shorter stride on a big body can set up Petit’s arm to be late, as he posted a career-worst 11.1% walk rate in 58.2 IP at Double-A last year. But while it’s not a precise operation, Petit has a clear feel for which quadrants to dump his slider and changeup into, and he gets substantial chase on the former.

Petit struck out 31.1% of Double-A hitters with this mix, so it’s getting pretty easy to foresee a good stretch of command carrying him to Detroit. Greater precision and feel with the changeup seems like the best path for graduating to some medium-leverage work when he gets there.

Massey spent his freshman season at Tulane before transferring to Wake. He spent his sophomore season in the Demon Deacons’ bullpen and was utterly dominant — 76 K, 41.2 innings — in a long relief role. Massey moved into their rotation in 2024 and struggled with walks. Hamstring and back issues shelved him for about a month, and he was put back into the bullpen upon his return. His stuff is still exciting. Massey has a cut/carry fastball up to 96, he added a vertical curveball in 2024 with plus depth in the 77-80 mph range, and his 81-84 mph slider has short glove-side break. Massey could conceivably be developed as a starter in pro ball, but his body and level of mechanical consistency are more typical fits in the bullpen. Here he’s projected as a solid middle reliever.

After two years in the DSL, Montilla hit his way off the Lakeland backfields and into Joker Marchant Stadium, as he slashed .273/.409/.448 in the FCL before he was promoted and struggled in 20 FSL games. A very twitchy, undersized infielder, Montilla swings with impressive verve from the left side of the dish but is less coordinated as a right-handed hitter. When you combine his FCL and FSL data, he was more of an average contact hitter (83% in-zone contact, 73% overall) with impressive power for a hitter his size and age (106 mph max exit, 35% hard-hit rate). There’s a chance Montilla can develop something close to an average contact and power combination, but his size is perhaps a gating factor for the power aspect, as he’s athletic but smaller. He can really button a fastball, especially from the left side, but he struggled with the quality of A-ball secondary stuff upon his promotion, so there’s some lurking hit tool risk here, too. Realistically, Montilla has utility infield projection, but he’s still among the more talented low-level position player prospects in the Tigers system.

Jimenez is an undersized switch-hitting catcher prospect who makes an exciting amount of hard contact for a young hitter his size, it’s just often on the ground. Jimenez slashed .242/.366/.376 on the Lakeland complex in 2024 but posted an impressive 42% hard-hit rate. He isn’t an especially projectable athlete at a stocky 5-foot-9, and while it’s amazing that he had a hard-hit rate that sizeable given his physique, it’s tough to project big long-term power for such a small guy. Jimenez also has developing to do on defense; he’s not a great ball-blocker right now and lacks the size of a prototypical catcher. He could conceivably be a Garrett Stubbs type of backup.

Lee, who came to Detroit from Texas in the Andrew Chafin deal, is a pretty standard sinker/slider sidearmer who has posted strikeout rates up around 30% his entire minor league career while maintaining a below-average walk rate. He doesn’t have precise fastball control — he lives in the zone, but not always on the edge of it — and that might be a problem against big leaguers when you’re only sitting 88. But both Lee’s sinker and slider live in the bottom of the zone consistently enough to consider him a high-probability up/down look reliever.

Traded twice in 2024, his first full season as a reliever, Owens’ new spot on the 40-man makes him a prime candidate to be part of the Tigers’ bullpen churn after 51.2 innings of sub-3.00 ERA work in Double-A. The hirsute right-hander dips deep enough into his back leg and draws his arm low enough that he might rub some dirt on the baseball mid-delivery one of these days. On top of his 5-foot-10 listing, the motion creates an upshoot feel to a high-90s fastball that lacks the vert to be a bat-misser in the upper third but has avoided damage thus far. Similar things could be said of his high-80s slider, which he can reliably backdoor for strikes, but which is pushed into the zone thigh-high a little too often by his control-over-command approach.

Owens has been toying with a 88-89 mph splitter in spring training, which has flashed good action but is understandably in a preliminary stage in terms of his feel for locating it. Until it emerges, Owens looks like an up-and-down righty who has an intriguing approach but lacks the command or signature weapon for leverage work.

Drafted in 2021, Kohlhepp didn’t make his pro debut until his walk-prone 2023 campaign in Lakeland. In 2024, he got his walks under control (for a reliever, anyway) and K’d 78 hitters in 61.1 innings at West Michigan. Kohlhepp is in the Justin Topa mold. He throws really hard for a sidearmer and can create bat-missing sink on his changeup. His slot makes his upper-80s slider tough on righties, though overall that pitch is closer to average. If he can continue to polish his command, Kohlhepp will be a reliable middle-inning option who can face hitters of either handedness because of his changeup quality. His sketchy control makes it more likely that Kohlhepp plays an up/down role.

Navigato would be a 40-FV player were he just a little bit better of an infield defender. Though he’s played all over the place (2B/3B/SS/LF/RF), his hands make him a bit more mistake-prone than is ideal for a true utility infielder. However, Navigato is a fairly well-rounded hitter. He lacks a plus offensive tool, but his top hand is strong through contact, allowing him to get to the modest (but relevant) power he has. He’s capable of generating extra-base pop to all fields, and his swing has gotten simpler and more compact as he has gotten stronger into his mid-20s. In 2024, he posted a 124 wRC+ at Toledo and slugged 21 homers, but he wasn’t put on the 40-man nor was he selected in the Rule 5 Draft. He strikes us as an above-replacement player who’ll likely hop on and off the bottom of teams’ 40-man rosters during his prime, which is now.

Randall spent his first two collegiate seasons at Arizona, where he barely pitched in 2023 due to injury. In 2024, his lone season as a starter for the University of San Diego, he made 14 starts, worked 72.1 innings, posted a 3.73 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 25.6% K% and 8.2% BB%, and then made two appearances at Lakeland after the draft. Randall is a gigantic dude at a hulking 6-foot-4. He works from a lower arm slot with a sink/tail fastball in the 93-96 mph range. Both of Randall’s secondaries (a slider and a changeup) need pro dev, which isn’t shocking considering he only started for one year at USD. He’s a candidate for a sweeper because of his arm slot, and Detroit’s ability to coax good changeups out of their pitching prospects portends good things for Randall and his sinker-oriented fastball approach.

The low-release-height lefty Reyes returned from Tommy John surgery to throw a ton of strikes down the stretch in 2024. Right now he has a low-90s four-seamer with minimal ride – though it does have upshoot angle – and his changeup feel is raw, but Reyes struck out 33.9% of hitters in 47.2 innings at Lakeland last year and generates a ton of chase on his slider.

Smith was a pitchability righty who broke out during his draft year at Alabama. He has missed a large portion of the past two seasons with forearm and shoulder issues, but his stuff has been pretty good when he’s been healthy. Last year that meant Smith was sitting 92-94 mph with plus vertical movement, while also generating miss rates north of 40% with both of his breaking balls. He has not been able to consistently work with great command — it varies pretty substantially outing to outing — but at this point, it’s likely Smith will just be deployed in relief and that should matter a little less. He pitched in one Grapefruit League game prior to list publication and was again in the 92-94 range with a plus slider and a good splitter, which he seldom used in 2024. He’s right there with Wilmer Flores as an oft-injured prospect whose stuff was good enough at peak to continue caring about him for at least one more year.

Born in Venezuela and signed out of an Arizona junior college, the brother of the other Wilmer Flores (seriously) stomped onto the prospect radar throughout the 2021 season, which he wrapped peaking in the 97-98 mph range with a hammer breaking ball in the Arizona Fall League. His health and stuff have waxed and waned since then, including again during the spring of 2025. Flores sat mostly 92-94 in 2023, then his velo was up in the 95-97 range again when he was moved to the bullpen at the start of 2024 before he was shut down for several months with an AC joint sprain in his shoulder. When he returned late in the year, his stuff had backed up into the low-90s. He elected free agency after the season and re-signed with Detroit on a minor league deal, but his shoulder has been a persistent enough issue that he needed a PRP injection in January and will begin 2025 on the shelf.

Healthy Flores has a power fastball and two good breaking balls — a spike curveball and a cutter — which briefly made him a Top 100 prospect after his scintillating 2022 season. His injury history has not always featured arm stuff; for instance, he dealt with a hamstring issue in 2023. Though mostly a bounce-back candidate at this point, peak Flores was nasty enough for him to retain some prospect clout.

Wilson, who signed for just shy of $1.7 million in 2023, had a rough pro debut in 2024, as he walked a batter per inning and had an ERA over 6.00 on the Florida complex roster. It was a surprise considering Wilson seemed like one of the more advanced prep pitchers in the 2023 draft class. In addition to being quite wild, Wilson’s velocity was down from the 92-94 mph range he showed in high school and was more often in the upper-80s. His curveball still has lovely depth and 12-to-6 shape, while his low-80s slider is less dynamic. Wilson is purely in the bounce-back category at this point. He seemed like a potential no. 4/5 starter in high school but looked like a non-prospect in 2024.

Rucker’s pro career hasn’t been able to get off the ground, as the high school draftee only played during 2024 extended spring training and a couple of FCL games before he tore his right labrum sliding into a base. He is a projectable infielder who was signed away from a Tennessee commitment for $772,500 in 2023. Rucker has a strong top hand that generates impressive pull power when his swing is on time, though his lever length may not always allow for that in pro ball. His present power and long-term power projection are his carrying tools, while his relatively grooved swing creates some hit tool risk that will prove more concerning if Rucker outgrows shortstop. For now, he’s a raw developmental infielder with a shot to have corner-worthy power.

Dunford signed for just under $370,000 to eschew a commitment to Mercer. He has an exciting combination of projection (he has room for another 30-plus pounds of mass) and athleticism (big drop-and-drive delivery and hip/shoulder separation), especially for a pitching prospect this size. He only threw four innings after signing in 2023 (Dunford’s fastball averaged 95 mph out of the chute) and then just a third of an inning in 2024 before he was shut down with an elbow strain, which cost him the entire year. Dunford and the Tigers have a ton of work to do on his command and breaking ball situation (he had an inconsistent curveball in high school and is basically starting from scratch in pro ball), but he was a fun mid-six-figure pull on the third day of the draft and is an important low-level prospect to monitor.