2024 DETROIT TIGERS PROSPECT PRIMER

The Tigers are entering this season with a relatively clear idea of who will begin the year on the big club. With only a few roster spots up for grabs, we’ll use this space to attempt to familiarize some of the Tigers fans energized by last year’s relative success with some of my favorite names in the farm system that have yet to make their MLB debuts. This specification excludes players like Parker Meadows, Reese Olson and Sawyer Gipson-Long who may hold prospect designation to some services despite their time in the Majors in 2023. As you read, keep in mind that many services - namely Tigers Minor League Report - are more well-informed on the ins and outs of the Tigers system than I am, and their content will give you deeper insight and analysis on the players listed below than I ever could. With that said, enjoy this slight shove into the shallow end of Detroit’s prospect pool, starting with…

Keith is the richest prospect on this list for a reason. Expected to be Detroit’s everyday second baseman, Keith has shown himself to be a hitting machine at every stop of his professional career so far, so much so that he earned a 9 year, $82M contract with team options before even seeing a Major League pitch. His swing covers all quadrants of the plate well, and he displays plus power and plus contact with a solid eye to boot. His strikeout rate is inoffensive. He’s not exactly Dustin Pedroia with the glove, but will be playing 2nd by force since arm injuries hampered his ability at 3rd. Colt won’t be great defensively, but he should more than make up for it with his bat if he performs up to expectations. Something like a .770 OPS shouldn’t be out of the question for his first taste of MLB action.

In my obviously unbiased opinion, Jobe is the best pitching prospect in all of baseball. At only 21 years old, the former 3rd overall pick has displayed one of the most dynamic arsenals we’ve ever seen from a Tigers prospect. His fastball continues to ramp up in both velocity and induced vertical break (IVB), a deadly combination when played off his 3000 RPM slider and a rapidly developing changeup that tends to sit around 15 mph slower than his heater. The process for Jobe now is mostly mental, as he learns how to properly sequence and tunnel his pitches. I expect he’ll make it to Toledo by the end of the year, with the off-chance of him making his MLB debut this summer if the Tigers are competitive enough to warrant it. When you consider that last year he struck out 70 batters and walked 6 through 62 innings at three levels of the minors, I’d say he’s progressing at the rate we’d all hoped he would when he was drafted.

This past year’s 3rd overall pick comes in next, the controversial Clark is undeniably the toolsiest player the Tigers have in their farm system. He can run, he can field, he can hit for contact, he has an above-average eye, and the power projects to develop. This is one of the biggest tests of the Tigers new hitting development team to date, as it’s imperative for the future of the squad that Clark reaches his potential. With the decision to take him over Wyatt Langford - who most expect to reach the majors in Texas this season - there is no room for Clark to be anything less than a good Major Leaguer. The good news is he possesses all the tools to do so. If he were to end this season in Erie, that would be a slam dunk for both Clark as a player and the hitting development as a whole. To make that happen, he needs to get the ball in the air a little more than he did in his very brief stint in Lakeland, and only time will tell if he pulls it off as the quality of the pitching he faces continues to increase.

Among the next tier of pitchers after Jobe, Madden is my personal favorite. His fastball features explosive velo but suboptimal shape, but I like the way it plays off the cutter he added last season. Combine that with his dynamite 12-6 curve and changeup, and Madden is a pitcher that I see sticking as a starter rather than moving to the bullpen, as some have suggested in the past. Madden made 25 starts in Erie last season and the 6’3 24-year-old posted a 3.46 xFIP to go with 11.14 K/9. He walked just a few too many batters for my taste but it’s never a surprise when pitchers bloom late, and Madden is still only 24. I tend to bet on stuff when projecting pitchers, and I’ve always liked what Madden brings to the table in that regard. I expect him to be one of the first pitching call-ups in case of injury this year, and I’ll hold tight on the Madden agenda for now.

I’ll admit that most of my McGonigle viewing has been limited to his post-draft highlight reel and the extremely sparse footage of his time in the complex league and Lakeland, but it’s hard not to like what I’ve seen. He possesses an extremely advanced hit tool for his age at 19-years-old, and the early returns were pretty good. His lack of power may be the negative that stops him from ever becoming a can’t-miss prospect, but I think there’s value in a middle infielder that sprays to the gaps and makes a ton of solid contact. What boosts McGonigle into my top 5 is my belief that he could realistically stick at shortstop, a sentiment that wasn’t shared by many of the services that evaluated him pre-and-post draft. He is relatively athletic for his frame and looks to have the hands to make him at the very least a reliable middle infield defender, not Javy Baez but not exactly Harold Castro either. If you can get a decent shortstop glove with an above-average bat, you’ve got yourself a 5+ year MLB starter.

If you’ve spent any time in the Tigers Minor League Report Discord, you’ll know that Jace Jung posts his best results when Tigers fans bully him. To that regard, the consensus #4 prospect in the system just barely misses the top 5 for me, with upward mobility depending on if his flashes of competence at 3rd base from the Arizona Fall League prove to be real. This organization needs a 3B prospect like MLB players need compression shorts this season, and it appears Jung will get the next crack at being that answer. The former first round pick sports an above average power bat that comes with just a bit of strikeout concern, but the functional power seems to be very real and if he does manage to hold his own at the hot corner, I’ll like him a lot more as a prospect than I do now. Until that’s seen, though, I can’t consider a positionless player as more than a 45 FV.

The next of my pet project pitchers in this organization comes in the form of Keider Montero, whose 3000 RPM curveball is a sight to behold. His iffy control scares me just a bit more than Madden’s, and I think Montero is just a bit more likely to settle in as a reliever in the future than Madden is, but the stuff is just impossible to deny. He sported 11.8 and 10 K/9 in AA and AAA respectively last season, although he was liable to get hit pretty hard in Toledo. The goal for Keider will be to rein in his dynamic arm and likely get him a nice spot in the bullpen in Detroit by season’s end, but it’s easier to get an electric arm to settle down than work with someone whose arm just doesn’t have it.

JHen was in discussion for the last roster spot coming out of Spring Training, but the acquisition of Gio Urshela has all but silenced that talk. Malloy put up gaudy walk numbers in AAA last season and displayed some game power, but he runs into a similar problem for me that Jace Jung does. He’s even more positionless than Jung, even being completely moved off 3B this spring as he focuses on becoming a corner outfielder. Besides the obvious of corner outfield being crowded in Detroit currently, Malloy has another major concern: he swings and misses in the zone almost as much as Nick Maton does. Nick Maton, notably, is no longer with the Tigers largely due to this issue. While Malloy’s eye is maybe his biggest asset, the bat-to-ball concerns have made me pump the brakes on him as a prospect despite how bullish I was about him at the beginning of last season. If he proves he’s competent with the glove and can make more contact in the strike zone, he’ll be due for a reevaluation. Until then, he’s just nice minor league depth to have in a pinch.

The 2022 4th round pick is the quintessential Chris Fetter project. Melton stands at 6’4, and he plays off a dynamic fastball with a strong slider and improving changeup. At barely 23-years-old, Melton made 15 starts in High-A last year to the tune of a 2.95 FIP, although his K/9 numbers dipped from his stint in Lakeland. Positive development for Melton this year would look like improved strikeout numbers and keeping the ball out of the air. If he’s pitching well in Erie by the end of the season, I think he could be considered as one of the next arms to come up and make an impact out of the new and improved Detroit Tigers system. While that remains to be seen, I’m placing Melton here in order to bet on a pitcher archetype that both myself and Chris Fetter are big fans of.

Before last year, Justice Bigbie was a 24 year old corner outfielder entering his 3rd year in the Tigers system, set to start the year at High-A West Michigan. Over the offseason, he took a crack at following the path laid out by Kerry Carpenter, visiting Richard Schenck aka Teacherman, the private hitting coach credited with turning around Carpenter’s career and notorious for working with Aaron Judge. And then? Bigbie torched through West Michigan and Erie with a wRC+ of 161 and 170 respectively, ending his season in Toledo where he was less impressive in a very small sample of 58 PAs. If Bigbie can post similar numbers to his West Michigan and Erie stints in Toledo this year, it will be impossible to keep him out of Detroit, much like it was impossible to ignore Kerry Carpenter’s 30 home run performance with the Mud Hens in 2022. I don’t know how likely it is that the Tigers found another diamond in the rough thanks at least in part to Teacherman, but Bigbie seems to be as good a bet as any to get at least a brief stint with the big club if he shows out in Toledo.