DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers have three of the top 25 prospects in baseball heading into the 2024 season, but how much success have they had with prospects over the past decade?
In MLB Pipeline’s new top 100, the Tigers’ first-round pick from last year, Max Clark, is rated the No. 13 overall prospect in the game. The recently extended Colt Keith is No. 22, and 2021 first-round pick Jackson Jobe is No. 25.
For the record, the team’s first-round pick from 2022, Jace Jung, checked in at No. 60.
With a trio of elite young players seemingly ready to make an impact within the next couple of seasons, I started to think about the team’s lack of success with prospects during this non-playoffs era.
Let’s go back 10 years to the last time the Tigers won the AL Central.
2014: Really good, but not for Detroit
- Top prospect: Nick Castellanos
- Second prospect: Robbie Ray
- Third prospect: Devon Travis
My gosh, this list is amazing. When you go a bit further you see Eugenio Suarez and Corey Knebel. And Tyler Collins -- remember that time he didn’t see a popup and flipped off the fans at Comerica Park?
OK, no, don’t get sidetracked. This is about the top three.
Castellanos was obviously a success story in Detroit, although he only got a brief taste of the postseason in 2014.
In 837 games across parts of seven seasons with the Tigers, Castellanos slashed .274/.324/.459 with 104 homers and 208 doubles. He was one of those players who was robbed of several home runs by Comerica Park.
Ray was a huge deal in the minors, but struggled in 28.2 innings as a 22-year-old rookie in 2014. Dave Dombrowski decided to ship him off to Arizona in the three-team deal that brought Shane Greene to Detroit.
Ray was mostly just a strikeout specialist for the Diamondbacks, though he did make an All Star Game during an outlier 2017 season. But then, out of nowhere, after four bad years in a row, he went to the Blue Jays and won the Cy Young award in 2021.
Ah, yes, then there’s Travis. I’ll never forget the first 20 games of his career, when it looked like the Tigers had made a horrible mistake trading him for Anthony Gose.
Travis hit a home run on Opening Day and never looked back -- well, for a month, at least. He was batting .356 with six home runs, six doubles, and a 1.097 OPS after those magical 20 games.
He was decent over the next couple of months -- and even the following season. But the injuries piled up and he was out of baseball by 2019.
2015: Yuck!
- Top prospect: Steven Moya
- Second prospect: Derek Hill
- Third prospect: Buck Farmer
The legend of Steven Moya. Holy cow, that dude hit some tanks in the minors.
In 2014, the year of his MLB debut, Moya crushed 35 homers in 133 games for the Double-A Seawolves. The problem: He also struck out 161 times.
He hit 20 homers in 126 games at Triple-A the following season, but struck out 162 times. In 2016, he hit 20 homers in 97 games with the Mud Hens.
The problem with Moya was every time the Tigers called him up, he looked like he had never stepped foot in an outfield before. His defense was so disastrous that the Tigers couldn’t really afford to see if the power would fully translate (and it definitely would have).
Moya hit five homers in 31 games in 2016 and never got back to the majors again.
Hill was a first-round pick in 2014 and long considered an elite defensive prospect in the system. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even hit in the minors, so he obviously didn’t in the majors.
Remember when Buck Farmer had that one good season as a reliever in 2019? Fun times.
The verdict: It doesn’t get much worse than looking back at a top prospect trio of Steven Moya, Derek Hill, and Buck Farmer. Dark, dark times.
2016: Shoutout to rookie Michael Fulmer
- Top prospect: Michael Fulmer
- Second prospect: Beau Burrows
- Third prospect: Derek Hill
Fulmer was so awesome for the Tigers after they acquired him in the Yoenis Cespedes trade. He came up as a 23-year-old and immediately dominated the Rookie of the Year race, posting a 3.06 ERA and 1.12 WHIP across 159 innings.
He was really good for most of the second season, too, checking in with an identical 3.06 ERA through 18 starts. But then he allowed 28 earned runs in the final seven starts, and that was the beginning of the end.
Burrows was not a great first-round pick. Not great at all. The Tigers moved him to the bullpen and he allowed eight runs in 8.1 career innings during his brief career with the big-league club.
2017: Still worried about Matt Manning
- Top prospect: Matt Manning
- Second prospect: Christin Stewart
- Third prospect: Beau Burrows
The book is still very much out on Manning, but I think you all know I’m firmly on the record as pessimistic.
His results have not been disastrous in parts of three seasons -- a 4.37 ERA and 1.26 WHIP. But for a former top prospect whose calling card was dominant strikeout rates in the minors, his inability to miss bats at the MLB level is downright alarming.
And thanks to a slew of injuries, he hasn’t able to reach 90 innings in any season since his debut.
Stewart hit that really fun homer on Opening Day of 2019 to help the Tigers win in extra innings, but other than that, he was very bad.
2018: Injuries, injuries, and more injuries!
- Top prospect: Franklin Perez
- Second prospect: Matt Manning
- Third prospect: Alex Faedo
It’s hard to make Matt Manning look like a workhorse, but when you put him between Perez and Faedo, his injury issues don’t even compare.
Perez is the most infamous Tigers injury story of my lifetime. The prize of the Justin Verlander trade and an elite prospect at the time, Perez threw just 19.1 innings in the minors in 2018, 7.2 innings in 2019, missed the entire 2021 season after 2020 was wiped out by COVID, and then returned briefly to throw 25.1 innings in 2022 before hitting the injured list once again.
He lasted just 15.2 innings in 2023 before calling it quits.
Faedo was considered a safe pick in the first round in 2017, but since missing back-to-back seasons due to COVID in 2020 and Tommy John surgery in 2021, he’s never looked the same.
The Tigers have tried to carve out a role for Faedo the last two seasons, but a variety of injuries have kept him from getting any extended run.
2019: We’ll find out this year
- Top prospect: Casey Mize
- Second prospect: Matt Manning
- Third prospect: Franklin Perez
Injuries are the theme once again here.
Mize was the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, and after a fast ascent through the minors, he gave the Tigers a solid rookie season in 2021: a 3.71 ERA and 1.14 WHIP across 150 innings.
But the strikeouts weren’t there, and something looked immediately off in 2022. Mize made just two starts before getting shut down for Tommy John surgery. He hasn’t pitched in a game since April 14, 2022, so we’ll see if there’s anything left in the tank this year.
Between Mize, Manning, and Perez... five years ago, it would have been hard to imagine a worse outcome than what’s actually happened.
2020: We were so hopeful back then
- Top prospect: Casey Mize
- Second prospect: Matt Manning
- Third prospect: Riley Greene
This was the exciting part, remember? Mize and Manning looked amazing in the minors and some guy named Tarik Skubal was striking out literally everybody.
Oh yeah, and the Tigers got this stud outfielder with the No. 5 pick, and he looked pretty good, too! We’ll talk about Greene more in a moment.
2021: Two No. 1 overall picks
- Top prospect: Spencer Torkelson
- Second prospect: Casey Mize
- Third prospect: Matt Manning
Torkelson became the team’s second No. 1 overall pick in three years when they selected him in 2020, and he immediately shot up to No. 3 overall on the prospects list.
He adjusted to every single minor league level as the Tigers rushed him up to the big leagues. His rookie season was a bumpy ride, and honestly, most of 2023 was, too.
But there seems to be some hope. Torkelson hit 14 home runs in his final 45 games and posted a .342 on-base percentage over that span. His final numbers were mediocre, but Torkelson hit 31 homers and 34 doubles as a 23-year-old, so let’s take that as a win.
2022: The Torkelson-Greene era
- Top prospect: Spencer Torkelson
- Second prospect: Riley Greene
- Third prospect: Jackson Jobe
Heading into the 2022 season, it was all about this duo. Torkelson and Greene. The Tigers had just enjoyed a surprisingly resurgent 2021 season under A.J. Hinch, and both top prospects were set to make the team out of spring training.
Then Greene fouled a ball off his foot.
That was some vintage Detroit Tigers luck, right there. Weeks before a much-anticipated debut, Greene was shut down because of a fluke spring training injury. He didn’t actually put on the Old English D until mid-June, and from there he mostly just struck out.
Last season was going extremely well, though. After a slow start, Greene put together a 71-game stretch of batting .311 with a .372 OBP and 30 extra-base hits. He stole five bases and made some stunning defensive plays in center field.
Then, on Sept. 1, one of those defensive gems proved costly, as Greene hurt his elbow on a diving catch against the White Sox. His season was over.
The Tigers hope he can put together a full season in 2024 and continue blossoming into a five-tool player.
2023: Hope for the future
- Top prospect: Max Clark
- Second prospect: Colt Keith
- Third prospect: Jackson Jobe
These are the postseason rankings from 2023, and they match what we see to start 2024.
Clark showed some strong on-base skills during a brief taste of the lower minors, and Jobe quickly picked his way through four levels last season, finishing with six shutout innings in his only Double-A start.
The story coming into this season will be Keith, who just earned a massive contract extension before making his MLB debut. That means the Tigers have no reason to hold him back if he earns a starting job coming out of spring training.
Keith batted .306 with 27 homers, 38 doubles, and a .380 on-base percentage between Double-A and Triple-A last season.
Final thoughts
Skimming through this list, the Tigers really haven’t had much luck with top prospects.
Injuries have derailed many of these careers, and there were a few short-term success stories like Fulmer and Mize that didn’t last. But the only true victory for the Tigers on this list is... Castellanos? And even he got much better as soon as he left.
Tigers fans have every right to be excited heading into this upcoming season. Greene and Torkelson should be healthy, and Keith only adds to the young core.
This list is a great reminder, though, that prospects are just that: prospective. There are no guarantees in baseball.
But it sure feels like the Tigers are long past due for one to hit.
