Breaking Down the Baseball America Detroit Tigers Top 10 December 2025 Update

Everybody, thank you for tuning in to for people that are our Patreon paid Patreon tiers. You got this couple days before everybody else and we’ll eventually be putting this out on our YouTube channel as the YouTube channel algorithms reminded us by the way with the Max Clark interview that if you don’t post for a while on YouTube and they you know they YouTube doesn’t care if you have a life or you know things going on they will punish you. They’ll just say, “No, we’re not going to show your video as much as you think we were going to.” So, but it was funny because Chris posted a Kale Wiki uh uh video of his and it kind of jumparted how well it did uh just as far as like views and everything. So, it kind of in other words, the algorithms of YouTube, you have to feed it. You have to feed the you have to feed it in order to get things going. But we I’m glad that we’re taking this long hiatus. Not I don’t say hiatus if you will, but I know you know we used to post a lot of uh shows every week during the offseason, but it’s just been such a long season and we both go to a lot of games and we it was just it right now the Tigers are really and now we as we head into December, you’ll like I said I promise more content and you’re going to get it. So, because there’s things going on. Baseball America released their top 10 and the Tigers top 10 and there was a lot of great things said about Kevin McConnell. We’ll get to that in a second. But, uh, thank you for subscribing to our Patreon and or thinking to subscribing our YouTube channel and, uh, the the comments and feedback with Max Clark were great. Thank you again, Max Clark was probably the easiest interview we’ve ever done, but it was also the most learn I learned a lot about him a lot, but it was just the back and forth. We could have probably talked to him like I felt bad that we’re taking him up a lot of his time because he was in the middle of dinner, wasn’t it? Right. I Well, apparently, yeah, they had already finished dinner. We’re like, “Sorry about that.” But, uh, no, it’s I mean, it’s going to be it’s going to be a struggle for I think it probably already is to to manage requests like this and autograph seekers and stuff like that because he is so engaging and he does love to talk about baseball and he really is a great interview and uh you know I I don’t think it’s going to I don’t think it’s going to prevent him from reaching his goals or anything like that but I think there’s going to be a lot more demands on him just because he is so fun to talk to. Uh, and so I feel kind of fortunate that we were able to get him here, uh, you know, before he hits the big leagues and and it’s going to be, if he succeeds on the on the field, he’s going to be like one of the faces of baseball. I just, you know what, he’s going to have he’ll be on shows constantly and and he will love to do that because he’s really engaged and he’s keed in on everything. He I like to, you know, we we we joke about how uh we’ve talked about it before. You baseball people will talk to baseball people about baseball whenever and we talk about how we love baseball, right? And and so much so that we will occasionally write about baseball. You’re writing about it more than I am, but uh even still it’s like, yeah, we we love it so much we’re going to write about it. He loves it so much that he’s uh you know not eating any bad food for years at a time, taking all the supplements to stay healthy, uh hitting the batting cages in the offseason for like three hours a day, uh watching baseball all winking hours a day. Like it’s it’s just a different level. So, uh and it’s a really impressive young man both on and off the field and and yeah, it was fun fun to talk to him for sure. Hopefully, we get to talk to him one more time before he hits the big leagues, but whatever. Uh if not, that was uh it was a good interview. hopefully that people enjoyed. But yeah, um he and he has got his rightful spot on Baseball America’s top 10 and it’s the same uh on our top 10, which we haven’t released, but we did put together uh a couple weeks ago and it does exist. Yeah, it’s uh it’s going to be dropping this weekend. I just have to we have to do a couple little writing pieces to it. There’s a tool series coming out with it, so there’s a lot of little components with it. So, trust me, folks. Um, we we’ve we’ve had this in the background for a while and it’s just a matter of putting it out there. And so Colin did a nice article today about tiger reliever targets, but uh we are some of the stuff over at the round table was essentially just looking at old prospects and and it was a very good deep dive into the tiger system in the early 90s and it’s one of the things that as a baseball his I don’t want to call myself a historian. I I I I love baseball history, but historians take hours and that’s a lot of lot of the stuff I was doing was looking at some of the old newspaper. New newspapers.com is the best 20 bucks I can spend a month. It it you literally you can go in there and let’s say you start at 7 o’clock by midnight you’re like wow it’s just like it flows by so fast because it gives you a very good snapshot frozen in time of everything whether it’s just and and you really can piece together a lot with that and so the Tigers really did not have any type of development at all period whether it’s Mil Kyler who you know it’s it’s a product of time too it’s not what we know now in baseball is completely different than what they knew, you know, 40, 30 years ago. Like guys, speed guys were basically hit on the ground, run it out, see what happens kind of thing. And now Mil Kyler could have been Curtis Granderson in the sense, but I mean he, you know, he made the Min Hall of Fame and he had a really good career and he’s very and and there’s the cool thing was learning that he could have been a defensive back in the same backfield as uh Deion Sanders, which is pretty cool. So, um, but yeah, again, like looking at some of these top 10, top 10 list from the past from Baseball America, too. The Tigers were so bad as far as like top 10 list goes from the from Baseball America from 83 on till probably about 2006. It really was just like bare bones. It was was Travis Fryman. I mean, the guys would be on there. Tony Clark was on there for like five years because he was recovering from injury. But without further ado, the top 10 for Baseball America and their top four is the same as ours. So number one comes in at Kevin McGonagle. We’ll get into some of the specifics with these guys here in a second. Um so let’s uh let’s share our screen here. For those who don’t have a subscription of Baseball America, Kevin McDonald at number one, Max Clark number two, Bryce Rander number three, and Jose Bingo at number four. So our top four is identical. And we’ll go into our how we came up with ours in a different video. Jordan Yosa number five, which I thought was a little eye raising to me, but I’ll explain why in a second. Hulu at number six, Max Anderson number seven, Chris Rodriguez number eight, Fran Montia at number nine, and Michael Aloto at number 10. So, as you can see there, there’s not not one single pitcher in the top 10 whatsoever. and the Tigers. And this is where you were talking about your article you did earlier this year or earlier in the winter about the the state of the Tigers pitching right now. I think we you talk about trade rumors, Chris, Martino, everything. This top 10 is kind of reflective of that to me. If you if Arizona needs pitching, the Tigers don’t have any pitching right now in the top 10. Yeah. Hey, if if you’re you’re going to have to trade Troy Melton basically to get any kind of big bat and I don’t think the Tigers want to do that because I think they’re going to rely on Troy Melton over the next few years. Um yeah, I mean those were two of the big takeaways from the top 10 for baseball America is is yeah there no pitching in the top 10 which I can’t remember the last time that was the case for the Tigers if ever. Probably never. Um and and Tyrone Lorzo nowhere to be found. He was their number five prospect heading into the season last year. Maybe number four. Um, I have to go back and look, but they had, you know, it’s Job still. But, uh, so those are, yeah, two big things there. Now, our top 10, we do have a couple pictures on our top 10. Um, and actually, I think, uh, maybe slightly slightly high on one of them, but, uh, you know, this is the way we we do it. Um, but otherwise, they’re they’re relatively close. Like the the one guy, we do not have Max Anderson in our top 10. I think he’s 14th. Um, and uh, Chris Rodriguez is just outside our top 10 at 11. So, we have the two pitchers in there. And then Loronzo’s ninth. So, that’s the big difference there. Um, I think the the other difference is is yeah, we we have Yoast, he’s actually sixth on our, so he’s not that much lower. And Olivetto, I believe, is he’s 12th. Um, I was the low man on Olivetto. I think we both were. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and for me, and that’s the thing, is like, you know, we’ve not seen him play. I’ve seen this swing, and everybody talks about how pretty swing is. It’s true. It’s a very nice looking swing. Um, I’m just going off the history of high school catchers, which is is incredibly bad. Um, the last time the Tigers, you know, took a a high school catcher with a big deal was uh Sam McMillan from Florida, and he didn’t really make it above a ball. Um, and that’s, you know, that’s not fair to Michael Alto, but it’s just kind of, you know, you put these guys in buckets and say, okay, this is a, this is a high school catcher from the north, so he has not been tested and gets a lot of, you know, advanced competition. Uh, so, you know, I I’m just a little bit low on him for right now. As we always mentioned with our rankings and these lists, they’re they’re living documents, right? Things change quickly at times. you know, heading this time last year, I was a little bit skeptical about Bryce Rener because we hadn’t seen much of him and I’m like, I don’t know, maybe they’re hiding him from us because he’s not any good and then he had three swings or whatever in the futures game and we’re like, all right, well, this will work. Um, or the the spring breakout. So, it doesn’t take a lot of information sometimes, but we don’t like to just rank guys, yeah, you know, without seeing them for the most part. Like, we will do it with these draft picks because it the list seems incomplete without them, right? But it’s it’s hard for me to go and and tell anybody anything about Michael Aloto. Well, we talked to a guy who had seen him and said he’s really good, right? I think he reached out to you. But beyond that, like yeah, anything we say is just going to be repeating what other people have said. Yeah. Bri Brian Rea, who is a uh who works for Prospects Live and I think he I think he works for another site now. He was one that reached out and was telling me how special he was as a player. And Brian’s not the type of guy who does that kind of thing. So, I I I took some stock with that and admittedly I was always skeptical about putting guys with, as you said, the drafted guys because I haven’t seen them. But I I I understand now more than ever, you know, you trust some certain lists that like are not regurgitated and and JJ Cooper and talking to Jeff Pontis, too, like just I met I got a chance to meet Jeff during the Eerie playoffs and it was just a good conversation with him in person. and I’ve talked to him numerous times on the phone and we text all the time, but Brian and Jeff and some of these guys that see these guys on the circuit and what have you and I trust their opinion. I trust their what they see. So, it depends on who you you read and reach up for. But it like as far as like the I I was showing the list here on a second. You know, last year at this time, Dylan Dingler, this is the preseason 2025 list that we’re showing. Job was number one. Clark McGonagle, Rainer, Loronzo, Dingler, Young, Sweeney, Bro, and Herder. As you mentioned this earlier before we were on, most interesting was Owen Hall number 14. And I mean, some of these names are nowhere to be found anymore. and Chris Rodrigo was number 19. Carson Rucker was number 20. But um yeah, the as far as like pitching goes, you’re you’re trying this is the first time and probably also in a long time the Tigers are position infield heavy in the top five, top 10 for that matter because I mean this is a list that if I go let’s say you know I love about baseball America is the amount of history here. So let’s go back to you want to Okay, so here’s a qu. All right, Chris, I’m going to give you a quiz for preseason 2005 top five. I don’t want to stretch you too far, but top five preseason 2005. Yeah, Justin Verlander. Okay. Joel, Verlander’s number three. Zomaya’s number four. Okay. Curtis Granderson number one. Um, boy, Kyle Sleaf number two. And then who else would be in the top five there? Um, Jack Hanahan. Uh, Herberto Sanchez was number five. Oh, you got four. Yeah, you got you got four out of five. That’s That’s Damn it. That’s pretty good. Pretty good. Okay. So, what about All right. Uh, let’s I love doing I love doing this because I know you’re going to get 2015 pretty easily. So, the top five 2015 2015. So, Derek Hill. Yep. Number three. Um, so I’m trying to think of people who were drafted in 2014 cuz or well, it would have been after the 2015 draft or No, no, before the 2015 draft. Yeah, preseason 2015. Oh, boy. Um, there’s one name on there on there. Yes, he is. Number four. Nice. Jonathan, what was the kid from Florida? Jonathan Crawford. Crawford. Yeah. Yeah. No, he’s not on. No, he’s not yet. No. Um, so Turbo wouldn’t have been on there yet, would he? I mean, it’s the same same draft as Hill or Tyler Alexander. Uh, 13 was I’m trying to think. Jacob Turner was gone by then. Yeah, the number one. Casanos. Casanos. No, no, he was in the league by then. Remember McCann? Uh, Macan’s number six. Okay. Casamus was in the league by 2015. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’d lose track of time. Um boy, number one. I thought you would get I thought I thought you’d get number one really easy. Honestly, I’m trying to go back and think, you know, like I Bo Burroughs was the the 2015 draft in Kristen Stewart, so they weren’t there yet. Yeah, but think about and then Derk Hill was the first runner. Think Okay, so think Steven Moya. Yeah. No. Yeah, he’s Yep. That was say he’s number one. Then uh Dixhu Dix Fields. Yeah, D M was number 10. Uh Buck Buck Farmer was number two. Buck Farmer. All right. And number five was Hernand Perez. Oh, gotcha. So that that one. Yeah, that was maybe it was a little tougher than I thought, but um do you do you remember a guy named Steven Fuentes? I have no idea who the hell is. Who’s an infielder? I think a Venezuelan infielder. Okay. I don’t remember him at all. Everybody on the list I can you know Javier Baden core uh Angel Nespat Edgar de la Rosa Sandy Bayas that Sandy Bayas was the one that kind of really so um and then just to for old times sake I wish well I wish you had this list on you so I could try to do like the preseason so weird they had preseason 86 87 and then they skipped it all the way up to to 99 for whatever reason. Um, but anyway, yeah, anything before 2000 I’m gonna struggle with. But, uh, yeah, that 2015 era was not uh it’s not great. 2014 that that Yeah, I mean that pitching heavy draft uh with Buck Farmer and uh Zyk and Crawford and then shoot who was the uh they had another arm whose brother was on the Braves. Oh, well. Oh, was brothers on the Braves or was drafted by the Braves. I’m going to look now because it’s bothering me. Okay. Well, well, while you do that, so the projected I’ll share the the projected top uh their 2029 lineup, which always I always get a kick out of it because we’re going to try to do that this year, but we’re going to do it in exact science. I I like this idea because it does show where the farm system is. Um so has Dylan Dingler is a catcher. Cole Keef at first base, McDonald at second, Bryce Rainer at third, Rod Yos at short, Riley Green at left, still having Parker Meadows in center field, Max Clark in right, Jose Barceno as a DH, and then Job Olsen Melton Monto, Andrew Sears, which and Kelvin Saledo, who we’re pretty high on quite a bit, and as team’s future closer. Uh, as far as best tools go, best hitter, Kevin McGonagle, without question. Best power hitter, Jose Bceno. Best recone discipline, Max Clark, three for three, I could agree on that. Fastest base runner, Patrick Lee. Makes sense. Max Clark’s calves are about the size of my head, so that makes a lot of sense. With best athlete, Moises Rodriguez, best ball. That surprised me a little bit because I I beg to differ a little bit about that. Best curveball, Yules Bear Sanchez. Best slider, Kell Saledo. Best change up, Saledo. best control Burhan which I thought his walks his walk rate as you mentioned before the podcast before we we recorded he had the lowest walk rate in the system Bennett Lee’s best defensive catcher and that would probably be accurate considering where we’re at with Presceno and uh Loronzo best defensive infielder Franier Montea his best he’s got the best arm Clark best outfielder and best off out offfield arm Patrick Lee and we’ve seen that firsthand a couple times and I have no qums off that whatsoever. Yeah, there there were very few on there that I disagree with. I I think Seth Stevenson’s a faster base runner than Patrick Lee. Patrick Lee is is very fast underway. Stevenson is uh just fast from the jump. Um I also think that Bryce Rener’s arm is probably stronger than Montia’s. Montia has a good arm and it’s good enough to play short. Uh Rainer has a ridiculous arm. Although, you know, having shoulder surgery, we don’t really know for sure. Uh, other than that, yeah, I mean, I have no real issues with a lot of that. Um, it is interesting to see that they have Saledo with the best slider and change up already. You know, we talked about that a little bit toward the end of the season. Uh, I can’t really disagree with that. Um, and I think I think they probably put him at closer. I mean, there’s some relief projection there for sure just because he’s so big at such a young age and it’s hard to, you know, maintain your body and throw enough strikes, but he was throwing a lot of strikes in a ball and I think part of that was them just wanting to get him on the list somewhere, right? Like, and I think what they had Andrew Sears as their number five starter. Yeah. And that’s the in our top 10, we have Andrew Sears and Kela Saledo. Those are the two pitchers in there. Uh, Salo, I would say, does have a higher upside. Uh but but Sears has done it at double A, which we do put weight on, you know, when guys actually perform at levels. We try not to over uh inflate when when you’ve got performance. Uh but Sears does have some tools, too, right? Like they’re there. So Max Anderson is seventh on Baseball America’s list. Uh and partially because he had a great season uh in in double A. He was fine in AAA. You know, it was not nearly as good as DoubleA, but he was still slightly above average. and that he, you know, was a monster in the Arizona Fall League for 14 games. Um, where I struggled with Max Anderson still is finding a role for him on a big league team because he’s he’s had good offensive numbers, but we know what his swing is like. It’s it’s a lot like Justice Big swing was where it’s built kind of for line drives up the middle and to the opposite field and uh or ground balls up the middle in the opposite field. He has plus raw power and every now and then when he catches a a ball and you hit it, you know, 430 ft to dead center, it’s pretty impressive. But I don’t think I think advanced pitchers will just throw him fast balls aside and he won’t he doesn’t pull the ball. Yeah. At least not fast balls and they’re just going to keep doing that and he’s going to get himself out and until he finds a way to not get himself out, I don’t think that hitting is going to translate to the big league level. And then if it doesn’t, then we’ve talked about this a bunch. The secondary skills aren’t really there. He’s improved on defense to be playable at second base. Third base is still I don’t know. I mean, maybe uh I don’t think he’s going to be an above average defender or even average anywhere. He’s just kind of he’s just not a great athlete. And I I don’t mean to be mean like that, right? But he’s, you know, it’s a pretty high threshold to be an MLB athlete and he’s not that level of athlete. Uh, and he walked a bunch in the Arizona Foley League, but that doesn’t tell you much because he’s got like a 6% walk rate otherwise in pro ball and he doesn’t steal bases. So, his value is going to be entirely in his bat and I feel like pitchers aren’t going to have a hard time neutralizing that. So, it’s it’s tough for me to say, “Hey, this is a guy who’s, you know, a big- time prospect.” We we said it before, you know, heading into last season, we had skepticism, too, right? We talked about like he was like we’re like, “This is a huge year. He needs to figure something out or else he’s not a prospect.” He did figure something out. He got a little bit more athletic. Uh he he did more damage and so give him credit and he’s still relatively young so he could do it again. I’m just I it’s I’m going to be skeptical until I see him do it at the big league level I think. Yeah. No, and I I’m with you on that because we’ve seen this kind of with Jace Young for example. I mean it’s almost like parallel in some ways except that Young was I think a better defender at second range-wise. He had better range at second base when we saw him in West Michigan and Erie than Anderson did. And Anderson, a lot of credit to him for getting in shape and and really and the Tigers even feel like in some ways I felt like the Tigers were skeptical of his success this year. And like and another thing to mention about the Arizona Fall League this year pitching wise, it was down. It was not nearly the quality of pitching that you’ve seen in the past. And so I think that plays a a thing to it. I think about the thing about Anderson too is he almost is in that Henry Justin Henry Mallaloy category a little bit where Mallaloy is not a good defender. He can hit has a good hit tool has a good eye at the plate but where do you put him? And so that’s as much as I I think if this is the Tigers four or five years ago you put them in an everyday lineup and just go and see what happens. But this is not this is not the Tigers anymore that like that. So I think even you know talking to some people there were thoughts about him being tra he thought you know it’s speculated that he thought he would might be traded and the during the trade deadline because you have high Lee and and and Hi Lee’s on the list but I I you know the the raw data suggests that Hi can hit the ball hard. It’s just a matter of him being consistent and I think what you mentioned about Anderson and inside of the strike zone. I think the same problem can be for Ha if you throw him inside and we saw this happen which is why when he crowds the play I mean he got smoked what three times last year. Was it last year? Yeah, it was last year when he got he he got hit in the head twice in a short span two years ago and then last year he got hit right in the face and actually was bleeding out like on the dirt and was passed out. Um no, I mean that’s a good point. Yeah, they have they have Lee six and Anderson 7. We have Lee 8 and Anderson 14. Um and and you’re right, like both of them at this point, it looks like their only real role will be as um kind of lefty mashers, at least right now, unless they make some changes. Uh they both did really well against left-handed pitching last year. I think Lee’s OPS was like 920 and and Anderson’s was like 1040, something like that. Um the the the one thing again we’re we’re really kind of when you’re outside of the top three or four in the system, you’re kind of finding looking for roles for guys. And for me, I think Lee is just a better athlete. He’s not a monster athlete by any means, but he’s he’s he moves better. He’s uh he’ll he’ll walk more. He can steal some bases, and he’s I think a better defender at second. Uh he’s not a great defender at third, but I think he is athletic enough that he could learn to play the outfield corners if he has to. And that just gives him to me a slightly better chance at making an impact in the big leagues in a Andy Abana style role than Max Anderson. Uh we’ll see. Max Anderson, maybe Max Anderson’s hit hit tool is that much better than Leaves that he’ll eventually overtake them. But for me, I feel like that’s the right order. Um, and you can argue between, like I said, outside of the top three or four, the next 10, 15 players in the system, you can kind of shuffle them any way you want, and they’re all relatively uh, you know, similar in terms of ceiling, maybe not ceiling, but u, you know, likelihood of reaching ceiling. Yeah, it’s it’s you know, it’s interesting about this um going through the the the list about uh the the chat that JJ had with fans and everything and the the as far as like some of the names we’re talking about here. The the one thing is certain about the well the lack of pitching that he mentioned or but Salo or excuse me Saledo is very close to the top 10. So JJ Cooper said very he’s the most fascinating pitching prospect I consider for the top 10. Yeah. I wonder who asked that question. Yeah. Was that you? I don’t know. We’ll find out. Uh, yes. It was me. It was me. I wanted to see where they had salted. It’s well I was going to say it’s well written. Okay. So, the question is from anonymous. Uh, baseball ba gave Salo the best slider changing. His fast ball sit in the mid 90 mid 90s. How close was he to the top 10? Nicely done there. I like that. uh um just wanted, you know, you got to participate. You got to be in there. I will say, you know, I I was in reading those recaps and obviously I don’t know uh I mean they they probably get this information from anybody and and I’m sure we talked about Max Clark being very forthcoming, but they were talking about his shin splints and stuff like that and I had not maybe that’s just me not paying 100% attention, but I had not heard that anywhere else until he told us on the podcast. Correct. Um so who knows? But uh anyway, um yeah, I I like Saledo is a guy we could be sitting here next year and talking about him as a top 100 prospect in baseball or we could be sitting here talking about him the way we were talking about Rainor Castillo at the end of the year where I don’t know what happened. It all looked so good and it just fell apart. Um so we’ll just have to wait and see. But yeah, they’ve got him and and what is interesting, you know, I my guess is when they release their top 30 or whatever, I bet you 11 through 20 is going to be throw darts on the board. Well, I think I I’m thinking there’s going to be like eight pitchers in there and I think three or four of them are going to be from this year’s draft. Malachi Witherspoon and Caleb Lays and Ben Jacobs and maybe Grayson Grenzowl or Caleb Whiska. I think all those guys will be in that range, which is about right. and they’ll probably have in Owen Hall or you know some of these younger uh pitchers. I still think River Hamilton was really interesting but you know I think he got injured and and just to go back on Owen Hall again you know around this time last year all we had from him was some bullpin footage from that place out in uh Oklahoma or wherever where he was practicing where we see Joe and we see a bunch of other guys. Lockheart pitches there. They got the dog that chases the ball. It’s good fun. uh and he was touching 98 and throwing some nasty pitches. We’re like, “Oh man, this looks great.” And then he got into Pro Bowl. We got what, seven innings from him. He walked everybody. He wasn’t missing bats and then he got hurt. And it’s like, so you you just never really know with any of this stuff. You know, those videos can be kind of deceptive. Um even if you know they’re real, it’s it’s one thing to just get out there and unleash the ball. It’s another thing to execute and find the strike zone. and they’ve been taking a lot of guys who can’t do that. So, we’ll see what happens. Yeah. And that’s that’s kind and that is a little worrisome. I mean, it was something that it was a question that came up. Let me see here. What was I think trying to think of what that question was about the pitching um uh why the Tigers don’t have any Oh, here it is. Um Oh, I lost it again. Sorry. Okay. No, that’s okay. the Okay, so it was talking about the only one uh oh actually that was they got that that question wrong. Uh though what is the cause that Tigers the lack of pitching in their top 10 bad development not acquiring many in the first place and Cooper’s answer I thought was really good and diplomatic in 2020 Tigers drafted position players every pick it was a great draft for them by the way four of six packs early six picks have already reached major streak cru like to become the fifth at some point too long um he mentioned with the Tigers draft strategy they went pitching heavy in 2024 and same thing with 2025 So it’s hitter heavy. Yeah. Pitcher heavy, but um you know because the McGongle Clark could be an all-time draft, but Wilson the third round pitch you mentioned and Wilson too. Wilson started off decent last year and then he disappeared. And that that’s that’s the problem. I think it’s it necessarily that that’s the concerning part Chris is like if you look we’ve tal I I think I’ve I’ve said this in nauseium but you look at Toledo you look at Erie right now the and so one of the things we mentioned last week is that the Tigers had 22 or 2 I’m sorry 24 minor league free agents three or I think it’s already five of them already signed elsewhere. Um, so, uh, it was officially announced today that, uh, Andrew Magno signed by Baltimore. So, all the reason why I’m saying all this is because you don’t have I mean, is Tyler Madison coming back? We don’t know. There’s been nothing. It’s been really, really quiet. Like, I’m I’m thinking like winter meetings next week. All sudden, Tigers just going to drop everything at one point. I don’t know. But it is a concern when you look at their doublea starting rotation last next year and you go you literally have no idea you have no paying to fall back on. You have Bur Burhan is the only guarantee right now and there’s maybe he starts in he might start again in Toledo. It’ be I think his fourth season in Toledo in Erie. Yeah in I’m sorry. Erie. Yeah. Yeah. It’s um I don’t know. They’ve shown a willingness to do that that that they don’t mind keeping guys in the area kind of just forever. Um yeah, it’s tough. It’s tough to figure out what they’re going to do. I was trying to do that going going through and trying to figure out the rotations. Uh and it’s it’s hard to do before they start adding some of this depth at AAA, right? Um, we know Troy Watson is likely coming back unless he’s taken in the rule five and and that seems unlikely because he’s got uh a fair amount of money attached to him if he does make the majors. A fair amount. It’s like 1.3 million. Yeah. But um that’s more than most teams want to pay for a guy in the rule five draft. Um but then yeah, after that like they haven’t signed any of these minor league depth guys really. They brought Tanner Rainey back. I do think they’ll bring Madison back but it for whatever reason it hasn’t happened yet or they haven’t announced it yet. Yeah, it’s hard to figure what the rotations are going to be like. Um, I think Sears is probably back in double A to start the year. Um, it’ll be interesting to see if they move Jake Miller up to start the year. He was in double A last year, but he only threw 20 innings. Yeah. So, he may be back there, too. I don’t know. Um, yeah, they’re they’re uh they’re going to have to do some serious uh development on the pitching side next year with guys making quick jumps up the ladder if they want to support the big league club uh from homegrown levels. Yeah, there’s a and it’s weird when you go to the transaction list on the Tigers roster and staff on the Tigers.com, it says no transactions found. It’s really really weird. Usually by now you see some sort of like one little thing or something and there’s nothing. And so but uh as far as like the list goes with South the other name that’s to me is is missing on this list that is going to be missing from our list. If one of the things I want to shock you with is how far Rainor Castillo’s fallen. A lot of the guys that were top 20 at this point last year have fallen to 50 60. I mean, we have I think I think some some of our guys went 64. I went I think I went 60. I couldn’t do like after I mean, literally, it was just like I saw Yeah. For me, I just put every every player who I found, you know, vaguely interesting and then tried to rank them all. So, it did end up in, you know, the 60s. But, we have a list. We have a list of 47 guys who got at least four votes. We all went out to at least 50. So, that’s a lot. We’ll figure out a way to pair that down a little bit probably. But yeah, like uh Rainer Castillo is now at 41. Um, which is a a pretty big fall for sure for a guy that we thought was, you know, could be a top 10 prospect at this time, but he just didn’t look good last year. And, uh, just looking at it. Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. I I’m curious where they have Eduardo Valencia as a guy who kind of was a popup, but older and doesn’t really have a defensive home, per se, but was added to the 40man roster. It’ll be interesting to see what they have to him and and and Cruz on the list of prospects as the team evidently finds them useful. Um and the other the other one I think you touched on it briefly was uh Yoast being number five. It’s pretty high uh for again a guy we haven’t seen a guy you like his you like his swing from the you know the small amounts we’ve seen. He had very unimpressive power at the MLB draft combine. Uh but his brother uh who plays for Florida, Jordan Yos was going to go join his brother at Florida. His brother is 61 195 already and Jordan is you know 61 175. So maybe you can add 20 pounds of muscle and maybe you have something as long as he stays athletic enough to play shortstop. He’s just another guy that we want to see. He’s one of the guys I want to see the most this season. See how he performs, see what he looks like. But, uh, that’s the benefit of of Baseball America. They have larger networks. They can talk to people who were down there watching Bridge League games and things like that and maybe have more data at their fingertips. U, so I mean, you know, I take their rankings seriously and and we’ll see what happens. But I do like ours. Yeah, I I like ours a lot. I I like because we’ve done a lot of the same. We’re we’re doing a lot of the same things. We’re we’re not perhaps not talking as many people, but more people are trusting us to tell us things and and we also based off our own observations, what have you. But the uh if you had a chance to subscribe to Baseball America, it’s definitely worth the money. But uh JJ Cooper wrote a really good article about Kevin McDonald is a near perfect hitting prospect. And the spray chart of it, let me just show you the spray chart so you can see this. And Chris, it is a thing of beauty. It is an absolute It looks It It looks like You could put You should Here’s an idea. We should put this in a shirt. Oh, that would be fun. Yeah. I mean, you do see it’s uh he does hit the ball everywhere. the UDC, the Red where we were talking about, you know, their double A, he started getting a steady diet of breaking balls away from him and change ups and and um he was pulling and rolling over on him a fair amount to first and second base, but still tons of hard contact to all fields and really impressive. Yeah, it it’s very impressive. And looking at that spray chart, it literally you can make a tie, you know, it’s a it’s a good idea for a tie-dye shirt. So yeah, uh analytically he according to JJ McGle ranked in the top 5% of ML MB hitters in average exit velocity. He was top 20 90% exit velocity and max exit velocity. Oh hey he and hey look at our clip. And those that spray chart was just of his extra base hits which is uh worth noting. I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know this article existed until you just brought it up. So this is fantastic. Yeah. Uh again this is the this is of course you know as the one on McGonagle this one hammered deep right well you know what’s interesting hearing it fly touch them all time Kevin McGle that’s number seven on the year absolutely crushed that ball and the Seawolves on the board here in the fourth inning it’s a three to one game was that was that was a couple things before I went out there right uh boy I No, no. Cuz remember remember I remember I did the video of me looking out here when I when I got to Eerie looking for the ball. Yeah, it was a couple days before that. Yeah, you went out there and and we’re like yeah looking to see where it landed. It’s good to hear Greg’s voice again. Greg Gaia, the voice of the Erie Sea Wolves. Um yeah, and you see the good information in there. Got to hit 344 or 430 whatever against fast balls. Um, yeah. And when we talked to Clark, Clark mentioned specifically that Yarland Susanna’s fast ball was straight as an arrow, but it was, you know, triple digits, so it’s not always easy to hit. And, uh, Mechanical had no problem with it. Yeah. And this is where uh, yeah, like I said, this is I’m not going to uh, people in the pay wall and all stuff. This is swing through this. It’s it’s a great example of why it’s uh worth it to get a subscription because they again they have they have access to synergy data that we do not have because uh it’s quite expensive but um I think we do a really good job with all the without a lot of data. I mean, with the data we do have, so I mean, hey, um, yeah, for what we have, it’s worth a humble brag. And so, um, no, and look, the bottom line is this, like there’s and he mentioned, I liked how he mentioned the, uh, the series with Altuna because you got to see the two two top prospects and Conor Griffin and him react and play against each other. And I saw when I saw I was like, “Okay, what’s the hype behind Connor Griffin?” I saw him down in Braon and there’s nothing to me in in low A or excuse me, single A that’s going to tell me anything, but then you see him in in person in double A making great. I mean, his range was fantastic. He hit the ball really hard. He was he looked like a beast. I mean, this guy is all baseball. He soaks it in. And then you saying the difference between McGonagle and I got admitted likely too caught up in when McGonagle didn’t throw the ball right or whatever the case was. Um he misplayed something. But then looking at that you’re going okay well it confirms that McGonagle was still a damn good hitter even but like this is probably the longest season he had. I mean you go against Bingington and Bingington had a plan. Bingington had a direct plan with him and Max Clark where they were gonna throw their best pictures at him and give him nothing to hit. Nothing. Nothing to hit at all. But McGonagle still regard regardless of all that with all that being said there I I think the biggest takeaway that we saw the Arizona volley with him playing that he can also play third is that his future position. No, it’s not. Yeah, it’s uh I know it’s fun thinking back to, you know, we we got to see just watching games last last year, Connor Griffin and um Treya Savage in low A to start the year. Oh yeah. And by by the end of the year, Treya Savage is is dominating in the postseason and Conor Griffin is uh the player of the year. And I think that the key with Conor Griffin as compared to Kevin McGonagal is just the athleticism, right? Conor Griffin is like a Kelvin Johnson level athlete. He’s like 6’4, 230 with 70 speed and 70 power. It’s, you know, it’s an insane athletic package. The big question about him was, you know, could he hit? And last year he sure looked like he could. He hit over 300 while climbing up the double A. McGonagle is a great hitter with, you know, very good power. He just doesn’t have that 6’4 frame and the 70 run speed, right? Like, so it’s it’s it’s a difference. They’re different athletes. and and Griffin also proved that he could play shortstop which was uh some people thought he might be able to but most people just thought you know put him in center and let him win a gold glove there but um so yeah I mean we’re talking about the you know two of the three or four best prospects in baseball but there is I think a clear number one but again doesn’t mean that McDonald might not ultimately provide more value because he’s uh you know he really is an incredibly gifted hitter and he should be able to hit 300 plus with power in his prime in the big leagues. And patience, by the way. Yeah, patience. And the one thing too about McDonald and then we’ll we’ll we’ll leave you with that is that there was one constant with him that I saw like similar what we saw with Cole Keefe and it’s the domination of the level is that Cole Keefe it took him a minute but he started adjusting and he went crazy in double A. We saw that with McDonald gold too as well. there was a slow start with him and then he the learning curve and I think that to me that bodess well when especially if he starts a season in Toledo which is necessarily it’s not going to be a bad thing. I I I understand that people think that’s going to be a bad thing for him, but I don’t think so because there’s a different b there’s a different ball in Toledo than there is you you’re facing major you have the major league ball in there which makes the difference a little bit how pitchers shape themselves a little bit and you’re going against the the cream of the crop in Toledo. Toledo in April is a lot different than Toledo in in September. At that point September they they don’t give a Sorry. They they don’t they’re they’re gone. there. A lot of those guys are just like, “All right, I just want to get this over with. I I need to go find my whatever.” Is that fair to say? Yeah, it September is is sad. It’s a sad place to be. You don’t want to be there. Um September and or you know, March, April in AAA can sometimes be very fun and exciting. You’re getting some guys right before they get to the big leagues. Um yeah, I mean, people want McGonagal to make the team out of spring training. We would like that as well. Uh, and it’ll be interesting to see, you know, if he doesn’t, will they really hold him in the minors until August so that he can still be a Rookie of the Year candidate uh in 2027? I don’t know, man, because 2027 might not happen, right? Like, yeah, it’s uh it’s a tough one. I think, you know, it’s funny if if that’s their plan, if they really do want to hold him down until that late in the season, it wouldn’t shock me if if he’s back in Eerie, honestly, to start the season. You could you could justify that with some basic numbers if you wanted to. Like, oh, I only hit 260 or whatever. Maybe it was 230. I think it was like Yeah, something like that. Yeah. But um I don’t know. And it’s going to be fun watching him. I’m sure he and Clark and Brano are all going to get uh 254 in in DoubleA. I think all three of them are going to get a bunch of at bats in spring training. It’ll be interesting to see how they perform. Yeah. In the spring breakout, I think they play the Pirates. Is that right? Yeah, there you’re going to get a chance to see McGleal and Griffin again going head-to-head and Rainer hopefully. I don’t know. We’ll see if Rainer’s healthy. Um it it is unfortunate there’s a chance that Rainer and Montia are neither of them are healthy for that game. Yeah. And uh some of the other arms, but we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. Yep. Might be Kelvis Salto’s coming up party. Oh, that would be that would be a badass. And also Yeah. Go ahead. Well, I was just saying like, you know, and and we try to pay attention to other prospects, but I had not heard of Diddier Fuentes until he came in and dominated the Tigers last year and then like four months later he’s in the big leagues as barely 20 years old. Didn’t go well for him, but uh yeah, you can you can move quickly if you uh perform there. Yeah, that was that was a per I think it was the struck out the first six or something like that. I mean, he was like mowing him down like it was he’s uh from was it Nicaragua or Nicaragua or Panama or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but uh no, it the Tigers international side, by the way, I think you’re going to see more of that between 11 and 20. I I the Chris Rodriguez thing is is good is ideal, but I think some of the other lesserknown guys, you know, I think that that’s going to be more prevalent there between 11 and 25 because it the the Tigers in terms of international wise, the big signings haven’t I mean, Chris Rodriguez comes to mind of course, but you know, to me, I’d like to see more that those infielders come through and and hopefully you can see somebody like You know, it’s weird that how far we’ve come to from the Christian Rod uh Christian Santana days. Um but now when it comes to, you know, I did I did something back in August about looking at back at some of the the the misses and what have you and um the 2000’s era. I looked at I looked at every single era uh of the Tigers in terms of international signings. Um, and this era might shape up to be a better this I feel Chris with, you know, you have Windal Perez, you have Monttero, the class of 2016 might be one of the better ones, but I think it’s going to get better. I really think so. I mean, uh, right now you have Cast, you know, Gabriel Ry, what is Gabriel Re? Is he gonna be a guy that continues to step up? Um, you know, I don’t know. I I have a good vibe about it. I really do. Yeah, it’s it’s always tough to know which what which international guys are going to translate to the big leagues or not even to the big leagues to state side baseball. This time last year, Jose Dixon was was we were kind of like, oh, we’re going to have to put him in the top 30 because other people are. And then he he wasn’t great in the complex league. He was, you know, okay, he survived, but uh I will say that Anel Deos Santos looked very promising. Uh another shorts stop. We only got to see him for a handful of games. like not a handful, but I think he got like a 100 played appearances, 100 bats. Um, but he hit like 370 and stole a bunch of bases and uh it’s apparently a legitimate short stop. So, he’s a guy that that might climb up the list, too, if we uh get to see him in the complex league. But again, we can go deep with these rando guys. Uh, you know, Yonan Koba, I’ll keep bringing up until somebody else acknowledges him. Uh, but maybe they never will. We’ll see. Well, I you Cobra, even with the Cobra stuff aside, like I hope he does get some due for that. Uh I hope he gets some he gets uh gets up there. So, thanks so much for watching. Thanks very much for listening to the Brown and Casino podcast portion on Patreon. And of course, if you’re listening to this on or watching us on YouTube, thanks so much. We are going to our tool series is going to be out next week and we’ll be continuing our coverage of the Tigers our own top 10 coming out and stay tuned for that. For people on Patreon, thank you again uh for subscribing and thank you for supporting our work as always. Uh just wanted to thank everybody. I feel like I’ve thanked everybody. Um I I want to give a shout out to Mr. uh grand grandpa Clauss for uh always reaching out and just checking in and um seeing how everything was doing and so to Grandpa Clauss, thank you uh for and also Sy Gibson’s mom sent me the the angle pecans. Yeah. Uh although I saw him he was in he’s in Detroit doing something today and he shaved his I don’t even recognize him without his mustache. I don’t know who that guy is. I really Yeah, the the Yeah, we we talked about that. He looks different without the mullet mustache. Um, bring it bring it back, man. Bring it back, dude. Like, hey, whatever works. Um, yeah. And he got married, didn’t he? Yeah, he got married. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe maybe married life will suit him. Yeah. And he’ll, you know, win a job with the Tigers coming out of spring training. We’ll see what happens. Yeah. Hopefully, we’ll Yeah, he’s a guy that factors into the roster. And yeah, we’ll talk to you soon. Have a good evening or morning or however you’re processing this. And we’ll talk to you soon.

Chris and Rogelio break down the Baseball America Top 10 December update and the differences between ours and theirs.

Articles and scouting reports: www.tigersmlreport.com
Follow us on Twitter/X-TigersMLReport
Like us on Facebook:www.facebook.com/DetroitTigersMinorLeagueReport/
Instagram: TigersMLReport
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TigersMinorLeagueReport
Donation Link:https://bit.ly/TMLRDonate2023

#MLB #DetroitTigers #baseball

Leave a Reply