Despite the wealth of injuries among this cohort already, the Detroit Tigers didn\u2019t back off of their draft strategy in 2025. They went prep heavy from the start, sprinkled in some college players they hope to improve, and tried to save money to lure some talented high schoolers into signing and starting their pro careers. Right-hander Ryan Hall gives the Tigers yet another talented young arm to try and develop. Hopefully things will go more smoothly than the front office\u2019s first two draft classes to date.<\/p>\n
The Tigers took the 6\u20191\u201d 175 pound right-hander in the fifth round last year. Hall got a bonus of $997,500, roughly $550,000 over the slot value, to pass on Georgia Tech. The Georgia raised, North Gwinnett High School product didn\u2019t pitch after the draft, and odds are he\u2019ll get extended spring training time this spring before going out to pitch in the Complex League in May or June, depending on how things are progressing.<\/p>\n
Hall was a two-sport athlete in high school who played football as well as baseball. He was a good, if undersized, high school quarterback, but wasn\u2019t really a standout on the mound until his senior year, when he grew a few inches and added muscle and better velocity on his fastball. He went from scraping 90-91 to sitting pretty comfortably in the low-90\u2019s and hitting 95 on the radar gun. Hall moves well on the mound and gets pretty good extension for his size. He backs the heater up with a low 80\u2019s slider with good two plane break and a spin rate that can top 2600 rpms. That pitch flashes above average already while Hall showed some feel for a circle changeup as well.<\/p>\n
This is a bit of an upside play based on Hall\u2019s overall athletic ability. His strike throwing is still pretty raw, but that athleticism should help him develop well in pro ball, and the Tigers will expect his balance and coordination to translate into good command in time. He\u2019s got the projection to be a mid-90\u2019s right-hander with a good breaking ball, a solid changeup, and good command eventually. The fact that he was a late bloomer who didn\u2019t really start coming into his own as a pitcher until his senior year prior to the draft doesn\u2019t hurt his profile either. He\u2019s got a fairly low mileage arm as a pitcher and the Tigers scouts no doubt liked adding a young, athletic pitcher with this background who broke out late in his high school career.<\/p>\n
Hall is more of a project rather than an established prep standout that tons of teams were on in the early rounds of the draft. He\u2019ll probably take time to find his footing and is unlikely to move quickly in his first pro season. In year one we\u2019re just looking for improved strike throwing and a more consistent breaking ball. He\u2019s got the raw ingredients to be a mid rotation starter someday, but the risk level is high and the road is long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the wealth of injuries among this cohort already, the Detroit Tigers didn\u2019t back off of their draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,38501,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-544255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroit-tigers-prospects-minor-leagues","12":"tag-detroittigers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}