Detroit Tigers Top 30 Prospects Update

Welcome to our version of the Detroit Tigers top 30 prospects list. Our initial top 25 list and full scouting reports came out back in November of 2022, and then we updated our list in May.

Now that the dust has settled from the draft and the trade deadline, we’ve decided to expand our list to 30. But we decided against doing full scouting report rewrites because it’s rare for prospects to see their profiles change drastically in a year.

However, players certainly do change. And so do our opinions and perspectives. So, consider this article a companion piece to the top 30 list and scouting reports. Below you’ll see the name of each player on our list and if they have moved up or down on our top 30. We’ve also included any tool grade adjustments we’ve made, and then we offer some notes for context.

1 – Colt Keith

Movement – None

Tool adjustments – Arm down from 60 to 50

Notes – Colt Keith has largely been as advertised, blitzing through Double-A in just a few months. He hasn’t quite found his footing in Triple-A yet, where he’s been getting himself into some trouble by swinging at borderline pitches and making more ground ball contact. It’s not a long-term concern, though. His arm strength hasn’t seemed to come back after his shoulder injury in 2022, and he dealt with some recurring soreness this year. It’s still passable at third base, but he’s trending toward second base in the big leagues.

2 – Max Clark 

No Notes – scouting report on site

3 – Jackson Jobe

Movement – Up 3

Tool adjustments – None

Notes – Jobe has returned from injury, throwing harder than ever and owning a new breaking ball shape. The 4-seam fastball is still a bit too hittable, but his sinker variant shows some early promise. His new breaking ball is a cutter in the 90-92 mph range, and it looks like at least an average offering. But, as with his curveball, Jobe insists it’s just him manipulating the shape and speed of his slider.

4 – Parker Meadows

Movement – Down 2

Tool adjustments – None

Notes – Meadows spent the first few months of the 2023 season treading water in Triple-A, but he seemingly adopted a more aggressive approach at the plate in June. Over the next two months he has performed at roughly the same level as he did in 2022, only with more extra-base power and much better performance against left-handed pitchers. His slight fall here is due entirely to the addition of Clark and the health of Jobe.

5 – Justyn-Henry Malloy

Movement – Down 1

Tool adjustments – Defense down 5 to 40, Arm down 5 to 50

Notes – Malloy’s season has been a bit of a roller coaster. He was tremendous in April, then had a very rough May, followed by a solid June and a terrific July. There were some early concerns about reverse platoon splits, but those have largely been erased in a larger sample. He still isn’t hitting for a particularly high batting average against southpaws, but he’s taking plenty of walks and doing a lot of extra-base damage against them. Unfortunately, any hopes of Malloy playing third base have been dashed. He struggled mightily there, and he hasn’t played the position in nearly two months. He has shown some flashes on defense in the outfield, but his reads are raw, and his outfield throwing mechanics aren’t consistent yet.

6 – Kevin McGonigle

No Notes – scouting report on site

7 – Wilmer Flores

Movement – Down 4

Tool adjustments – FB down from 60 to 55, changeup from NA to 35

Notes – The upper-90s velocity Flores flashed in 2022 has largely been absent all year, forcing him to work in the 91-93 range and very occasionally touch 96-97. The fastball still plays in Double-A because of its shape and spin, but his strikeout rate has dropped dramatically, and it could become a real problem for him at higher levels. To his credit he has still managed to perform well with diminished stuff, and his breaking balls remain above-average offerings. We’ve now seen enough of his changeup to give it a below-average grade, but he seems comfortable using it. A hamstring pull has likely ended his season, though he may make it back for the playoffs and/or the Arizona Fall League.

8 – Jace Jung

Movement – Up 1

Tool adjustments – Hit down 5 to 45, Power up 5 to 60, defense up 5 to 50

Notes – Jung has shown solid progress in his first full year of pro ball. We had questions about his game power last year, but he has answered those rather emphatically. He consistently hits the ball hard in the air, and he increased his pull rate by 8% in High-A, leading to significantly more home runs. And despite his below-average foot speed he has proven himself to be a very reliable defender, so we bumped him up there. We aren’t as confident in him becoming an average hitter though. He still shows a strong eye, but he continues to swing-and-miss in the zone a bit too much to project him as more than a fringe-average bat.

9 – Hao-Yu Lee

No Notes – scouting report on site

10 – Keider Montero

No Notes – scouting report on site

11 – Roberto Campos

Movement – down 6

Tool adjustments – Hit up 5 to 45, Power down 5 to 50, Defense down 5 to 45

Notes – All things being equal, Roberto Campos has had a fine year for a player his age and with his limited experience. He has shown better bat-to-ball skills and a better batting eye than we expected. But his ability to make easy contact results in far less good contact than is ideal for a player with his plus raw power, and he still hits the ball on the ground too often. Campos is also very raw in every other aspect of his game. He’s prone to bad reads in the outfield as well as puzzling throwing decisions and baserunning miscues.

12 – Ty Madden

Movement – down 4

Tool adjustments – Fastball down 5 to 50, Changeup down 5 to 45

Notes – Ty Madden still has the raw stuff to be a mid-rotation starter. He just never seems to bring it with him for more than 1-2 starts at a time. When he’s at his best he can fire upper-90s fastballs by hitters and get them to flail at his slider. But too often the fastball is flat and the slider doesn’t bite, and he gives up hard contact. He has increased his usage of a cutter as a means to attack lefties, but it hasn’t been terribly effective, as they own a .900+ OPS against him this year. He’s now tracking more toward an Alex Faedo-style up-and-down starter.

13 – Justice Bigbie

No Notes – scouting report on site

14 – Izaac Pacheco

Movement – down 7

Tool adjustments – Hit down 10 to 40, Power down 5 to 55

Notes – Though his surface stats over his brief stint in High-A were not great last year, Izaac Pacheco made a very strong impression on us in our in-person looks. But this year, in a much larger sample size, the stats remain poor, and the in-person looks aren’t terribly great either. Pacheco still has impressive physical tools, and he remains a strong defender, but at the plate he appears late on most fastballs and early on most breaking balls, and he seemingly struggles to manipulate his barrel to make hard contact on anything that isn’t in the middle of the zone. He’s still young for the level, but his struggles this year almost certainly dictate a repeat of High-A in 2024, in what could be a make-or-break year for him.

15 – Brant Hurter

Movement – up 5

Tool adjustments – Command down 5 to 45

Notes – After two months it seemed like Brant Hurter was ready for Triple-A Toledo. But since June he hasn’t looked nearly as crisp, and the numbers have backed that up. Sort of.

The underlying stats suggest a huge swing in luck, but Hurter’s command hasn’t been quite as sharp, so some of the bad luck is likely due to harder contact. We don’t think Hurter’s ceiling or floor have changed much, but he moves up here by virtue of graduations and other players falling.

16 – Dillon Dingler

Movement – down 6

Tool adjustments – none

Notes – Dingler hasn’t taken any obvious steps backward this year. The problem is he also hasn’t taken any obvious steps forward this year. He has seen moderate gains in walk rate and power production, but nothing that really moves the needle, and thus he continues to look like a solid, glove-first backup catcher.

17 – Paul Wilson

No Notes – scouting report on site

18 – Wenceel Perez

Movement – down 6

Tool adjustments – Power down 5 to 40

Notes – Perez looked solid at the plate for the first two months of the season, but he went through an extended stretch of defensive issues at second base, to the point he began playing in the outfield. His offense cratered in June, but he looked good in the outfield and then looked fine again when he returned to second base. His bat also came alive in July, which led to a promotion to Triple-A. Perez’s power production is still down dramatically from 2022, and his OPS as a right-handed hitter is nearly .400 points lower than his OPS as a lefty. He still looks like a potentially useful platoon player, but the drop in power and the platoon issues make things a bit more difficult for him.

19 – Andre Lipcius

Movement – down 6

Tool adjustments – hit down 5 to 45

Notes – Andre Lipcius has maintained his solid approach this year, but he slides a bit because of what appears to be an attempt to hit with more loft and produce more power. Unfortunately for him, it hasn’t worked. His fly ball rate has jumped 8%, but his batting average and his isolated power have both dropped by more than 30 points. On the plus side, Lipcius has seen plenty of time on defense at first base and the outfield corners, and he has looked solid enough to give him a little more utility.

20 – Troy Melton

No Notes – scouting report on site

21 – Danny Serretti

Movement – down 2

Tool adjustments – Hit down 5 to 40, Power down 5 to 40, Defense up 5 to 50

Notes – Our initial ranking of Danny Serretti was based largely on his whirlwind trip through the minors in 2022, and we admitted we didn’t have a terribly strong sense of what he actually was as a player. We have a much better idea now. He appears to be a glove-first left-side defender with a strong approach at the plate, but little feel for making hard contact against advanced pitching. Our critique of his arm was dead wrong – he actually excels at throwing on the move and from odd angles, which is the main reason we think he can stick on the left side of the infield despite below-average foot speed. He’s a quality defender, but not so good that he can overcome what appears to be a very light bat. There’s utility player upside here, but he needs to be much more productive on offense to make that upside a reality.

22 – Jack O’Loughlin

No Notes – scouting report on site

23 – Cristian Santana

Movement – down 12

Tool adjustments – Hit down 10 to 40, Power down 5 to 50

Notes – Santana has plummeted down our list, from #4 in the system to begin the season, to #11 after our May update, to #23 now. His swing was far too steep, and he struggled on the left side of the infield. But, after a truly terrible first three months of the season in which he batted just .115, Santana seems to have made an adjustment. He’s been terrific since the beginning of July, continuing to walk at an elite level while finally hitting for average and power. The end result is a wRC+ of nearly 180 over the past month. He, and the Detroit Tigers, deserve a lot of credit for finding a way out of that brutal tailspin. But, we like to say prospect rankings are just a snapshot in time. And in this case we took a photo of a hugely disappointing prospect about three weeks ago, but when we finished shaking the Polaroid we ended up with a completely different picture. We’ll just have to rectify that with our next rankings update.

24 – Sawyer Gipson-Long

No Notes – scouting report on site

25 – Eddys Leonard

No Notes – scouting report on site

26 – Trei Cruz

No Notes – scouting report on site

27 – Max Anderson

No Notes – scouting report on site

28 – Dylan Smith

Movement – down 6

Tool adjustments – Command down 5 to 45

Notes – We almost have to give Dylan Smith the prospect equivalent of an Incomplete. He had three short, rough outings with Erie to begin the season before hitting the Injured List for three months with a right forearm strain. Smith did manage to throw an immaculate inning and strike out 10 batters in just 5.2 innings in Double-A, but he also gave up 8 earned runs. He recently returned to the mound in the Florida Complex League, but his stat lines indicate a lot of rust. He’s now off to West Michigan, and if he doesn’t suffer any setbacks in his rehab he may return to Erie before their playoff series. Smith a strong candidate for

the Arizona Fall League.

29 – Tyler Mattison

No Notes – scouting report on site

30 – Josh Crouch

Movement – down 12

Tool adjustments – Power down 5 to 40, Defense down 5 to 45

It’s been a tough year for Josh Crouch. He appears to have shed some weight before the season in an effort to improve his mobility, and he has been successful in that regard. Unfortunately, the decrease in bulk also seems to have impacted his in-game power, as his extra-base pop has almost completely evaporated in 2023. To make matters worse, he struggled to make contact at all in Erie, and his receiving was well below average, leading to a demotion back to High-A West Michigan. There was a time when Crouch looked like a potential bat-first backup catcher at the big-league level, but he’ll need a strong finish to the season, or a huge comeback year in 2024 to avoid being labeled an org backstop.

Detroit Tigers Top 30 List: