The Detroit Tigers are spending this off-season on free agents and trades as they try to fill the many holes they have. Catcher…. Starting pitchers…..shortstop…. outfielder….
So what else is new? For decades, this has been their m.o. .
Yes, this is a team that has improved over the last year but when you scratch just below the surface, there’s not a whole lot there.
Certainly there’s no depth.
But will there ever be?
How many years has this team not had a decent catcher, shortstop, centerfielder….? Heck, they didn’t even have a full-time first baseman anywhere on their roster or in the minors for the 2021 season.
And this is the most concerning issue for the organization. An issue that is going to shorten their life span and keep them from being consistently competitive if not addressed quickly.
The lack of player development.
For decades, the Tigers have had a highly unsuccessful program to develop and promote solid players. Dave Littlefield, VP Player Development (and recently demoted) held the position for 7 years. Before him, there was Glenn Ezell who lasted 3 years and left the Tigers in the middle of the draft. There is some controversy as to whether he resigned or was fired.
And from 2010 until 2014, I can’t find any documentation that proves someone else was assigned that job. After Ezell left, Dave Dombroski said that Al Avila would take over that slot until they found someone new.
But did anyone within the Tigers establish anything within that field that could be considered decent quality? How many solid players with lasting careers did they bring through the system?
I count only two. Nick Castellanos and Justin Verlander.
Two successful home-grown players since 2004.
Under Mr. I, the Tigers bought their roster except for Castellanos and Verlander. Anyone with promise was traded off to get the needed players in the attempt to get that ring. Instead of a farm system, the team had a wallet.
How well it all worked can be debated but the Tigers found themselves in a mess when Mr. I passed and the wallet slammed shut.
All of a sudden, everyone realized that the cupboards were bare. And instead of bringing up promising prospects, the Tigers resorted to bringing up warm bodies. Some of those bodies are still here.
So how did they start to collect some top prospects?
Tanking in order to select top draft picks became their de facto player development system.
Until this year.
But we also noticed that earlier top draft picks, like Christin Stewart, who was a #1 draft pick, never developed enough to stick with the team. We saw other players, like Robbie Ray, go on to succeed with other teams.
Yet the Tigers held onto Dave Littlefield for 7 years. Worst of all, he’s still with the team because you really have to mess up big time to get fired by this organization. They’ve turned him back into a scout. Let’s hope it’s in name only.
Finally, in September, we saw the first movement to broom this department with the hiring of new VP Player Development, Ryan Garko. In turn, he released a couple dozen scouts, managers and coaches so far.
I don’t think he’s done. I think there will be more to come given time and a presumed moved to higher bar requirements and visible results.
Should this have happened sooner? (We’ll leave that discussion (and comments) for the final installment of Back to the Future – Part 5 so please save those comments for then.)
But now that the Tigers have actually moved on improving their player development, they’re going to need to work quickly. That pipeline of top talent they got from tanking has started to go away.
That pipeline is no longer going to be a gush. It’s going to slow down to a trickle as the team gets better and draft picks get lower.
And that new CBA may just get rid of the entire draft order in the players’ quest to eliminate tanking. There’s a possibility that a lottery system may replace it.
The team has been decent in developing pitchers, but not position players. Other than the current pitchers, the Tigers have only a single home-grown player.
Harold Castro.
And he spent 8 years in the minor league system before being promoted.
If we turn our attention to the current positional players, there are some imminent expiration dates that need to be filled sooner rather than later.
Tucker Barnhart is currently on a 1-year contract with rumors that the Tigers are trying to extend him.
Miguel Cabrera’s contract expires in 2 years with the hope that Spencer Torkelson will take over at some point this year.
Jonathan Schoop will remain with the team for 2 more years.
Jeimer Candelario has 2 more years before he becomes a free agent.
There is a big question mark at shortstop. TBD.
Robbie Grossman has 1 year left on his contract.
And it’s still too early to ink names into the other 2 outfield slots although Riley Greene is expected to be promoted this year.
Out of those 8 positions, the Tigers currently have 2 holes they need to fill before next year. Maybe 3.
In one year, they will need to replace 2 more players.
In 2 years, 2 more slots will be open.
Beyond that, there will only be 2 positions that will be filled. That is, should Torkelson and Greene stick.
The Tigers are going to need a lot more players. Or a lot more money to extend certain contracts.
Ryan Garko has his work cut out for him. He’s going to have to accelerate the player development process in the minors. Identifying those with the most potential, creating individualized training programs and fast-tracking them as much as possible.
This is the secret to sustainable competitiveness. Home-grown talent and a deep pipeline that continually coughs up players who are ready to successfully compete at the MLB level. Think Cardinals.
And this is really where the Tigers are at. When they are truly ready to compete, many of the current players will already be gone. Replaced by whom?
That is the big question.
Chris Ilitch has hinted that he wants to do things differently than his dad. And if that is going to happen, the Tigers need to get busy.
Really, really busy.
Because if they don’t, they are going to go through years of taking 2 steps back, 1 step forward as players leave and the holes continue to sprout up.
What they really need is the second coming of Trammell, Whitaker, Morris and Parrish.
(Please remember to limit your comments to 3-4 sentences and follow the rules for posting.)
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- One-third of MLB teams are looking at Marcus Semien. What does this mean for the Tigers?
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The Tigers have been the Mother Hubbard of MLB so it’s no surprise the cupboard is bare. I’m optimistic the pipeline can be rebuilt but think it’ll take 3 to 5 years to see depth of talent start to flow. One year to design and staff it, then several years to draft and develop the players. And minor league analytics will be just as important as at the major league level.
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It depends on Garko, how he surveys the pipeline what he sees as usable what he sees is not so the front office may know which players should be put into trade packages and which should be off-limits. Secondly, it will depend on how fast he and the staff he brings become a synergistic scanning system. I think Garko and whatever his immediate plan are, will receive a huge boost from a manager who knew from day 1 that he needed to know his minors.
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Your article gives me pause about the promising future of this team Holly, especially after becoming convinced that AJ and his friends are the answer. I’m at the point where I have more confidence in you than them.
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Well, she is the Momanager.
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I like the history you bring up Holly, even the bad stuff. But for me it goes back further than Mr. I and Dave Dombrowski. Remember how Nelson Simmons was going to be the next star? John Fetzer was an amazing person but even he made a mistake, he sold the team to you know who.
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What is player development, beyond keeping a draftee in your minor league system rather than trading him?
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The paucity of position players drafted and developed by the Tigers on the 40 man roster, particularly when even many recent AAAA players trying to earn a spot from Jacoby Jones to Daz Cameron were obtained from other organizations. (Total failure to develop guys who can slug!). This obviously has to change, but I do think that mid-level short term signings of productive pros such as Grossman, Schoop, Barnhart, etc. can truly help to hold the fort.
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They’ll have to, Hughie. But from a business perspective, it’s far less expensive to develop talent internally from draftees than to sign off-the-shelf players developed elsewhere. It also breeds team loyalty and camaraderie. I keep thinking back to the Whitaker, Trammell, Parish days (sigh).
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I was thinking of Jason “Rooftop” Thompson, but he was before 1984. They all tend to run together after awhile.
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Two players since 2004 is pretty bad. If you want to see something really bad, go back to 1985! Matt Nokes? Travis Fryman? Bobby Higginson? Tony Clark? That’s about the best I can come up with in the 20 years prior to 2004.
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If all the other teams were as bad as our Tigers at player development, there would be no MLB.
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I have been concerned about the Tiger’s continually drafting an abundance of pitching while ignoring the position players which resulted in never drafting people like Trout, Soto, Bregman, Guerrero Jr, Tatis, Harper, Freeman, Goldschmidt, Judge, Machado, or Altuve. DD wanted pitchers so he could make more trades.
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I’m curious why former homegrown All-Stars E. Suarez (189 HR since trade to Reds) and A. Avila aren’t MLB players with solid careers? Tigers’ system isn’t that thin. Clemens, Paredes and Kreidler will be factors like he next few years, Workman and Keith as well. You ignored Baddoo as an asset on the big roster—why? Depth at C incoming—Dingler, Alfonso and Johnson behind Rogers. Watch De La Rosa in OF, late-bloomer but big tools coming to Toledo.
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Hi, Michael – We’re discussing the current roster in this blog, not the players who have yet to reach the majors and have no professional track record on which to judge. But you mention Suarez, who developed after he left the Tigers. Paredes is not home-grown and neither is Baddoo which is why those 2 weren’t included. – Holly
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I remember Suarez when he was with the Tigers. I felt like he had some potential and was just sprouting his wings when he was traded. Maybe Cincinnati saw that too. But he really took off once he left here. Suarez and John Smoltz are the two biggest got-away players in recent memory. Who knows what would have become of them had they stayed in Detroit.
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It seems fundamental that you begin with fundamentals. In this case, effective scouting. It’s a long-term effort of successfully tracking high school players, foreign nationals, and college players and then helping them progress through A, AA, AAA. I have long maintained that St. Louis is the model.
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I agree. As good as Tampa develops players, they don’t keep their guys. St. Louis does, and that is why they are the right model to follow.
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The scouting/farm system was much better back in last 70’s & early 80’s but since then it’s been pretty thin at best. They need to be putting $ into hiring scouts from teams who have been successful at scouting & developing talent as CI has mentioned if they want to be “sustainable”. And as always they need to get rid of AA (just my evil 2 cents worth) 🙂
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Rich, long-term, free agent contracts can cause “Pipeline Problems”. Handing out rich contracts usually means overspending, which leaves less money to acquire and hold on to players in the pipeline. Taking on long-term contracts means a team is committing to a player beyond his peak productive years, which eventually blocks the upward movement of younger players. Overreliance on the free-agent market means your pipeline isn’t working or you have little confidence in it.
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