The Tigers as we knew them are gone. The Tigers as we'll know them are beginning to arrive.
Detroit had five of baseball's top 25 prospects entering this season. (No other team had more than two.) With Matt Manning joining Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal in Detroit, three of them are now in the bigs.
And with Spencer Torkelson joining Riley Greene in Double-A Erie, the other two are well on their way.
"Riley was one of the first people to text me when he heard the news," Torkelson said Tuesday. "'Congrats, can't wait to see you again.'"
The two formed a tight bond last year during Summer Camp and on the taxi squad in Toledo, and grew even closer during instructional league in the fall. They have big goals in Detroit.
"At the end of the day, we're not here to win minor league baseball games," Torkelson said. "We're here to win a World Series championship, and it starts right here."
With Mize and Skubal having graduated from the farm system, the Tigers' top four prospects according to MLB Pipeline are now Torkelson, Greene, Manning and catcher Dillon Dingler. Three of them are now in Double-A. The other makes his big-league debut Thursday.
Torkelson and Dingler were promoted to Erie on Monday, where they hit third and fourth, respectively, Tuesday night. Dingler, a second-round pick in 2020, had a .912 OPS with West Michigan. Torkelson checked in at .976.
If they can sustain their momentum in Double-A, Triple-A will come calling. And then it's on to Detroit.