The Tigers called up Dawel Lugo from Triple-A Toledo on Thursday to man third base while Jeimer Candelario tries to find his swing in the minors. In the procession of prospects to Detroit, Lugo might be just the first this season.
The club's farm system is full of upward-trending players. In an interview Thursday morning with the Jamie and Stoney Show on 97.1 The Ticket, Ron Gardenhire set the table for some more call-ups in the coming months.
"We're moving people all over the place, trying to get our younger guys closer to the big leagues so the second half of the season maybe we can make some moves and do some things," Gardenhire said.
Lugo -- the Tigers' No. 17 prospect, per MLB Pipeline -- earned his shot. He was hitting .341 in Triple-A, fourth best in the International League. And now that he's here, the Tigers intend for him to be their everyday third baseman, at least until Candelario returns. As Gardenhire told reporters Thursday, "We're bringing him up here to play, not to sit."
Behind Lugo, a trio of fellow position players are high on the Tigers' radar at Triple-A. CF Daz Cameron ranks No. 5 among the organization's prospects, SS Willi Castro ranks No. 7 and C Jake Rogers ranks No. 12.
Rogers, who was hitting .302 in Double-A, was promoted to Triple-A this week and homered in his first game. Castro, acquired from the Indians last season in exchange for Leonys Martin, is batting .307 through 32 games. And though Cameron has gotten off to a slow start, Gardenhire and GM Al Avila loved what the 22-year-old showed them in spring training.
Another position player to keep an eye on is 20-year-old infielder Isaac Paredes, the best hitter in the system. Paredes is currently in Double-A.
That's before mentioning the slew of pitchers on the rise, including Casey Mize, Matt Manning and Alex Faedo in Double-A and Beau Burrows in Triple-A. (Burrows is on the shelf with shoulder inflammation at the moment.) Mize has been especially dominant, with a 1.24 ERA and a 0.53 WHIP through eight starts this season.
"We're moving people, we've got some in Double-A, we're going to get more to Triple-A. Rogers went to Triple-A, so we're getting closer," Gardenhire said. "Later on this summer, hopefully we're going to start seeing some of these kids come to the big leagues, and I think the fans are going to really enjoy it."
As for which of these prospects arrive in Detroit this season, the Tigers have to weigh the value of big-league experience versus advancing a player's clock toward free agency.
On Candelario's mental struggles: "He's doing better defensively, his numbers are better. There's just times where he seems like he's kind of off in another world right now. I think he's thinking about the hitting part so much that defensively he's looking down, scratching the dirt rather than keeping his head up. We talked about this after the game last night. He just has to focus a little bit better and get that attitude that he had last year at the beginning of the year back, and that's, 'I'm going to be the best player I can. I'm going to kill this league.' Right now he's just kind of struggling through it, and players go through that. He's still a young player, so hopefully he'll find all that stuff because we plan on him being part of the future here."
On the possibility of signing a free agent pitcher like Dallas Keuchel: "Sure, we've definitely been in contact with a bunch of them. It's just, you got guys that say they don't want to go to the minor leagues, they don't want to go throw a couple of games, they're ready, they've been throwing on the side. And that's kind of hard to deal with. Plus, there's a money thing here. Talking about (Keuchel), it's not like you're going to sign him for $1 million. We have a budget and we pretty much spent that budget during the course of the offseason getting what we needed."
