The irony is, it began with a bang. The rest is becoming a bust. With their top pick in the 2007 draft, the Tigers selected a future Cy Young winner in Rick Porcello No. 27 overall, the start of a 12-year stretch in which they would spend their first-round picks almost exclusively on right-handed pitchers. That is, on arms instead of bats. They would give an arm and a leg to try this again.
As Al Avila and the Tigers slog through an ugly rebuild, it’s easy to point to the 2017 trade deadline as their undoing. And fair: the Tigers traded J.D. Martinez and Justin Verlander, a pair of stars in their prime, and don’t have a single big-league contributor to show for it five years later. But the rebuild was already on shaky ground. In truth, the organization’s future had been compromised in the draft.
From 2007-18, first under Dave Dombrowski and later under Avila and almost entirely under director of amateur scouting Scott Pleis, the Tigers had nine traditional first-round draft picks. They used eight of them on right-handed pitchers – and passed on some extremely talented position players in the process. The one position player they did take, 23rd overall in 2014, was the wrong one: Derek Hill. Future All-Star Matt Chapman went two picks later to the A’s.
Brace yourself.
Drafting 21st overall in 2008, the Tigers took Ryan Perry. Ryan Who? Drafting ninth overall in 2009, the Tigers took Jacob Turner. A man named Mike Trout went No. 25 to the Angels. Detroit forfeited its first-round pick each of the next three years for the signings of Jose Valverde, Victor Martinez and Prince Fielder – and no one will knock the club for trying to win. But drafting 20th overall in 2013, the Tigers took Jonathan Crawford. A man named Aaron Judge went No. 32 to the Yankees.
Before we go any further, it’s not so much that the Tigers passed on two superstars, including quite possibly the greatest player of all time. Nearly every other team in baseball did, too. It’s that the guys they took instead made zero impact on the organization. Crawford never even reached the majors. Both he and Turner were victims of, you guessed it, arm injuries.
Drafting 22nd overall in 2015, the Tigers took Beau Burrows. Four picks later, the Angels took catcher-turned-outfielder Taylor Ward, who’s enjoying a breakout season in the bigs. (And when the Tigers took a position player with their compensatory first-rounder for the departure of Max Scherzer, they again took the wrong one: Christin Stewart, No. 34 overall. Ryan Mountcastle went two picks later to the Orioles.) Drafting ninth overall in 2016, the Tigers took Matt Manning. Two picks later, the Mariners took outfielder Kyle Lewis, AL Rookie of the Year in 2020.
Burrows was a bust. We will see what becomes of Manning, a former top prospect working his way back from a shoulder injury. He’s still only 24. This also marks his seventh season in the organization and he has yet to make an impact in Detroit.
Drafting 18th overall in 2017, the Tigers took Alex Faedo. He was soon derailed by Tommy John. At the age of 26, exactly when the Tigers once hoped he would be leading their rotation, Faedo is nothing more than an emergency arm in Triple-A. Finally, drafting first overall in 2018, the Tigers took Casey Mize – the consensus selection at the top of the board. He has been derailed by Tommy John. Naturally, infielder Jonathan India, who went five picks later to the Reds, was NL Rookie of the Year in 2021.
To summarize: Ryan Perry, Jacob Turner, Jonathan Crawford, Derek Hill, Beau Burrows, Matt Manning, Alex Faedo, Casey Mize. This is what the Tigers did with eight traditional first-round picks over a 12-year span. Combined WAR with Tigers: 1.7. Combined WAR with Tigers excluding Mize: minus-1.0.
It wasn’t until 2019 that the Tigers drafted a position player of consequence in the first round: Riley Greene, fifth overall. They followed suit in 2020 with Spencer Torkelson, another consensus pick at 1-1. In the sixth season of a draft-and-develop rebuild, these are the only two hitters in the organization with legitimate big-league promise. Thus the consternation (to put it mildly) when the Tigers went back to the well with the third overall pick in 2021 and took right-handed pitcher Jackson Jobe over shortstop Marcelo Mayer, who went one pick later to the Red Sox (and is raking in the minors.)
"We thought that he was by far the best talent," Pleis said earlier this month. "You just don't pass on guys like that. It's going to take some time, just like with any of these young players, but we're taking the best player with the most impact with the most probability to get there. And then hopefully, everything goes right."
This year’s draft is Sunday night. The Tigers hold the 12th overall pick. In a draft that was once loaded with pitching, it might be to Detroit’s benefit that most of the top arms have succumbed to injuries. Similar to 2019 and 2020 when the board was screaming at them to take a bat, the Tigers might have to listen. Virginia Tech outfielder Gavin Cross? Texas Tech infielder Jace Jung? Campbell University shortstop Zach Neto?
Of course, in MLB.com’s most recent mock draft, which begins with 11 straight hitters, the Tigers are the first team to take a pitcher: local high school right-hander Brock Porter.
It’s too simple, and perhaps too late, to say the Tigers have to get this right. Whoever they take at No. 12 will likely be at least three years from contributing in Detroit, where the rebuild is already starting to crumble. Even if Jobe pans out, he’s not helping the Tigers until 2025 at the earliest. By then, their future might be buried in the past.
Detroit's track record in the draft has been exacerbated by its failures on the international free agent market. The Tigers have either failed to sign position players of note or traded those they did, like shortstop Willy Adames and third baseman Eugenio Suarez. They turned Adames into David Price, who they turned into Daniel Norris and Matthew Boyd. They turned Suarez into Alredo Simon. Around and around it goes.
The Tigers were embarking on a long run of contention when they drafted Porcello 15 years ago. They made moves to win, and they very nearly did. It is rightly remembered as one of the best eras of Tigers baseball: four division titles, two AL pennants, tons of individual awards. At the same time, the ground was eroding beneath them. Their future was slipping away. They had a chance to salvage it in 2017. They botched it, and here they are now, stuck in the mud.
Listen live to 97.1 The Ticket via:
Audacy App | Online Stream | Smart Speaker