Tigers Farm System Ranks Near Bottom in MLB

By Sean Gagnier

ESPN's Keith Law recently ranked all of the farm systems in Major League Baseball, and the Detroit Tigers didn't fair that well. Law had the Tigers ranked as No. 24 out of the 30 teams and their farm systems; there were only two redeeming parts of the farm system that kept it from falling lower than 24th.

The Tigers, Law said, were similar to the Philadelphia Phillies farm system, but are even thinner. There are quite a few prospects at the lower levels, but trades have erased most talent in the upper levels. There is raw talent to be had in the Tigers system, but aside from two exceptions, none of it is finished or nearly finished.

Just two prospects saved Detroit's farm system from slipping even lower than it did; Nick Castellanos and Jacob Turner. Turner, 21, is ranked No. 29 among all prospects. The right-handed pitching prospect has had the uber-prospect thrown on him in the past, but several MLB outings have proved that he is in need of more time in the minor leagues.

Castellanos, 20, is ranked as the No. 37 prospect in all of the MLB. He has torn up the minors at every stop he has made in his young career, hitting over .400 in Single-A Lakeland this season and batting over .300 at Double-A Erie. Castellanos is one of the most highly regarded Tigers prospects ever, with comparisons being drawn to Evan Longoria. If he can turn out to be a Longoria, the Tigers will be incredibly lucky.

He has been playing some games in the outfield lately for Erie, but is still considered to be a third base prospect and Dave Dombrowski says that is where he plans to play him for the foreseeable future. It wouldn't be the first time a highly touted third baseman made a transition to the outfield (see Ryan Braun), and that didn't turn out all that badly.

Detroit needs to address positional deficiencies in the system in the draft and consider stopping the nearly constant flow of prospects out of town for rental players for the major league club. If they're going to trade prospects away, they need to be signing the major league players they get in return.    

Lay Off Leyland

By Sean Gagnier

So you think you know more about the Detroit Tigers than manager Jim Leyland? Are you sure about that one?

Last week was the first time I spoke to Leyland in person and his knowledge about the game was stunning. The man knows what he is doing, he just doesn't always show it.

You know what Leyland did on Wednesday night after the game with Minnesota before the day game the next day? He stayed up until the early hours of the morning trying to decide whether to play Quintin Berry or Ryan Raburn, and then he slept on the couch in his office.

Leyland genuinely stresses over each decision that he has to make when it comes to his lineup and his ball team, and yet all he does is catch flak for it. I admit, I have been one of the people who has called for his job in the past, but after hearing exactly what goes into one of his decisions, I no longer believe his job should be in jeopardy.

When asked about Ryan Raburn Leyland had this to say,

"I had to toss and turn with it today whether to play Berry or Raburn and I ended up playing Raburn. The thought process is, if Raburn doesn’t help us against left handers, then we got issues, so you give him the benefit of the doubt to see if you can maybe get him going a little bit. Peralta, Young and Raburn gotta do something against left-handed pitching, it’s that simple. It’s that simple, Jhonny Peralta, Delmon Young and Ryan Raburn gotta do something against left-handed pitchers, it’s that simple"

Now does that sound like a person who doesn't know what their talking about? Not at all. Leyland is smarter than people give him credit for; he knows that his players are struggling but he also knows that he only has three extra players on the roster, one of which is a catcher. He is doing everything he can with what he has.


Leyland isn't  a stranger to being called out though, he talked about a story where he was at his own pool and someone began telling him that he was screwing up the Tigers because he wasn't batting Brennan Boesch second in the order.


"The guy kept saying Boesch hits better in the two hole. Well, it seems to me that wherever I play him Boesch keeps hitting .238, so he's going on about how Boesch needs to hit second but I told him, my stats show that hitting him second or f%&#$ing third or eighth the guy is hitting .238," Leyland said. 


The guy understands statistics and he knows that his team is scuffling, but he isn't just sitting around doing nothing, he is trying everything he can to get this team on a roll and in doing so he may make a misstep, but what do you expect? He's working with what Dave Dombrowski gave him.