By Jason Berndt
The Major League Baseball draft will take place on Sunday, July 9th through Tuesday July 11th. The Detroit Tigers, thanks to some luck will draft 3rd in the first round, even though they ended up with the 6th worst record in baseball last season. They are also fortunate to have many college, and big league-ready players projected to be selected at the top of this draft.
So, let’s take a look at the projections at the top. There is not one guy, who is considered to be a “can’t miss” prospect that will be guaranteed to go #1. The Pittsburgh Pirates have the top pick, and there are two ways they can go. If they are looking for starting pitching, Louisiana State right-hander Paul Skenes is the top rated pitcher by far in this draft. He finished 12-2 for the Tigers last season, with a 1.69 ERA in 122 innings pitched. He helped LSU win the College Baseball World Series and was also named as the college player of the year. Needless to say, he’ll be a top choice if you’re a team looking for pitching. I doubt he will drop to #3 where Detroit will be waiting.
The second pick belongs to the Washington Nationals. The best two position players at the top of this draft are very good ones and depending on who you ask, it might differ on who is going to be taken higher. Most experts have outfielder Dylan Crews, who was a teammate of Skenes at LSU last season as the top positional player. Crews batted .426 (110-for-258) for the 2023 National Champions with 16 doubles, two triples, 18 homers, 70 RBI and 100 runs. He finished No. 1 in the nation in runs scored (100), No. 1 in walks (71), No. 2 in on-base percentage (.567), No. 2 in base hits (110) and No. 3 in batting average (.426). He also was named as a first-team all-American, SEC player of the year, and the SEC all-defensive team. These two players will probably go 1-2 respectively in either order.
That leaves Detroit with the third selection. Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford is the next projected pick. However, the Tigers have some options. They have an extra competitive balance pick (No. 37) and could take a player at a discount here and use the bonus pool savings on a top talent who falls to No. 37. Virginia backstop Kyle Teel is a possible target for such a strategy. If Skenes and Crews are both off the board, Detroit will have that decision to make. Langford is the best positional player behind Crews by most projections. He finished this past season for the Gators with a .373 batting average, 21 HR’s, 57 RBI’s, and 56 walks. The Tigers are in a good spot because any of these 3 players would be a great addition to a team in desperate need of young talent.
I won’t bore you with more projections from teams beyond this point, but I will mention several players that will be on the board when the Tigers are selecting. I mentioned Virginia catcher Kyle Teel already, but he’s joined by OF Max Clark, Franklin HS (Indiana), 3B Brayden Taylor out of TCU, OF Walker Jenkins, South Brunswick HS (North Carolina), C Blake Mitchell, Sinton HS (Texas), RHP Chase Dollander, Tennessee, and rounding out the potential top 10 is SS Jacob Wilson, Grand Canyon.
This will be the first draft for Tigers General Manager Scott Harris, who came over from San Francisco last year. Rebuilding this farm system must continue to be a priority as they currently are ranked 12th in the league by Bleacher Report. This is a current top ten prospect list for Detroit:
3B/OF Justyn-Henry Malloy (Tier 1)
RHP Jackson Jobe (Tier 1)
3B Colt Keith (Tier 1)
RHP Ty Madden (Tier 2)
2B Jace Jung (Tier 2)
RHP Wilmer Flores (Tier 2)
C Dillon Dingler (Tier 3)
RHP Troy Melton (Tier 3)
OF Roberto Campos (Tier 3)
LHP Brant Hurter (Tier 3)
Tier 1: Prospects who have elite skill sets and All-Star potential. This is the cream of the prospect crop. These players currently make up B/R’s Top 100 prospect list, which was published on May 8.
Tier 2: Prospects who have a good chance of becoming impact contributors. These are the players who were in consideration for spots on B/R’s Top 100 prospect list and could end up there in the future.
Tier 3: Prospects who profile as fringe MLB contributors or young players who are still too raw to project any higher. This tier represents the bulk of prospects around baseball, though more than a few could climb to the next tier.
