Here's the Tigers' Spring Breakout roster
Jason Beck
@beckjasonWhile Tigers fans got a look at prospects Ty Madden, Jace Jung, Dillon Dingler, Justice Bigbie, Wilmer Flores and Brant Hurter as part of Major League camp this Spring Training, they’ve barely seen top prospect Max Clark and shortstop prospect Kevin McGonigle, who have been working on the back fields in Minor League camp.
On March 16, they’ll be on the field at Joker Marchant Stadium together as teammates, facing a team of Phillies prospects as part of MLB’s inaugural Spring Breakout series. The game is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. ET.
The Tigers’ roster for the event includes half of Detroit’s Top 30 prospects from the latest MLB Pipeline rankings, and two members of MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list in Clark (No. 13) and Jung (No. 60), the Tigers’ two most recent top Draft picks.
The combination provides a glimpse at the potential future in Detroit.
“The reason I’m excited about it,” Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said, “is we have an opportunity to let players that aren’t going to play together at affiliates, play together on the same field. So we’re going to have [Single-A Lakeland] Flying Tigers playing with [Double-A Erie] SeaWolves who are playing with [Triple-A Toledo] Mud Hens, all on the same field. So it gives us an opportunity to create some culture within our farm system. I’m just excited to see them play together and compete as Tigers together.”
Some of them have already made an impression at Joker Marchant Stadium. Madden, the Tigers’ No. 5 prospect, tossed two scoreless innings with three strikeouts in Detroit's 2-1 win over Boston on Monday, working in and out of trouble with an upper-90s fastball and nasty slider that he was spotting in and out of the strike zone.
“He’s got really good stuff,” manager A.J. Hinch said of Madden, the club's top-ranked pitching prospect scheduled to compete. “It’s a legit breaking ball. It’s a legit power fastball. We’re urging him to work on the changeup because he’s just going to get a ton of left-handed hitters eventually. He’s an intense guy, and if he can rev his engine at a perfect level, he can pitch up here quickly.”
Both Madden and Jackson Jobe (the Tigers' No. 3 prospect) were told on their first day in camp that they would not make Detroit’s Opening Day roster. But both had a chance to make an impression that could propel them to Detroit at some point this year.
Same goes for Bigbie, who rocketed up the Tigers' rankings to No. 13 after climbing three levels last year and ending in the Arizona Fall League. He made an impression on Hinch not just with his ability to hit with authority to all fields, but his fundamental work like instinctively taking second base on a single anticipating a throw to third.
Now imagine an outfield with Clark, Bigbie and Roberto Campos, or an infield with Jung and McGonigle on the same side. It’s the future in Detroit, but it’ll be on display for a day in Lakeland, Fla.
What is Spring Breakout? MLB Spring Breakout is a four-day event showcasing baseball’s future: the current stars of Minor League Baseball. The inaugural edition will be held from March 14-17 at Grapefruit and Cactus League stadiums during Spring Training. A series of 16 exhibition games will be played between teams comprised of each MLB organization’s top prospects, creating a new touchpoint on the baseball calendar that celebrates our sport’s budding talent.
Here's the Tigers' Spring Breakout roster with MLB Pipeline's rankings: