Detroit Tigers Newsletter: Counting the days — literally — until Bryce Rainer arrives
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It’s possible, perhaps, to view the Detroit Tigers’ first three selections in the 2024 MLB draft with a bit of a jaded eye.
In a class heavy on college talent — the first eight picks were NCAA’ers, tying a record — the Tigers landed high schoolers with pick Nos. 11, 49 and 72: shortstop Bryce Rainer, right-hander Owen Hall and left-hander Ethan Schiefelbein.
Of the 15 teams with at least three picks Sunday, four took at least three high schoolers. And two of those — the Brewers and Diamondbacks — had a quartet of picks and snuck at least one college kid in. (Meanwhile, 13 teams didn't take a high schooler at all.)
That leaves the Pirates and the Tigers as the teams that went all-in (for one night, at least) on high schoolers. And folks, if there’s one longstanding bit of wisdom about building a competitive MLB team, it’s this: Whatever the Pirates are doing — unless it’s taking Paul Skenes No. 1 overall — always do the opposite.
Hello, and welcome to the Prep Crew Newsletter.
So, yeah, the Tigers are zagging where the rest of baseball zigged Sunday. (After they did the same thing last year, with four high schoolers among their top five picks.) And that cynical thought that keeps cropping up? Taking the kids, with a baked-in delivery date well down the road, has its benefits — off the field.
Maybe it takes a bit of pressure off as president of baseball operations Scott Harris attempts to end MLB’s longest postseason drought. Say it with us, now: There’s obviously a lot of development to do, and no one can blame the folks trying to turn things around, especially as they try to WIN RESPONSIBLY. (Actually, they can blame them — and do every time they think about Kenta Maeda’s contract — but stick with us here.)
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Or, maybe the Tigers really are trying something different.
As the Freep’s Jeff Seidel writes this morning, the draft braintrust — Harris, GM Jeff Greenberg and assistant general manager Rob Metzler, among others — were big on the “foundational traits that we want to build around.” That means positional versatility — and it also (perhaps) means talent.
We want to believe. We want to look a few miles down the road from where Sunday’s draft was held, to Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, and see the shining examples of high schoolers developed into All-Stars. Unfortunately? Of the 10 U.S.-born starters in Tuesday’s Midsummer Classic, just two — NL outfielder Christian Yelich and AL shortstop Gunnar Henderson — were drafted and signed out of high school. (And Yelich’s harvesting from the prep ranks came in 2010 — virtually an eon ago in player development.)
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Henderson, at least, provides some hope; as a high school pick, he fell all the way to the No. 42 pick in 2019 before soaring to the majors in 2022, AL Rookie of the Year in 2023 and a mighty 28 homers and .956 OPS this season. His All-Star backup, Bobby Witt Jr., went No. 2 in that 2019 draft out of high school.
So clearly, there’s a path for high schoolers — and high school shortstops, in particular — to pay off.
You just have to make sure you pick the right one. Then again, maybe the Pirates did the Tigers another solid there: They went for a high school shortstop, too, anointing Mississippi’s Konnor Griffin as their top pick. Which left Rainer — not to be confused with another notable Rainer here in Detroit — to the Tigers.
So how long will Tigers fans have to wait for the California native’s arrival in Detroit (full-time, not just for an introductory news conference)?
At 6 feet 3 and 195 pounds, Rainer has drawn comparisons to Texas’ Corey Seager, himself a high school pick in 2012. Seager rocketed to the majors, relatively speaking, with a debut just 1,186 days after he was drafted by the L.A. Dodgers.
That gives us a target date for Rainer of … Oct. 13, 2027.
Yikes.
Of course, there’s a few other high school shortstops who’ve been drafted in the first half of the first round in the previous 10 years: 14 of them, in fact. Six are still in development, drafted in 2020 or later. But that gives us eight other high-drafted high school shortstops to ponder. And so, let’s take a look at their paths through the minors:
DREAM A LITTLE DREAM: Bryce Rainer solves Tigers shortstop problem
2019: Bobby Witt Jr., Royals — No. 2: The son of a longtime big-league pitcher (you'll never guess his name), Witt needed just 1,039 days to make K.C.’s Opening Day 2022 roster, thanks to a 2021 that featured a .933 OPS in Triple-A. And since then? Witt finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting in ’22, seventh in MVP voting last season and was the All-Star runner-up this year.
2019: CJ Abrams, Padres — No. 6: The Georgia native can blame the oddities of MLB schedulemakers for his delay to the bigs — 1,040 days, as the Pads’ Opening Day came a day after the Royals’ in 2022. Abrams is on his second team, having been shipped to the Nationals as part of 2022’s blockbuster Juan Soto trade, but he’ll be a first-time All-Star on Tuesday, thanks to 15 homers and an NL-leading six triples in the first half.
2019: Keoni Cavaco, Twins — No. 13: Uh oh. This California native is still waiting for his big-league callup — and probably will be for a while, as injuries (and a career OPS of .602) have kept him from rising above High-A. Cut loose by the Twins this year, he recently signed with the Astros with an eye toward becoming a pitcher.
2018: Jordan Groshans, Blue Jays — No. 12: The Texas native was moved to third early in his run with the Jays, but it hardly cleared a lane to the majors; Groshans needed 1,562 days — and a trade to the Marlins — to make his MLB debut in September 2022. He has a .262/.308/.311 slash line in 65 career big-league plate appearances.
2017: Royce Lewis, Twins — No. 1: Another cautionary injury tale, as this Californian’s minor-league climb was decimated by back-to-back knee surgeries. In all, Lewis’ draft-to-MLB rise took 1,789 days, as he finally made his debut in May 2022. When healthy, he has been a star (albeit in the outfield, rather than shortstop), but that’s a big “when”: Lewis has played in just 94 games over three big-league seasons despite a .945 OPS.
2015: Brendan Rodgers, Rockies — No. 3: Rodgers went from Florida to the majors in 1,439 days, debuting with Colorado — and at shortstop! — in May 2019. He became a full-time big-leaguer in 2021 and posted a .798 OPS, but his bat has regressed since, all the way down to a .689 OPS in 79 games this season.
2015: Cornelius Randolph, Phillies — No. 10: This Georgian is also still waiting for his MLB debut, covering a span of 3,325 days. Randolph posted an. 866 OPS as an 18-year-old in Rookie ball, but it was downhill from there, with a career minor-league OPS of .713 over 2,087 plate appearances. Although he climbed as high as Triple-A in Philly’s system in 2021, he’s playing independent-league ball this season.
2014: Nick Gordon, Twins — No. 5: We’ll wrap up with another son of a big-leaguer — longtime reliever Tom Gordon — who also had an extended route to the majors: 2,527 days from draft to debut in May 2021. Gordon might have debuted a year earlier if not for the coronavirus pandemic, after putting up an .801 OPS in a 2019 Triple-A stint. Since arriving in the majors, Gordon hasn’t quite connected, posting a .246/.285/.393 slash line in 326 games with the Twins and Marlins.
JEFF SEIDEL: What in the heck are the Tigers doing drafting so many high schoolers?
Keith to the game
Of course, most high school prospects fall somewhere between the Witts and the Gordons. Take Tigers second baseman Colt Keith, for example; the 2020 fifth-round pick needed 1,386 days to make his MLB debut. And then a few more to find his way at the plate. But Keith is locked in now: In the 56 games since he snapped a three-game hitless streak on May 6, Keith has posted a .306/.508/.861 slash line. That includes a July with five homers and more multi-hit games (six) than no-hit games (five). So what changed? As he told Our Man Petzold, “Pretty much night and day," after Saturday’s game-tying blast against the Dodgers.
JHen soars
Keith isn’t the only Tigers rookie getting some on-the-job training. DH Justyn-Henry Malloy — 1,058 days from getting drafted out of Georgia Tech to making the majors — has been scorching since the Tigers’ trip to California last month, with a .954 OPS in his past 13 games. Malloy’s secret, as told to Our Man Seidel? “To stay as level as possible. Just have grace with myself.” That’s part of Seidel’s bigger message: Young players develop at different rates — and it’s never linear.
Bird is the word
Just take the development of one of the great Tigers icons of the past 50 years: Mark Fidrych. This year marked the 50th anniversary of his drafting by the Tigers out of high school in Massachusetts — or, more properly, out of a $2-an-hour job at a gas station — in early June 1974. “Here I am, been workin’ at a job for a week now with a couple of my buddies,” Fidrych recounted in his 1976 autobiography. “And the guy goes, ‘Hey, you’re drafted.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, get the hell outta here, will ya?’” And 691 days later (give or take), Fidrych was on the way to an unforgettable (albeit brief) big-league career, culminating in a 1976 All-Star Game start as a rookie. The Freep’s Carlos Monarrez has the tale here, including the real secret of what The Bird was saying on the mound.
Mark your calendar
And now, 48 years after The Bird’s All-Star appearance, it looks like another Tigers arm could get the call for Tuesday’s Midsummer Classic. Manager A.J. Hinch put in a good word for Tarik Skubal on Friday, right before the lefty — who went from Seattle University to the majors in 806 days — allowed two runs in six innings against NL foes at Comerica Park. We should find out Monday afternoon who’s starting for the AL against the NL’s Paul Skenes.
And then there’s the big question: How long will Skubal be with the Tigers, with the trade deadline at month’s end stirring up the inevitable rumors of an imminent departure? Our Man Seidel took a swing and came away with one big thought: What the Tigers do with Skubal — trade him now or pay him later — will tell us a lot about how long it’ll be before that postseason drought is washed away.
Tigers birthdays this week: Eugenio Suárez (33 on Thursday), Torii Hunter (49 on Thursday), Phil Coke (42 on Friday), Mickey Stanley (82 on Saturday), Heinie Manush (would have been 123 on Saturday; died in 1971), Kimera Bartee (would have been 52 on Sunday; died in 2021).
3 to watch
It’s July, so there must be pain …
JAVIER BÁEZ:It’s a new, different back ailment after Saturday’s game.
JACK FLAHERTY:A certain trade chip enhanced his value with a stellar start vs. the Guardians.
KENTA MAEDA:Hey, that bullpen stint looked pretty good on Sunday!
TL;DR
Oh, you wanted to know about the shortstops? Right. Taking just the six prep shortstops drafted in the first half of the first round from 2014-19, we get an average of 1,566 days from draft to debut. So where does that put Rainer’s ascension to The Show? Oct. 28, 2028.
Huh.
Well, we hear he has an arm, too. Maybe the Lions will need a backup quarterback by then.
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers Newsletter: Counting the days until Bryce Rainer hits
