Baseball America Tabs Tigers Jacob Turner EL’s 5th Best

Recently Baseball America has released it’s league by league Top 20 Prospect Report. Earlier today John Manuel released the installment for the AA-Eastern League which is home of course to the Erie SeaWolves. Manuel surprised us all by naming Washington Nationals über prospect Bryce Harper the number one prospect. I joke, I joke, I kid, I kid. Obviously it was no surprise as Harper had a very solid season and is highly regarded as baseballs number one prospect. Scrolling down the list a bit I noticed someone familiar though. Detroit Tigers top prospect Jacob Turner was tabbed the fifth best prospect in the Eastern League by Baseball America.

Turner finished 3-5 with a 3.48 ERA in 17 starts with the AA-Erie SeaWolves in 2011. In 113 2/3 innings, he struck out 90 and walked 32 while holding opposing batters to a .239 average. Turner then bounced between Triple-A Toledo and Detroit in his final six appearances last season. He was very effective as a Mud Hen, posting a 3.12 ERA and a 20BB/3K ratio over 17 1/3 innings. His final two starts in Motown however did not fair to well. Opposing batters hit him well and often including three home runs. He struggled holding runners and never really found a rhythm. Regardless of the numbers it was nice to see the twenty-year-old get his feet wet. More importantly though, perhaps it showed the Tigers brass that Turner and his arsenal might benefit from a few more months down on the farm.

––

Like what you see here and want to stay informed on the happenings at MCB? Make sure to follow me on twitter @ JAYRC_MCB and grab our RSS feed.