Minor Moves (Actually Pretty Major), Adelin Santa Released

The Tigers have made a couple of moves in their minor league system in the past couple of days that are of some significance for Tigers fans.

First move. The Tigers sent OF prospect Avisail Garcia to Erie after a strong showing all season in Lakeland. This is good news for Tigers fans who have been waiting to get a look at Avisail against more advanced competition. Garcia actually turned 21 just a couple of weeks ago, so he has been facing advanced competition comparatively already. He will be joining fellow prospects Nick Castellanos, Bruce Rondon, and James McCann as guys off of the Lakeland team to have gotten promotions. Might Tyler Collinssoon follow?

Another Tigers prospect having a good season is Dean Green. Green has missed quite a bit of time recently with the Whitecaps in low A ball, however, he is on the way back. Green got himself a rehab start for the GCL Tigers today, and should be rejoining the ‘Caps in the next week or so.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland’s son Patrick Leyland has returned to the Whitecaps after spending some time on the disabled list himself. Leyland is having a pretty solid season for the Whitecaps, hitting .257 at just 20 years old in the pitcher friendly Midwest League.

The pretty major news I spoke about in the title of this article has to do with 2011 Latin bonus baby Adelin Santa. Santa was released by the Tigers organization, and at this point, I am not sure of the reasoning. Obviously there is some sort of issue at play here, as Santa never performed for the Tigers after signing the 750,000 dollar contract. I thought it was strange that we didn’t see someone of his bonus stature on the GCL roster, let alone the Dominican Summer League Tigers roster. I am sure we will find out the reasoning soon.

The ramifications of this hopefully don’t extend to the Tigers becoming even more conservative in the international free agent market. They already tend to just dabble, and whatever happened with Santa could deter the Tigers even further. We will keep you updated if we find anything out.