Mark Hulet, who does the prospect rankings for the advanced metric site, covered the typical bases for the top 5 Tigers prospects. In some shape or form, most rankings services include Jacob Turner, Nick Castellanos, Drew Smyly, Casey Crosby, and Andy Oliver as the Tigers top 5. We stepped out of that box here at MCB, putting Andy Oliver at #10, because of the complete inability to command the baseball. On top of that Oliver still hasn’t developed a secondary offering we can call big league average.

… [visit site to read more]

Fangraphs Ranks Tigers Top 15 Prospects - Motor City Bengals - Motor City Bengals - A Detroit Tigers Fan Site - News, Blogs, Opinion and More

If you’re not already aware, Fansided features an excellent Minor League Baseball Blog. Over at Seedlings to Stars, Wally Fish, Nathaniel Stoltz and their crew do an outstanding job covering minor league baseball, prospects, rankings and the MLB draft in great detail. Again, if you haven’t already checked them out I encourage you to do so.

Recently the folks at S2S have started a series called Prospect Showdown. The series takes an overall look at the 2012 Top 100 prospect rankings around the web. Included in the series are rankings from Seedlings to Stars, Baseball Instinct , MLB.com ,  MLB Prospect Portal , Project Prospect and Scout.com .

I encourage you to check out the entire article. However, if you’re short on time you can follow the jump for a Cliffs Notes view on how the Tigers ranked overal. You can also read Fansided’s MLB Director Wally Fish’s brief thoughts.

… [visit site to read more]

Seedlings to Stars Weighs in on the Detroit Tigers - Motor City Bengals - Motor City Bengals - A Detroit Tigers Fan Site - News, Blogs, Opinion and More

Jul 5, 2010; Detroit, Mi, USA; Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Andrew Oliver (41) pitches in the first inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-US PRESSWIRE

With ex-Tiger right handed starter Edwin Jackson just signing a one year deal for 10M dollars with the Washington Nationals, I personally believe all of the options that could truly help the Tigers rotation have now disappeared. Unless of course something happens in the trade market. What signing Jackson also did for the Nationals, is make one of their lefty starters available in a deal, the suggestion is that it would be John Lannan.

I’m definitely not suggesting that the Tigers trade anyone for John Lannan. Lannan after all is a pedestrian lefty, with not so good peripherals that likely wouldn’t translate too well to the American League. He isn’t somebody that the Tigers couldn’t produce from their own farm system at this point.

… [visit site to read more]

The Lefty Myth - Motor City Bengals - Motor City Bengals - A Detroit Tigers Fan Site - News, Blogs, Opinion and More