Detroit Tigers Farmhands Await Rule 5 Draft Fate

Maxwell Leon, a native of Mexico City, was selected by the Tigers in the 50th round of the 2004 draft. His 2010 season consisted of 89 appearances for the Toledo Mud Hens, partly as a utility man and partly as a designated hitter. Unfortunately, he is a little light on the hitter part as shown in his .238 batting average and a strikeout to walk ratio on the wrong side of 2-to-1. Leon is currently playing winter ball in Mexico and having a little more success.

Cesar Nicolas came to the Tigers after they signed him out of independent baseball in June 2009. The stats say that he only played for Erie in 2010. While that is true, he was actually promoted to Toledo but was suspended one day later for testing positive for amphetamines. Nicolas was a .279 hitter for Erie while playing some first and third base.

Shawn Roof mostly split his time at second, short and third for the Erie SeWolves and Toledo Mud Hens last season. He hit a disappointing .223 at AA but rode the high of a promotion for a .354 average in his 79 AAA at-bats. As a 33rd round draft pick Roof has never been considered a major prospect. He has a career average of .251 in the minor leagues with very little power.

Christopher White is an outfielder that came to the Tigers organization by way of the 2007 draft’s 12th round. This past season was his fourth of professional baseball yet he started it with the Lakeland Flying Tigers. He did manage to make stops at Erie and Toledo before the season ended although that isn’t necessarily attributed to his play. White is a rather light hitting small outfielder that has can swipe some bases but isn’t a defensive wiz.

Brooks Brown came to the organization through the Arizona Diamondbacks after they had selected James Skelton from the Tigers in the 2009 rule 5 draft and opted to complete a trade rather than return him to Detroit. Arizona used a supplemental first round pick in 2006 to select Brown from the University of Georgia. Scouting reports suggest that his pitching arsenal is no longer as good as it was in college and that his future is limited to relief duty. That may be the case but he still made 18 starts for Erie last season. He finished 12-9 with a 4.15 ERA and 1.24 WHIP.