Detroit Tigers: Best draft picks by Round in team history

Round 3 – Curtis Granderson

The Detroit Tigers have really only had one successful third round pick. That would be center fielder Curtis Granderson. After being drafted in 2002, Granderson played in a handful of games in 2004/2005 before winning a starting job in 2006. Granderson hit .260 with 19 home runs and eight steals that season. He became a mainstay atop Detroit’s lineup until getting traded in 2009 in a deal that netted the Tigers Max Scherzer and Phil Coke, among others.

Granderson has 322 home runs and 151 steals in his illustrious career, which is still going as he is now a corner outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Other Third Round Picks

Detroit did select right-hander Andy Messersmith in the third round of the 1965 draft, but he opted to return to Cal. He was drafted in the first round the next year by the Angels and went on to have a very successful big league career.

Elsewhere, Detroit has not seen much success in the third round. Jack Hannahan‘s 6.5 bWAR is the next highest, with Nook Logan, Jeff Robinson and Brennan Boesch following suit.

Lately, the round has produced catcher Joey Morgan (2017) right-hander Drew Smith (2015) and catcher Grayson Greiner (2014) who just recently got recalled to the Tigers. To put this round into perspective, if Greiner can produce a bWAR higher than 1.2 this season, he would become the fifth most successful third round pick in Tigers history.