Detroit Tigers: Five players are in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect list

The Detroit Tigers make some waves today in having five players in the preseason Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list.

Ah yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year if you are a fan of prospects. The annual Baseball America’s top 100 prospects list was released and the Detroit Tigers are well represented on the list.

As a contributor and the voice of the West Michigan Whitecaps Dan Hasty points out, no other team has more than three prospects within Detroit’s top five. The Pardes lead the way with seven followed by the Blue Jays and Marlins both tied for second with six. Detroit had more than any other AL Central team. The rest of the AL Central all had four. The only team that did not have any representation was the Nationals as they had none.

For a brief history lesson, Spencer Torkelson is the first Tigers position player to be the top prospect of the organization listed by Baseball America since outfielder Steven Moya in 2015. Since then, it has been all pitchers who were top Tigers prospect.  Here are some notable preseason number ones in Tigers history.

2001: Brandon Inge

Brandon Inge  (number 1) along with Andres Torres (7) and Omar Infante (8) were on BA’s Top 30 Tigers prospects. Other familiar names include Cody Ross (14), Mike Maroth (15), and Fernando Rodney at 19.

2006: Justin Verlander

Justin Verlander was number one and right behind him was Joel Zumaya. Other names to note were Jair Jurrjens (16), Ryan Raburn at 18, Don Kelly at 19, and Matt Joyce at 27.

Now that you have completed your trip down memory lane, let’s review who made the top 100 for Detroit.