Detroit Tigers Top 20 Prospects: Midseason Update

The baseball season has a funny way of feeling both fleeting and interminable. It seems like we published our list of the top 20 Detroit Tigers prospects yesterday (it was actually five months ago), but it also feels like 10 million things have happened since.

We made that list by averaging the top 20 rankings of five MCB contributors, and to give you an idea of how long ago that was, none of us included Akil Baddoo in our rankings, and all five of us ranked Franklin Perez.

A handful of our top prospects have graduated and become fixtures on the big-league club, and the Detroit Tigers have completed another full draft and trade deadline. So it feels like it’s time for a prospect update.

This time we had six MCB contributors put together their top-25 Detroit Tigers prospect lists, and the average ranking now makes up our top-20 prospect update. We’ll also talk a bit about prospects who graduated, new prospects on the lists, and prospects who rose and fell.

If you only care to see the list, then feel free to skip to the end of the slideshow.

Detroit Tigers Prospects Who Graduated

Number 14 – C – Jake Rogers

At the time of our last list Jake Rogers’ future was still very much in doubt. He had a rough MLB debut in 2019, and was left to stew in Toledo for all of the 2020 season. But he came up this season and provided exactly what the Detroit Tigers had always hoped — plus defense behind the plate and enough power to be a threat in the lineup. He suffered an unfortunate injury a few weeks ago, but he’s a part of the future of this franchise again, even if he tops out as a backup.

Number 6 – IF – Isaac Paredes

The future of Isaac Paredes is still very much up in the air. He wasn’t terribly effective in his MLB debut last year, and this season he has dealt with injuries, scattered playing time, and defensive question marks. He’s no longer a prospect, but we don’t know if he’s a part of the future either. The next two months will be very important for him.

Number 4 – RHP – Casey Mize

It’s a bit hard to remember now, but back in spring training Casey Mize looked bad. And he wasn’t all that impressive in his 2020 MLB debut, either. Now he looks very much like the player the Detroit Tigers hoped he would be when they drafted him first overall in 2018. He’s not a dominant force at the top of the rotation, but there’s still plenty of time for him to get better. And even if he doesn’t, Detroit appears to have a very solid mid-rotation starter.

Number 3 – LHP – Tarik Skubal

While Casey Mize has been steady in a way we don’t typically see from young starters, Tarik Skubal has followed the more familiar path of a young power pitchers: inconsistency. We still believe Skubal has a higher ceiling than Mize thanks to his occasional dominant outing, but he’ll need to figure out how to limit home runs in order to reach his full potential.