Detroit Tigers: Top 20 prospects for 2022 – Part One

Detroit Tigers No. 17 Prospect – Daniel Cabrera – OF

Detroit’s farm system is deceptively shallow, and Daniel Cabrera was the team’s second 2nd-round pick in 2020. If not for those two factors, Cabrera’s disappointing 2021 likely would have pushed him out of our top 20. A well-regarded hitter at LSU, Cabrera was ranked as one of the top-45 draft prospects in 2020 by Baseball America, MLB Pipeline, and FanGraphs, so it was considered a small coup when the Tigers landed him with the 62nd pick. He posted an .807 OPS in May, but unfortunately that was the highlight in an otherwise tough professional debut.

Cabrera wasn’t necessarily overmatched, and he did show decent power, but too often he was fooled by breaking balls, leading to a high number of weakly hit grounders to the right side of the infield. He played all three outfield positions in 2021, and he’s a solid athlete with a decent arm, but he didn’t get great reads as a center fielder, and he probably fits best in left. There’s still time for Cabrera to improve, but the player fans saw last season probably tops out as a 4th outfielder.