Detroit Tigers: 3 players the organization failed or mishandled

The Detroit Tigers have failed or mishandled a lot of players over the years

The Detroit Tigers have done a lot of players dirty over the years. Virtually every talented player under the Al Avila regime was done a disservice due to the incompetence of Avila and the player development staff he had.

In addition, there were also some stars the Tigers have had over the years that the team just downright failed. The team had so much talent in the early 2010s. It's a shame they never won a ring.

Today, we're going to highlight a few of those players. There will be two younger players that the Avila adiministration mishandled, and one player that was around on those teams in the 2010s that the team completely failed. Let's get started.

RHP Alex Faedo

Faedo was drafted in the first round in 2017 out of the University of Florida. He pitched in the College World Series that year and was hitting 97 mph on the radar gun with his fastball. But when he got to the Tigers minor league system, he was hanging around 94. Everyone has been wondering about that since he was drafted. Well, we may finally know why that was the case.

Back in spring training, it was revealed that the Tigers had Faedo change his arm slot when he was drafted to avoid injury, according to an article from Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free Press. As it turns out, he ended up having Tommy John surgery in 2020 anyway.

This spring, the Tigers had him change his arm slot back to a three-quarters arm slot. Here's what Faedo had to say about the change, according to the same article from the Freep.

"It's more of my natural arm slot," Faedo said. "They've always been like, 'When did you start trying to raise your arm slot?' I was like, 'When I first got here.' It was one of those things with prior people (in the organization) that I wasn't throwing correctly. As a player, you're like, 'All right, I have to change, this is what I'm being told.' (The new coaches) relayed to me that was incorrect. What I was doing (in college) was correct, like the guy that they drafted."

- Alex Faedo

I imagine this has got to be frustrating for Faedo. Being told to change something that didn't need to be changed only to have it not work and then be told that what he was doing orginally was right all along has got to be incredibly infuritating.

To add insult to injury, there's been some growing pains in changing back to his old arm slot. He had a rough spring training, posting an 11.81 ERA in 5.1 IP. His slider looked good, but his fastball was sitting at about 92 mph with no life whatsoever. It was straight as an arrow, and even minor league hitters were all over it.

You really have to feel for him. He was a first-round pick for a reason. He was really good at Florida. The Tigers completely messed him up while trying to cover their rear ends. Now at age 27, his chances to make an impact at the big league level appear slim at best.