Detroit Tigers: 3 players who won't be on the roster by May 1

OF Akil Baddoo

This one hurts a bit. Baddoo's magical 2021 rookie season was so fun. He gave fans a reason to watch this team, which is something I haven't been say very often the past seven years. But the more I watch him play, the more it's clear that season was a fluke.

He just hasn't been the same player since that season. Big league pitchers have figured him out at the plate. He strikes out and chases a ton. He can still work a walk every now and then and wreak havoc on the basepaths, but he just looks overmatched at the plate in most situations.

Defensively, he's never been very good. Despite his speed, he doesn't play a good outfield. He takes questionable routes and has a brutal throwing arm, which was on full display in Sunday's game against Baltimore where he threw a two-hopper to the cutoff man, allowing the tying run to score.

That play in particular looked very low-effort on his part. He just kind of nonchalantly jogged over to the ball and delivered a terrible throw to Nick Maton. That's the kind of play that gets a player demoted, and that's exactly what I think is going to happen.

He has the options and is not playing well. He's still young, so they can afford to send him down to Triple-A. The only thing I can see preventing thsi from happening is they don't really have anyone internally they can replace him with.

Parker Meadows is off to a rather pedestrian start in Toledo. I don't think Brendon Davis or Jonathan Davis are real options. So you're looking at either calling up an infielder and giving someone like Zach McKinstry some time in the outfield, or you call up Meadows and see how things go.

It's unfortunate given how fun to watch he was in 2021, but the Akil Baddoo experiment could be coming to an end soon. I'm not sure how many more chances he's going to get.