Detroit Tigers: Grading Scott Harris' first year on the job

Handling of prospects: D

Remember when Harris said the Tigers would be earmarking at-bats for young players? Up until recently with the promotions of Parker Meadows, Andre Lipcius, and Sawyer Gipson-Long, we really hadn't seen any of that.

Quad-A players like Zach McKinstry, Zack Short, Andy Ibanez, and for a while, Jonathan Schoop and Eric Haase were getting at-bats over prospects that deserved a chance to prove themselves.

There's no reasonable explanation as to why Colt Keith and Justyn-Henry Malloy aren't on the big league roster right now. Neither of them have anything left to prove in the minors.

For now, they better be on the team next year, because if they're not, then we get to talk about fun things like service time manipulation. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, he doesn't get a kind grade for prospect promotions.

Waiver claims: D

I'll throw this in here too since it's been a big talking point. We did an article about this recently as well.

Short story: Tyler Holton has been a heck of a find. Other than that? Harris' waiver claims have not brought anything positive to the organization. If you want the long version of this story, here's a link to that article.

This all goes back to one of Harris' key buzz phrases from his introductory press conference: calculated risk. Where have we seen any of that? So far, it looks like Harris is afraid to take any risks at all.

Calling up a big-name prospect would count as a calcuated risk. Making a big trade, or trading a prospect for a big league player would be a calculated risk. Signing a free agent of any kind is a calculated risk. We've seen very little of this.

This is the one thing we really want to see from Scott Harris moving forward. Take some risks — any risks. There's no risk involved in claiming a fringe-big leaguer on waivers. Do something impactful. Even if it doesn't work, you can at least say you tried.