Former MLB GM completely misses mark with latest Tigers assessment

This season, the Tigers have given no less than seven top position player prospects their MLB debuts. Colt Keith was the first and biggest, extended for six years and $28.6 million, and he was followed by Wenceel Pérez, Justyn-Henry Malloy, Bligh Madris, Dillon Dingler, Trey Sweeney, and Jace Jung as the year wore on.

Pérez is rehabbing with an oblique strain and Madris went back to Triple-A when Spencer Torkelson was called back up, but the other five are getting this team closer to the playoffs than they've been in a decade.

It was always easy to be skeptical about the Tigers' plan to lean heavily on their young core and forgo spending on free agents, and things looked even dicier when the only two veterans acquired over the offseason — Mark Canha and Gio Urshela — left one way or the other on or around the trade deadline. Keith is the youngest Tiger at just 23 years old, but the other rookies aren't much older.

Against all odds, these five have enmeshed themselves into the Tigers' lineup and most have become indispensable for 2025. If Detroit does the impossible and makes it to the postseason, then it will be in large part thanks to the rookies.

Not everyone seems to see it that way, though. In a column for The Athletic, Jim Bowden listed "Too many young players being forced into the lineup" as the Tigers' primary concern for their playoff chances.

Tigers' core of rookies viewed as 'concern' by former MLB GM

First of all, "forced into the lineup"? The Tigers were decidedly sellers at the trade deadline and were well out of the playoff picture at that point, leaving them with little else to do other than to look internally and give some of their guys an early look ahead of spring training in 2025. That might've been the plan all along; Scott Harris begged fans to be patient and didn't seem to have high hopes for the team this year. If the front office anticipated a losing season and sold almost all of the veterans at the deadline, what else were they going to do except call up prospects from Triple-A?

Second and most importantly, Bowden is kind of making it sound like the rookies are having a terrible time in the majors, which simply isn't true. Sweeney was quick to prove Bowden wrong when, on Sunday, he had his first 4-for-4 night at the plate against the Athletics. He's batting .316 over his last seven games. Jung is batting .267 over his last seven, and Keith is easily one of the Tigers' most improved players of the year. Dingler has been struggling and Malloy is still settling back in after he was promoted again, but the Tigers are not suffering having all of these rookies in the lineup.

Matt Vierling, Riley Greene, Parker Meadows, and Kerry Carpenter are still very much anchoring the Tigers' offense, but this year's newly promoted crop are pulling their weight. This is a bad take for Bowden, but we're used to that, aren't we? If the Tigers see October, it won't be in spite of the rookies, which is why they can't be labeled a concern in any manner.