Tigers' celebratory Pizza Spear played surprisingly pivotal role during MLB Draft

The 2024 MLB Draft wrapped up on Tuesday ahead of the All-Star Game, and the Tigers walked away with 21 new prospects (maybe, depending on how many of these guys actually decide to sign or not) to add to their organization. Their headliner was prep shortstop Bryce Rainer, who probably should've gone before the Tigers with the 11th pick, but somehow fell to Detroit.

Their Nos. 2 and 3 picks, high school pitchers Owen Hall and Ethan Schiefelbein, also garnered high praise from MiLB experts.

Cameras were only trained on teams' war rooms during Day 1 as part of the main event, but it looks like MLB Network and ESPN's coverage missed a significant new tradition in the Tigers' room.

When Tigers batters hit a home run these days, they're handed a massive pizza spear when they enter the dugout and embody the role of the Ilitch family's "pizza-pizza" Little Caesars mascot for a few glorious moments.

Tigers scouts took the pizza spear to the draft room, where they handed it off to a chosen player's regional cross-checker to celebrate with a victory lap.

Tigers scouts brought Detroit's Little Caesars home run celebration to the draft room

Past the three first-day players, the Tigers went all over the map and reached into both high school and college pools for their 18 other pizza spears -- sorry, players. A couple of interesting names outside of those main three: their ninth-round pick (266th overall) Zach Swanson is a righty high school pitcher out of Washington state and was ranked in both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America's top 200 ahead of the draft. He's noted for his "exceptional spin rates" and nice three-pitch mix. Although both publications believe that he's got a ways to go in terms of polishing, the Tigers will probably spend more on him than the less than $200,000 slot value he's allotted.

16th-rounder (476th overall) Anson Seibert, a high school pitcher, was another surprise who fell into the Tigers' laps -- and much further down the picking order than some projections estimated. He has a massive frame — 6'8", 235 lbs. — and a fastball that's touched 95 MPH. He'll be a tough pick for the Tigers to actually lock down, as he's committed to Clemson in the fall and did go in the 16th round, which would mean a signing bonus lower than his expectations.

Regardless of how much work gets done in signing these talents, the fact remains that Swanson, Seibert, Rainer, and Co.'s scouts got to have a moment in the sun with the pizza spear in a delightful new tradition that we hope will stick around.