Tigers watching another jettisoned player dominate with Angels is painful

The Tigers signed the Brewers' 2017 first-round draft pick Keston Hiura just a few days after pitchers and catchers reported for spring training. It was a hopeful signing; Hiura hit .308 with a .960 OPS with Milwaukee's Triple-A team in 2023 before electing free agency at the end of the season. As a first/second baseman, he could've fit perfectly into the Tigers' philosophy of shuffling players around the infield.

Hiura was cut in spring training and went down to Toledo to presumably stay in reserve in case of an injury in the majors. He hit decently over 49 games in Triple-A (.232 with a .713 OPS), but the Tigers released him on June 3, sending him back into free agency.

A little over a week later, he signed a minor league deal with the Angels and was sent straight to their Triple-A affiliate. He's only played in 19 games there so far, but the numbers he's been putting up have been absolutely mind-boggling, and it's more than enough to have the Tigers wondering what they could've had if they'd just waited one more month for him to get hot.

Former first-round draft pick and dumped Tigers minor leaguer Keston Hiura is putting up crazy numbers with Angels affiliate

In just 19 games with the Salt Lake Bees, Hiura has hit 12 home runs, scored 16, and knocked in 21. He's also had three two-homer nights and has only gone hitless in two games so far. All told, he's hitting .360 with a mammoth 1.282 OPS in the Angels organization. This is absolute lunacy. It can't possibly be attributed to the Bees' hitting coaches — Hiura hasn't been with the team long enough for anything to stick, surely? — but it's more likely that he just got hot and is staying hot, and the Tigers just let him go at the worst possible time.

To add to that, the Angels called him up ahead of Friday's game. He went 1-for-3 with an RBI and run scored in the game.

The Tigers are just going to have to live with the fact that they missed out on him being a valuable chip for them.