Tigers' 2026 first-round MLB Draft pick is littered with questions as Scott Harris goes off script

As weird as the Tigers' 2025 first-round pick might've been — Jordan Yost was on absolutely no one's radar as a first-rounder — he still fit into the Tigers' established type under Scott Harris: athletic, up-the-middle prep players with a strong hit tool. Jace Jung is the only slight exception to this, as he came out of Texas Tech.

Still, multiple outlets had the Tigers connected to a couple of college pitchers, namely Coastal Carolina's Cameron Flukey, a righty with promising velocity but who came with a couple of asterisks — namely a stress rib fracture that ate up two months of his senior season.

But, at the end of the day, the Tigers were probably going to do as the Tigers are wont to do, right? Prep infielders Taj Marchand and Aiden Ruiz (who Baseball America predicted the Tigers would go for in their last mock draft) would've fit the bill.

However, with the No. 22 pick in the 2026 MLB Draft, the Tigers deviated for the first time under Harris. They took Flukey, their first pitcher since Jackson Jobe in 2021 and first college pitcher since Casey Mize.

Tigers take college pitcher Cameron Flukey with No. 22 pick in 2026 MLB Draft

This year's first round has been conspicuously light on pitchers. College righty Jackson Flora went to the Giants fourth, prep lefty Gio Rojas went 16th to the Rangers, college righty Liam Peterson to the Guardians at 19, and high school righty Coleman Borthwick 21st to the Padres.

Keith Law of The Athletic had connected the Tigers to Flukey in a few mock drafts, but it feels safe to say that few others really thought Detroit would go that way.

Although Flukey returned to the rotation at Coastal Carolina looking like himself after his rib injury, there are still questions as to whether or not his minor league development will take a little longer than the typical college pitcher. Mize only needed two seasons and skipped Triple-A entirely (but he's also been infamously injury-prone throughout his major league career).

Still, this feels like the most immediate pick that the Tigers have made under Harris. With the rotation due to lose multiple starters after this year and the pipeline severely lacking in top pitching talent, Flukey seems like worthwhile risk who might be able to help the team soon, despite his history of injury.

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