Tigers’ blue-chip 2023 draft a tough act to follow for 2024
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But what was said a year ago — that the Tigers in 2023 had their best draft since the 1970s — can be said again 12 months later, even on the floor of a notorious casino known as the MLB Draft.
Max Clark. Kevin McGonigle. Jaden Hamm. Even now, all look like quality big-leaguers in the making. Max Anderson, Carson Rucker (out for the year with a wrecked shoulder), Brett Callahan, Jim Jarvis, Paul Wilson, Jatnk Diaz, Hayden Minton, Andrew Sears — not all of the above will cut it, but there will be hits, as well as help probably from a few others in a well-scouted, and shrewdly financed, class.
Whether it can be reprised in 2024’s MLB Draft, which begins next Sunday evening and runs through July 16, is a poor bet. The Tigers picked third overall last year. They choose 11th next week, and in the ensuing 19 rounds.
As much as a deeper draft slot makes matters complicated for Detroit, there is the acknowledged fact this year’s amateur crop is lighter than the 2023 field.
The popular Tigers pick at 11 overall:
Cam Caminiti, 17, and a left-handed marvel from Saguaro High in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is 6-foot-2, 205 pounds, throws 96, has an anvil for a curveball — and well, you’ve heard this before about various prep pitchers who now are employed elsewhere, and have been, since their arms fell off.
But remember three years ago: Tigers draft-hounds were apoplectic when Detroit took Jackson Jobe third overall. Jobe, although he’s had his bouts with non-arm injuries, might be the best farm pitching prospect anywhere in 2024 and, if healthy, will be in the Tigers’ rotation in 2025.
It’s impossible to know how the Tigers’ newest draft generals, Rob Metzler and Mark Conner, see Caminiti. What is known is Metzler’s draft background with the Rays, and Conner’s, particularly with the Padres, has not precluded picking a young pitcher early.
They also are just a bit aware of industry data on prep pitchers. If they take Caminiti next week, it will be due to a soulful conviction Caminiti’s size, mechanics, delivery, and pitcher projection are too good to resist.
And, frankly, I would trust their evaluations. That’s how much the Tigers have necessarily altered, for the better, their draft approach, a frequent past failing that pretty much singularly explains why there has been no World Series parade in Detroit since 1984.
Are there popular options at 11? Yes, mainly prep shortstops: Konnor Griffin, from Jackson Prep in Flowood, Mississippi. Also: Bryce Rainer, from Harvard-Westlake High, in Lo
