It’s weird how his injury wasn’t reported until now and not through Tiger reporters. It’s a little worrisome, second injury in a short career, first one took half his season in 2024.
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https://x.com/tigersMLreport/status/1910114863130550693
Briceno with a Grand Slam in White Caps game.
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Look at the chair Tiger scout is sitting in compared to the other two…preparation starts early…
https://x.com/bkfan09/status/1910333557785980962
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This one is airing now @HSVLion
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Is it just me or does Campos run funny?
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I have tonights Whitecaps game on and he is the starter, interesting to watch.
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No walk knuckler? Sign me up
Hey @Bols we miss you here…these threads are getting more boring than an ugly Hooker at happy hour. 
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Let’s get him hot too.
Lookin like Orioles of the Lakes here in a year or so…young thumpers everywhere, more coming up AND we have arms to boot!
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Catching the Flying Tigers game before heading to the office.
https://x.com/JavaFrank/status/1911480590680850527?t=wnc9xuHtfoRAsxLPWn2Q7w&s=19
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Max Clark says the minor league talent on the Tigers’ farm system is INSANE!
It’s probably the best top to bottom since the late 70’s early 80’s.
I had the displeasure of listening to Valenti shitting on Scott Harris for not making deals to bring in “names” and hanging on to farm talent. Valenti talked about how Dombrowski often traded farm talent to get “MAJOR LEAGUE TALENT” to WIN NOW. I don’t run a team and I surely can’t pretend to know how to operate a baseball franchise, or any sports franchise for that matter, on a daily basis. But I think how DD operated is what put the Tigers in a hole because THEY DIDN’T WIN IT. I have seen this work both ways. The Rays are an example of developing a farm system and winning (but never won it all) and then there is the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox!
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I think it was a combination of Mike I willing to spend like a drunken sailor and DD then using prospects as cash. Then again talent devlopment was never a theme under DD.
Then his anti analytics killed the team even further. I have friends that used to work for the Tigers and the stories they told were amazing on how bad the development group was.
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Full article at link.
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Few on the Tigers development side consider it news that Roberto Campos has begun his next apprenticeship, at Double-A Erie, in about the same, mostly pleasing, way he played at earlier stops.
In his first seven games, heading into Sunday’s duel at Chesapeake, Campos was batting .360. He was playing center field and right field. He has, at age 21, seemingly been getting a notch better at every level. Note that last season at high-A West Michigan he batted .272, with a .342 on-base average and .767 OPS.
It should be noted, also, that all of Campos’ first nine hits in those first seven games were singles.
That’s the only surprise — the penchant for singles over extra-base hits — about a right-handed batter, 6-3, 210,
…
A man so sculpted and physically gifted has hit only 28 home runs in 364 minor-league games. It might be expected to change in 2025 at Erie, a more inviting home ballpark than Campos saw at West Michigan and Lakeland.
The Tigers are working with Campos on drilling into what should be more power: getting the lower body going, getting a bit more lift into his swing — all the science that can be applied to a man yet so young.
"Maturity, definitely,” said Graham, who this year moved from Lakeland into the manager’s office at Double-A Erie. “The last time I worked with him, he was a kid from Cuba (Campos was a Cuba native before defecting at age 13 to the Dominican Republic), and now he’s a grown man. I think he’s got a chance to really develop.
Full article at link.
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But these kids are feeling a vibe, no matter if the weather’s up or down. It’s just the way they go about it. There’s a good overall feel on this team.”
No surprise, given the annual brio that seems to mark West Michigan. In step with a Tigers farm system that has become, in the view of national assessors (MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, etc.), one of MLB’s top two minor-league systems, the Whitecaps again feature talent, even if one of those skilled kids, shortstop Kevin McGonigle, is gone for an undetermined time with a right-ankle sprain induced by an awkward slide into third base following a pickoff throw during an April 4 game against Dayton.
The Tigers will take it easy with McGonigle, and not only because ankles often take more time than first forecasts promise.
The Tigers have a kind of unofficial mantra throughout their farmlands: Thou shall not rush — either returns from injury, or rapid promotions that can sometimes be later viewed as having been premature.
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Always of interest with Briceno, because he is 6-4 and 200, is his life expectancy as a catcher. The Tigers insist he is a catcher every bit as much as a first baseman.
“He’s going to get plenty of looks behind the plate,” Cappuccilli said. “He’s done a great job so far. No complaints about game-calling or receiving. Nick Bredeson (West Michigan’s developmental coach) has been working with him and has addressed a few things that already have paid off.
“There’s constant communication. Brayan Pena (Tigers catching coordinator) is giving direction on what we want to push him on, so he’s got really good people in his corner, beyond us, and that goes a long way.”
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Velocities are down, noticeably, throughout the Arctic regions of minor-league ball, although the Whitecaps are surviving.
Rayner Castillo, only 20, and one of those right-handed cow-punchers the Tigers farm features in 2025, had a fine first start: four innings, one hit, no runs or walks, five strikeouts.
“That was one of my first looks at him,” Cappuccilli said of the No. 8 man on the 2025 Detroit News Top 50 Prospects lineup. “As advertised, he throws strikes. Once it warms up …”
Joe Miller, a left-handed starter, has walked five in two starts and 7.2 innings, but also has eight punchouts.
Colin Fields, a right-handed reliever back for a second Whitecaps stint, has nine strikeouts in four innings. Preston Howey, who last July was a 14th-round pick out of St. Mary’s, is a right-handed reliever with seven whiffs and a single walk in four innings and 14 batters.
A pitcher who might as well be studied by baseball anthropologists is 27-year-old, knuckleball marvel Kenny Serwa, who has pitched college ball and in independent leagues and who now is working in his first official niche as a minor-leaguer, with the Whitecaps, after he was signed by the Tigers in January.
Serwa has a start and a bullpen appearance to date, covering six innings. His vitals: one hit, one walk, six strikeouts.
Serwa’s distinction, the knuckler, is sweetened by the fact he throws two knuckleballs at varying speeds — from mid-70s to high 80s.