In the next week or two Baseball America will be coming out with their list of the top 10 Tiger prospects. By the sounds of things, Pat Caputo had a hard time coming up with ten. BA recently published the top 20 prospects in each minor league. For the Tigers, they have teams in the Gulf Coast League (Lakeland), NY-Penn league (Oneonta), the Midwest League (West Michigan), the Florida State League (Lakeland), the Eastern League (Erie), and the International League (Toledo). That’s six leagues, which means six lists, which means there are 120 players on those six lists. Unfortunately only 3 of those 120 players are in the Tigers organization.
The Tigers A Lakeland team was represented on the FSL list by Tony Giarrtano (9) and Kyle Sleeth (20). Erie’s lone representative was Curtis Granderson who was seventh on the Eastern League list. In all fairness Wil Ledezma was well on his way to making this list but he did so well he got the call in July. Also, Chris Shelton who was stuck on the roster as a Rule 5 pick also looks like a legitimate prospect as he is destroying the Arizona Fall Leauge (.407/.472/.725)
Even if you include Ledezma and Shelton things look pretty bleak. Members of last year’s top 10 struggled in 2004. Brent Clevlen and Scott Moore weren’t able to adjust to High A ball. Cody Kirkland who showed promise at Oneonta never got it going for West Michigan. Rob Henkel’s career could be over after suffering a torn labrum. Jay Sborz actually pitched worse in his second tour of rookie ball for the GCL Tigers.
Kyle Sleeth did progress up to Erie where he battled with injury and AA hitters. Joel Zumaya also showed progress. Kenny Baugh made it through a whole season which is a huge step forward for him.
However, the void of talent in the minor leagues is what led to the demotion of Greg Smith from scouting director. It will also cause the Tigers to spend more for free agent position players than they’d probably like to, because they’ve had such a hard time developing their own.
Zumaya’s number took a hit with his 2004 promotion(s), but we’re still talking about a 19-year old reaching AA. I hope this means he truly is ahead of the curve, rather than being “fast tracked” with an ulterior motive.
You know…I was depressed after hearing Caputo rant about the state of the farm system on the radio the other day, but then I remembered that a few years back the Tigers had the #1 ranked minor league system.
They were lead by an Erie squad “loaded” with prospects including Michael Rivera, Eric Munson, Omar Infante, Nate Corjeno, Andy Van Heken etc etc. Granted it would be nice to be excited about some young position players, but some will no doubt emerge over the course of the year.