Five Tigers on Keith Law's latest MLB Top 100 prospects list

[Paul Meloche]

2: McGonigle

5. Clark

17. Rainer

59. Briceno

91. Anderson

I don't recall the specifics of Law's list previous to this most recent update, but I think Liranzo and Hamm were on it and Anderson wasn't.

Konner Griffin, the 19-year old SS in the Pirates system, is Law's #1 overall prospect. He hit even better in his short(er) time at AA last year than McGonigle did. Griffin was taken two picks ahead of Bryce Rainer in the '24 draft.

[Peter Welch]

I wanted the Tigers to draft Griffin going into that 2024 draft but he was taken just before the Tigers' position.   Rainer looks like a good pick, though.  He was beating up on Florida State League pitching last year at age 19 before he got hurt.  Hopefully he bounces back from his shoulder surgery. 

Peter

---

From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2026 12:58 PM
To: Tigers List <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Five Tigers on Keith Law's latest MLB Top 100 prospects list

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Detroit Tigers e-mail list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to detroit-tiger...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/CAM0OySrCN8aQoDRA1pwvYdebbkDYjw0rp%3Dwdapg0Q4KVqzAOCw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Roger King]

I saw a brief note from one of the Tigers writers on the weekend that Rainer is fully recovered and expected to be ready for spring training.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/PH3PPF7B3FDDB29A5F7F3544733DEBB55B79A93A%40PH3PPF7B3FDDB29.namprd19.prod.outlook.com.

[Paul Meloche]

ESPN released their Top 100 list today. McGonigle is #2 on this one as well. Compared to yesterday's list from The Athletic, Clark is a little lower, Rainer more lower, and Briceno higher. Neither Anderson, nor any other Tigers prospect, made ESPN's Top 100 list.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/CAG8ixx3WNvBHsFGU%3DCW3bbrmLOzmmZkCw_ABAH3vEhhaTg52Kw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Paul Meloche]

Kiley McDaniel from ESPN also released a 101-200 list. The good news: Max Anderson is 101. The bad news: Liranzo is the only other Tigers prospect in the top 200 at 144.

Both ESPN and The Athletic rank the entire Tigers system in the bottom half of the top ten in MLB due the quality of their top prospects. If several of these guys make their MLB debut this year and play enough games, the farm system will likely look a lot worse at this time next year. Of course, development of existing minor leaguers this year, the June draft, and the performance of recent international signees can all impact that.

Paul

[Roger King]

As we’ve discussed before, weirdly Harris not making many off-season moves is the bigger gamble given where the Tigers are. Fan expectations high after two ALDS appearances and Skubal in his last year before potentially leaving the team. 

Gambling on all these prospects elevating the team in the short term could potentially cost Harris his job if the Tigers underperform and/or take some kind of big step back this season and next. Whereas I think if he had brought in an experienced bat or two this season, even if it didn’t work out, you’ve shown you tried to win now and then you can say well let’s go with the young talent instead.

Roger King
El Presidente
PN Agency – www.pnagency.com
Ethnic Voice Talent –www.ethnicvoicetalent.com
(416) 515-7195

[Jeffrey Withey]

They were freakishly lucky the first half of last year. That will not happen again. I think this could be a .500 team or even under. If they were serious about winning in 2026 they would have signed some short term help instead of rolling the dice on prospects working out immediately (which almost never happens.)

Jeff

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2026 10:53:41 AM
To: Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>
Cc: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>; Tigers List <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Five Tigers on Keith Law's latest MLB Top 100 prospects list

 

[EXTERNAL]

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/CAG8ixx03wd%3Ds1ccDcrEeWWQAo30KE100w1aUwQYbpSiomWUyhQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Peter Welch]

Tigers are going to blow their chance to win a WS title while they had the best starter in baseball for 3+ years.  (I hope I'm completely wrong and we somehow win the WS this year).

What a waste.  What's been the motivation of management during this time?  Are they really that restricted by their payroll budget?
Why has Harris been hesitant to trade some of his prospect chips to the point that some of them lost value and are practically worthless now?

Did Harris really think 3-years-ago that they'd be able to extend Skubal even knowing his agent is Scott Boras?  If so Harris has failed to understand the environment he's in.

Peter

---

From: Jeffrey Withey <jwi...@med.wayne.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2026 11:03 AM
To: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>; Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>

[Tapu Shaikh]

On 1/29/26 16:47, Paul Meloche wrote:

Both ESPN and The Athletic rank the entire Tigers system in the bottom half of the top ten in MLB due the quality of their top prospects. If several of these guys make their MLB debut this year and play enough games, the farm system will likely look a lot worse at this time next year.

Considering that only Anderson has seen time at Triple-A of our Top 200 prospects, I don't think it's likely that they'll accrue enough service time to drop out of next year's top-prospect lists.  My worry is that Harris will be boring and have Quad-A guys shuttling back & forth from Toledo.  I hope I'm wrong of course: that the blue-chippers dominate and force their way into the major-league lineup.

We also need to steel ourselves to the possibility that we drop down the best-systems ranking because some of our guys struggle as they face tougher competition and/or guys in other teams' systems break out.

If I had to make a prediction, I'd predict that:

• Rainer moves up the top-prospect list, as he shows what he can do when healthy
• Anderson graduates off the list
• Liranzo has a bounce-back year
• The rest of the guys drop off slightly, for the reasons I mention above

-Tapu

[Michael W]

These rankings are really pretty brain-dead.   ESPN basically just regurgitates what the teams tell them, which is not much better than propaganda.  Keith Law is a little better - at least he's a smart person - but I don't see evidence that he's doing much more than that they are.  The truth is, unless you are scouting these players yourself, which you'd have to do regularly to learn anything useful, there isn't much information to make a judgment about beyond what we all have already: that stats and the propaganda.  

Having said that, I do hold out hope that Cris Rodriguez will emerge as an elite prospect.  His power for his age is exceptional, he has good speed, and he hit .308.  Still, I've mostly only been disappointed by our DSL prospects, so it's more hope than forecast at this point.  

Best,

Michael

[Peter Welch]

Expecting McGonigle/Clark/Anderson/H. Lee/Briceno to be good as rookies is fantasyland.

McGonigle is the only one who might be around league average as a rookie if he gets called up this year, but he's not going to hit like peak Alex Bregman or Jose Altuve as a rookie.  He's more likely to hit like Alan Trammell did as a rookie.  If he can hit like Travis Fryman as a rookie (.818 OPS) we'd be ecstatic. 

That doesn't mean I don't think McGonigle is going to be a good hitter, but expecting a rookie to dominate against major league pitchers in this day and age is a stretch.  I hope I'm wrong, though.

It's as if Harris has been "rebuilding" for 2027 and beyond and refuses to budge from the plan despite Skubal emerging as the best starter in baseball in the past 3 years.

It's as if the Tigers making the playoffs in 2024-2025 wasn't what Harris expected 3 years ago.

Peter

---

From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tapu Shaikh <taput...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2026 4:04 PM
To: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Five Tigers on Keith Law's latest MLB Top 100 prospects list

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Detroit Tigers e-mail list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to detroit-tiger...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/8e6826f4-56d7-4501-8827-466fda4de9de%40gmail.com.

[Peter Welch]

Tigers are a bit thin in pitching prospects and are thin in hitting prospects after McGonigle/Clark/Briceno/Rainer.

We need some of the guys that Harris has drafted and Latin American signings in the past couple of years to develop or the farm system is going to slip back into mediocrity.

Peter

---

From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael W <miw...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2026 9:00 PM
To: Detroit Tigers e-mail list <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Five Tigers on Keith Law's latest MLB Top 100 prospects list

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/7582dc41-40dd-4ce1-ba4e-e57f038b8cf0n%40googlegroups.com.

[Roger King]

Recently, I had a back-and-forth on Twitter with a knowledgable Tigers fan and his position was we should be happy the Tigers made the playoffs the last two seasons and Harris has turned around what was a disaster. His overview was…what’s everybody in a panic about, we’ve got good players and most of them are young, etc.

That’s obviously what Scott Harris would like fans to think as well but the reality in my view is it was always kind of a 5-year plan when they did the tear down at the end of 2017 and it’s those players drafted/acquired in the rebuild that have gotten us here. This is what I expected from the core of Greene, Tork, Skubal, Mize etc. That once they had experience and were healthy, the team would be competitive for the postseason.  So I wasn’t “pleasantly surprised” by the last couple of years. It’s what I thought would happen once we had that young core in Detroit. 

The premise of this guy’s argument clearly rests on the idea that Harris was left a disaster, which doesn’t compute for me as I’ve said on the list before…because the bulk of the Tigers roster are players mainly acquired by Avila.  Not trying to start up any big discussion about his tenure again but just making the point that the core of these Tigers teams the last two years are players Harris inherited in the system.

Harris is now waiting for “his players” to join this Tigers core and clearly thinks this will result in the Tigers having many more postseason appearances in the years to come (even potentially without Skubal). 

Roger King
El Presidente
PN Agency – www.pnagency.com
Ethnic Voice Talent –www.ethnicvoicetalent.com
(416) 515-7195

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/detroit-tigers/PH3PPF7B3FDDB2959D52F137587EA34359E9A9EA%40PH3PPF7B3FDDB29.namprd19.prod.outlook.com.

[Peter Welch]

The "panic" is that we have the most dominant starter in baseball the last 2-3 years and he'll be gone in 2027.

Maybe "staying the course" is wise, but seems like a wasted opportunity.

Peter

---

From: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2026 9:38 AM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>