Late-July Log Jam (long)

[Michael W]

Baseball management earns their keep when they have to make difficult choices.  The Tigers are about to have some very tough calls on player development, arguably their most important organizational activity.

July 23 is the final day for the Florida Complex League.  As I’ve posted, many of those players have had fine seasons this year, certainly worthy of promotion.  Also, as a short-season league, they haven’t really had that that much playing time.  Only a few will reach 200 PA, and several will finish with fewer than 100.  A reasonable possibility for many of these guys is a promotion to Lakeland, with the opportunity to play for another 7 weeks.

However, Lakeland has a full roster of “prospects” already.  So, who gets to play and who has to sit?  Of course, it’s also possible to promote some Lakeland players to West Michigan, and so on up the chain.  But those teams have progressively smaller rosters, and rather than sitting, some players would have to be released to make room.

Compounding the problem, the Tigers have recently signed 13 new players from the amateur draft, and hope to sign seven more.  Those players could wait until next year, or go to Tiger Town and work out, but that’s a lost opportunity when they could play Class A ball right now.

Lakeland and West Michigan will each play 39 more games after July 23^rd, so a regular player could certainly get 175 more plate appearances.  The challenge for the Tigers is, who should get them?

 

Here’s a detailed look at the situation for position players.  Stats shown are through yesterday.

High achieving players at the FCL Rookie League, with moderate playing time:

Name              Age  Pos   PA    OPS

Cristian Perez    19   OF   175  1.005

Ronald Ramirez    19   INF  101   .966

Angel DeLosSantos 18   SS   193   .864

Maikol Orozco     20   3B   161   .810

Cris Rodriguez    18   OF   187   .793

Steven Madero     19   C/1B 160   .765

 

High achieving players at the FCL Rookie League, with limited playing time:

Note some of these players were injured, others were in Tiger Town for part of the season.

Name              Age  Pos   PA    OPS

Josueth Quinones   19  OF    73   .906

Guillermo Batista  19  SS    32   .854

Danandres Colon*   19  OF    42   .830

Michael Oliveto    19   C    75   .780

*currently injured

 

Draft Picks

Name              Age Pos  Lvl      Signed

Tyson LeBlanc      21  SS  NCAA-HM  No

Dominic Pellegrin  19  SS  HS       Yes

Maddox Molony      22  SS  NCAA-HM  Yes

Brady Ballinger    21  1B  NCAA-HM  Yes

Robert Omidi       18  3B  HS       Yes

Will Adams         18  1B  HS       Yes

Tyler West         21  OF  JC       No

 

Lakeland Players absorbing playing time

Name              Age  Pos   PA    OPS

Beau Ankeney      23    1B   344   .839

Edian Espinal     21    C    253   .838

Carson Rucker     21    3B   302   .772

Zach MacDonald    22    OF   300   .768

Nick Dumesnil     22    OF   164   .752

Anibal Salas      20    OF   247   .715

Jude Warwick      20    INF  324   .714

Jesus Pinto       19    OF   303   .709

Jordan Yost       19    SS   240   .706

Javier Osorio     21   1B/3B 195   .567

Jack Goodman      22    INF  261   .516

 

West Michigan Players of Note

Ricardo Hurtado    23    C    301   .760

Hunter Dobbins**   23    C     72   .460 at WM

Cristian Santana   22  1B/3B  233   .611

Jackson Strong     22    OF   306   .668

Andrew Sojka       25    OF   271   .716

Caleb Shpur        24    OF   121   .536

**not that one, the other one

 

Looking at this crew, first I would promote Ankeney, Espinal, Rucker, MacDonald and Dumesnil to WM.   Sojka and Shpur are just filler, we can cut both in favor of MacDonald and Dumesnil.  Hurtado’s OPS looks good, but it’s mostly walks – he doesn’t hit much.  We could promote him to Erie, but I’d make him the 2^nd string at WM.   Santana has been a bust, might was well let Ankeney get the WM reps for the rest of the season, and then decide which one to bring back afterward.  If we have to cut Santana for slots, so be it.

 Then I would take a lot of the Lakeland playing time and give it to the younger guys.  I’d divide the Lakeland playing time this way:

 C Oliveto

C2 Madero

1B Adams

2B Ramirez

3B De Los Santos

SS Pellegrin

Util Yost

OF Perez

OF Rodriguez

OF Quinones

DH Orozco

4OF Pinto

 If we need spots, Goodman is the first cut.  Second cut is Strong, with Salas getting his spot in WM.  If LeBlanc signs, he gets Pellegrin’s lineup spot, and Pellegrin slides down to utility.  Other guys, like Warwick and Osorio, can take the rest of the year off.

 I understand this will never happen, because playing time is given more by pedigree than performance.  But this is what I would do.  Or, change my mind!

Michael

[Michael W]

We got the first movement on this.  Zach MacDonald was promoted from Lakeland to West Michigan.   An odd choice to start with singly, but I won't complain if it sticks.  I did notice that they also put Jackson Strong on the 7-day IL at West Michigan; hopefully this isn't a temporary move.  

Anyway, it does open a spot in the Lakeland outfield.

Michael

[Michael W]

Cris Rodriguez was hit by a pitch and then removed from today’s final FCL game.  Hopefully he is Ok.

Michael 

[Michael W]

The second move in the log jam is more in the "as I feared" category.  Pitcher Owen Hall got promoted from FCL to Lakeland.  Hall had an ugly 5.90 ERA as one of the main starters for the baby Tigers, but still gets the promotion due to being a recent 2nd round pick.  It's just one small move, with hopefully more to follow, but it matches the traditional Tigers' pattern of promoting based on their own accountability rather than the players' performance.

Michael

On Monday, July 20, 2026 at 9:59:14 PM UTC-5 Michael W wrote:

[Michael W]

Just to underscore what I mean about not promoting based on performance, here are Hall's stats set next to one of his FCL rotation-mates: 

Name          Age  ERA   IP    H  HR  BB  HBP   K

Owen Hall     21  5.90  39.2  37   7  21   9   42

Aleiman Cruz  20  2.06  39.1  28   3  16   4   44

Who deserves the promotion?

Michael

[Jeffrey Withey]

That is ridiculous and a very bad sign. 

Jeff

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From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Michael W <miw...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, 24 July 2026 14:51:13
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Subject: Re: Late-July Log Jam (long)

 

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[Sean Sweda]

It is of course possible that there's an underlying reason here that is unknown to the general public. For example, Hall could have been told by the Tigers that he needs to work on a specific pitch, and by throwing his 3rd or 4th pitch a lot more frequently he got punished on the stat line. Ideally there's a developement process in place that values process over results at the low levels.

[Michael W]

Sean, I think it’s almost a certainty that Hall has something specific to work on, but that begs the question of why he’s the one that gets the extra reps to work on it vs. someone else.

I’m not too hung up on Hall in particular, but I am disappointed how few FCL players have been given the opportunity to finish up at class A.  There’s still time, but it’s looking less likely by the day.

Pitcher Maddox Long was also promoted.  Just those two players so far.

Michael 

[Sean Sweda]

I think the argument would be that if you tell a kid to work on a changeup because he's going to need that pitch to get MLB hitters out 2-3 years from now it doesn't make a lot of sense to be looking at his overall stat line when what you really care about is whether or not he was showing improvement with that pitch. I have no idea on the specifics here, just saying we don't know which players are being challenged to work outside their comfort zone and how that might have impacted results. Of course, if you're looking at this in aggregate and find that players who get promoted by this org in spite of poor performance rarely show any subsequent improvement then it starts to look like a systemic problem.

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[Michael W]

Finally we are seeing a little movement on this front.

Beau Ankeney and Edian Espinal were both promoted from Lakeland to West Michigan.  Also Carson Rucker was put on the injured list.

This created space for Michael Olivetto and Ronald Ramirez to be promoted from the rookie league.  In Olivetto's case that's more of the "he was a high draft pick" than that he was a top performer, but he was coming on toward the end.  In Ramirez's case, he really did earn the promotion, so that's nice to see.  Ramirez was 2-for-4 with a double in his debut for Lakeland yesterday.

Josh MacDonald was demoted back to Lakeland.  Apparently he was only promoted to fill in for Jackson Strong while injured.  Too bad - several guys could have filled his spot.

Michael

[Peter Welch]

Oliveto missed the first few weeks of the FCL season with a thumb injury.

Peter

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Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2026 11:26 AM

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[Michael W]

Another inch in the right direction, the Tigers assigned rookie-leaguer Angel De Los Santos to Lakeland.  He's leading off in today's game (bumped to second base for Jordan Yost, but even I expected that).  I wrote earlier that De Los Santos is the most exciting player in the system right now.  You won't find him on any "prospect rankings" :-)

Also another pitcher, Bryce Alewine promoted.  

The big league Tigers are frustrating to watch, but a couple more moves and Lakeland might be fun.  And it doesn't even matter if they win!

Michael