Draft adds to Tigers’ pitching stockpile

Jason Beck
Beck’s Blog
Published in
4 min readJun 16, 2017

No, the Tigers don’t believe a team can have enough pitching in its farm system. That dates back to former general manager Dave Dombrowski’s drafting and development philosophy.

That does not mean the Tigers believe they’ll need all that pitching here sooner rather than later.

When Detroit used its top Draft pick (18th overall) Monday on Alex Faedo, they added the big, talented University of Florida right-hander to a group that includes last year’s first-round pick, teenager Matt Manning, 2015 first-round pick Beau Burrows, high-rising fourth-rounder Kyle Funkhouser and 2015 second-rounder Tyler Alexander.

The quartet comprise four of the top six slots on MLB Pipeline’s Tigers prospect rankings, to go with a young core in Detroit that includes Michael Fulmer and Daniel Norris.

But as Tigers personnel point out, they haven’t been treated with the same philosophy or pushed at the same aggressiveness. That’s why when assistant general manager David Chadd was asked how quickly we could see Faedo and other college pitchers they drafted, Chadd quipped, “I can see them in [short-season Class A] Connecticut pretty quick.”

In other words, Chadd and scouting director Scott Pleis are avoiding timetables.

“I think we’ve been known as an organization that will move pitchers fairly quickly,” Chadd said. “We’ve got Beau Burrows in Double-A that’s 20 years old. You’ve got Funkhouser coming up right behind him. But we’re also patient as well, as you can see with Matt Manning.

“We’re not just going to throw him in the fire and say, ‘Hey, we need you in the big leagues in two years.’ They have to develop, and then their progression of development will tell you, once they’re doing well at a certain level, to move them to the next level. That’s how fast he’ll move is how he does once he gets out and gets to the minor leagues.”

Burrows skipped Connecticut, opened his first full pro season at Class A West Michigan, opened this year one level up at Class A Lakeland, and was promoted to Erie last week. There, he joined Alexander, who’s two years older.

Manning, by contrast, has been in extended Spring Training this season. He’s expected to move shortly to Connecticut, where he’ll likely be the Opening Day starter, according to Chadd.

Faedo is busy for the near future with Florida in the College World Series, which begins this weekend. Negotiations on a deal won’t begin until he’s done with that, Chadd said. Fourth-rounder Giovanni Arriera, a junior college pitcher from Palm Beach State College, just turned 19 last week. Others, like sixth-rounder Dane Myers, seventh-rounder Brad Bass and eighth-rounder Max Green, are college juniors whose seasons ended a while ago and are likely to sign.

“We’re out trying to get it done right now,” Chadd said. “All the area scouts are out right now with Scott and [cross-checker] James Orr trying to get them now.”

Some Tigers takes on pitchers drafted:

  • First-rounder Alex Faedo: “I think we were a little surprised maybe that Faedo fell as far as he fell,” Pleis said. “We were happy to see that because we had him ranked up fairly high on our board and we’ve liked him since we first drafted him when he was in Tampa out of high school. … We were hearing when we were getting near the draft that he might be slipping along with some other guys that you could add in there that were in the same boat. We thought he’d get close, but quite frankly we thought he was going to go before us. Maybe some guys got to some other teams before us that they thought weren’t going to get to them and they took them and he just got to us.”
  • Fourth-rounder Giovanni Arriera: “Our area scout knew him from the fall, saw him in the fall and then followed through the spring and he threw really well and we went in there and we scouted him. We liked him from the get-go. We knew what he was all about in the fall. He just kept progressing through the spring and we got an opportunity to get him in a good spot and we took it.”
  • Sixth-rounder Dane Myers: “Man, just a really good athlete, a two-way guy, really swung the bat well and played a good third base for them. But a good athlete, good delivery, good arm action. We think there’s a lot of upside left in this guy, too, once he just pitches and doesn’t hit anymore.”
  • On college relievers drafted later (Max Green, Will Vest, Billy Lescher, Drew Carlson, etc.): “There’s always a point in the draft where you’re trying to get the best guy, whether it’s a bat or an arm or whatever it is. And it wasn’t the greatest draft as far as overall talent, but we got where we were just seeing that these were the best arms. These were the best arms that we liked, that we saw. So that opportunity presented itself and we just went with it. And it just kind of fell that way.”

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Written by Jason Beck

Tigers beat reporter on MLB dot com, Xavier hoops, Chelsea FC fan, recovering marathoner turned half-marathoner. Unapologetic fan of the narrative.

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Class act fans, booing Miguel but they give a free pass to Kinsler( AWOL , season long) and Verlander, career highest BB/9
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