Detroit Tigers prospect Riley Greene, pictured during instructional league play in Lakeland, Florida, shakes hands with Spencer Torkelson.
What Al Avila’s five drafts tell us about the future of the Detroit Tigers.
Barring any stunning developments over the next five weeks, it seems likely the Detroit Tigers are content to go through at least one more season of bad baseball to secure another high draft pick. So now seems like a good time to check in on the progress of this draft-reliant rebuild.
To do this we’ll look at how Detroit’s drafts over the past five years compare to every other team in the following categories: total number of first-round picks, average first pick, total number of picks in the first five rounds, total number of big leaguers, WAR accumulated, and number of top-100 prospects according to either Baseball America or MLB Pipeline.