Detroit Tigers' Top Prospect Battling Illness, Looking to Return to Lineup This Weekend
Detroit Tigers' top prospect Colt Keith will remain out of the starting lineup on Friday at spring training as he battles an illness.
Per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press on social media:
Colt Keith isn’t scheduled to play today and hasn’t played since Tuesday. He said he had the flu and expects to play tomorrow. #Tigers
Keith is expected to be the team's starting second baseman this season after signing a six-year contract this offseason. When he debuts, it will be his major league debut.
Keith enters the season as the No. 2 prospect in the organization and the No. 22 prospect in all of baseball.
Using a quick and short left-handed swing, the Mississippi native does a nice job of marrying quality contact rates with noticeable impact at the dish. He elevates well and rarely expands the zone, leading to the high slugging percentages and extra-base-hit rates. With Triple-A Toledo, he maxed out with an exit velocity of 110.1 mph and slugged a 473-foot homer (per Statcast) that ranked as the fifth-longest in the International League last season. Higher EVs and more tape-measure shots should be in his future as he grows more comfortable getting through long seasons.
The Tigers moved Keith -- a below-average runner with a stocky frame -- from third base to second on a near-full-time basis by mid-August last season out of the belief his reaction times and throwing motion work better at the keystone. He’d be a bat-first player at either place, but there is a clear lane for Keith to seize a spot in the Majors and join Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene as homegrown premier talents in Detroit.
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