Detroit Tigers Built Foundation of Roster With Incredibly Strong Recent Draft Classes

The Detroit Tigers unexpectedly snapped a nine-year playoff drought last year, overcoming some long odds to make the postseason.

It was an unprecedented run. Despite being sellers at the trade deadline and under the .500 mark, that didn’t stop them from catching fire and earning the No. 2 wild card spot in the American League.

Elite pitching and timely hitting were both prevalent in the run, receiving contributions from players up and down the roster.

The most encouraging part about that stretch was so much of the production was provided by homegrown players coming into their own to build the foundation of the future.

With 18 players on their 40-man roster being homegrown, they have an incredibly strong foundation in place to begin building upon. With the front office handling the payroll exceptionally well, too, the Tigers are a team on the rise.

A big reason for the franchise being in the position which they are is that the front office has aced recent MLB drafts.

Taking a look at their Major League roster, they have multiple impact contributors from the 2018, 2019 and 2020 draft classes who are helping propel the team forward.

Some of the players, such as Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 overall picks in 2018 and 2020, took a little longer to realize their potential.

Both are in the midst of incredible breakout campaigns this year, looking like the franchise cornerstones Detroit had hoped they were getting when they selected them with the first pick in their respective drafts.

Torkelson has a .288/.392/.638 slash line through his first 22 games and 97 plate appearances with a 1.2 WAR. He has launched seven home runs with seven doubles and 21 RBI, anchoring the lineup alongside Kerry Carpenter.

Selected in 2019, Carpenter has the talent to be a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat but injuries have marred the early part of his career. This season he has been a nice pairing with Torkelson with a .315/.338/.562 slash line, hitting five home runs with three doubles and 11 RBI.

Once Riley Greene, their first-round pick in 2019, finds his groove, the Tigers will have an exciting young trio to build their lineup around. Some analysts thought he was an MVP dark horse this year.

That is some high praise, giving Detroit multiple superstar-level producers.

On the mound, they have reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal. He is only getting better, using his changeup to become arguably the most dominant pitcher in baseball.

Behind him in the rotation is another future star: Jackson Jobe.

A first-round pick in the 2021 MLB Draft, he is already making an impact at the Major League level and looks like an ace in the making.

With so much of their young talent maturing and forming an impressive core, the Tigers seem poised to contend for years to come.

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