Tigers Star Prospect Bryce Rainer Continues to Mash Ball in First Pro Season
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The Detroit Tigers have cultivated the best farm system in all of Major League Baseball with some savvy trades and draft picks over the last several seasons.
When it comes to drafting, the evaluation of talent is just as important as the development system, and the Tigers have done an incredible job thus far under president of baseball operations Scott Harris.
There are a number of prospects in the organization who have found a way to climb the ladder across the league, but there's one who is about to start getting a whole lot more noise.
Current No. 3 prospect Bryce Rainer is playing his first professional baseball season after being selected No. 11 overall in the 2024 MLB draft.
It has become apparent quickly that teams who passed on the 19-year-old in the top-ten made a huge mistake.
Just How Good is Rainer Already Only a Month Into His Career?
Rainer -- who was assigned to Low-A Lakeland -- has been absolutely tearing the cover off the ball this season and seems to be getting better with each passing game.
On Wednesday night, he collected another three-hit game, first absolutely crushing a double to deep left center field during the first inning:
Bryce Rainer gets an elevated changeup and drives it 345 feet to left for a double - 102.4 off the bat. pic.twitter.com/zZMC5JYR4F
— Tigers ML Report (@tigersMLreport) May 7, 2025
It was what Rainer did in the third inning though that has the whole scouting community buzzing, mashing a home run to deep center field which looked like a laser off the bat, exiting the box at nearly 111 mph:
110.9 mph EV 🔥
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) May 7, 2025
MLB's No. 47 prospect Bryce Rainer (@tigers) sends a LASER over the center-field wall, securing his fourth multihit game in five contests this month for the Single-A @LkdFlyingTigers. pic.twitter.com/RE4VDlPXOz
Over the last five games, Rainer has collected multiple hits in four of them.
On the season now, he is slashing .305/.411/.525 with 18 total hits, 10 runs scored, three home runs and 13 RBI in just 17 games played.
The obvious next question becomes when Rainer could see a promotion to High-A in the near future, and while he obviously still has a ton to learn, it's not out of the realm of possibility for him to climb to West Michigan.
Rainer is currently not projected to crack the Major Leagues until 2028, but if he keeps seeing the ball like this it could be much quicker than that.
Michael Brauner is a 2022 graduate of the University of Alabama with a degree in Sports Media. He covers various MLB teams across the On SI network and you can also find his work on Yellowhammer News covering the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers as well as on the radio producing and co-hosting 'The Opening Kickoff' every weekday morning on 105.5 WNSP FM in Mobile, Alabama.