Detroit Tigers Top Prospect Continues to Rake After Being Sent Down to Minors

It may not be very long before the Detroit Tigers bring one of their top prospects back to the Major Leagues.

Feb 23, 2025; Tampa, Florida, USA; Detroit Tigers third base Jace Jung (17) celebrates after scoring a run against the New York Yankees in the fourth inning during spring training at George M. Steinbrenner Field. | Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

The Detroit Tigers are having to mess around with different lineup combinations early this season in order to find the right mix to counteract injuries.

A.J. Hinch has a tendency to prioritize defense over offense as well as heavily tweak his lineup toward the most favorable matchups rather than keeping everything consistent and similar to the day prior, even coming off a strong performance.

One player who has not yet found his way into the carousel of Hinch's chaos despite expectations entering camp that he would be a key starter is Top 10 prospect Jace Jung.

After making his debut last season and struggling mightily at the plate, Jung revealed this offseason he had been dealing with a wrist injury which limited his ability while making the most difficult transition of his career.

Entering camp healthy, the third base position was practically considered Jung's to lose even though he is not the best defender. He had by far the highest offensive ceiling on the roster of options that could realistically play third.

Unfortunately for both Jung and the Tigers, he responded to the opportunity with a slash line of .121/.216/.273 and just four hits in 14 games this spring, forcing the team to send him down to Triple-A.

Though it was a discouraging sign for his future outlook, the goal was for Jung to go back down, get his timing and confidence back and hopefully come back to Detroit sooner rather than later.

During his time thus far this season with Triple-A Toledo, Jung has absolutely torn the cover off the baseball through the first five games.

Slashing .333/.545/.933 along with seven walks, Jung certainly is looking the part of a big league player.

On Wednesday night, Jung not only mashed a triple, but also hit his second home run of the season on a moonshot that traveled 415 feet and left the bat at nearly 109 mph:

Jace Jung rockets his second homer of the season for the Triple-A @MudHens 🚀

The @tigers' 2022 first-rounder sends one out 415 ft at 108.8 mph. pic.twitter.com/xTxYkMPPgU

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) April 3, 2025

Clearly, Jung is seeing the ball much better than he was throughout large portions of the spring. As Hinch described it, his timing was completely off and not that of a Major League player.

Knowing what he had to work on, Jung clearly showed up to Toledo with the right attitude to fix what had been giving him trouble in camp. Though he still has to continue to prove it over the coming weeks, he now looks a lot closer to the player the Tigers hoped he would be this season.

If Jung keeps hitting the ball the way he is right now, it will not be long before he finds his way back in Detroit to help out a Tigers lineup that is in need of a boost in the early portion of the season.