DETROIT — Ryan Garko spent much of his playing career trying to beat the Tigers as a first baseman in Cleveland. He’ll now jump into the Tigers’ front office hoping to help the farm system round out the team’s return to contention.
The 40-year-old Garko had been on Joe Maddon’s coaching staff with the Angels the past two seasons as a coaching assistant and replay coordinator. Before that, he had been head coach at University of the Pacific for two seasons, coaching six players who ended up signing pro contracts. He also managed parts of two seasons in the Dodgers’ farm system at Double-A Tulsa.
Like Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, Garko was a catcher at Stanford University, where he shared Pac-10 Co-Player of the Year honors in 2003 and won the Johnny Bench Award as college baseball’s top catcher. Garko eventually moved to first base in pro ball and made his Major League debut with Cleveland in 2005. He later returned to his alma mater to start his coaching career as an assistant.
Garko hit 55 home runs over his six-year Major League playing career, including six against the Tigers. Two were off Justin Verlander.
Garko’s hire continues what looks to be a year of change for the Tigers’ player development system, which had been baseball’s No. 2 ranked farm system by MLB Pipeline entering the season on the strength of since-graduated prospects Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal and Matt Manning, along with current top prospects Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene. All five were ranked among the top 25 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list going into the season. In the most recent rankings, the Tigers’ system is ranked No. 7.
At the time of Littlefield’s job change, general manager Al Avila said the move was more about administration and instruction.
“We’re looking to be a more progressive organization,” Avila said. “We’ve been a very traditional organization as far as our way of teaching. We will not lose our old-school ways by any means, but we want to be a little bit more progressive and start using more technology, more sciences. We want to start being able to write up plans for our pitching and our hitting across the board, starting from the Major League level all the way down.”
Besides Littlefield’s reassignment, the Tigers have informed several Minor League coaches and instructors that their contracts would not be renewed, including longtime pitching coordinator A.J. Sager, Double-A pitching coach Mark Johnson, High-A pitching coach Willie Blair, High-A hitting coach Gary Cathcart, catching coordinator Joe DePastino and infield coordinator Jose Valentin.