Detroit Tigers 2024 MLB draft: Day two roundup of picks 6-10

After getting through the first five rounds, draft boards start to become pretty useless. Teams draft for raw skills that fit their development strengths if they’re smart, sometimes they’re taking an org guy to save money. Strategies start to play out to their fruition, whereas in the early rounds teams are juggling known quantities and trying the land the best handful of players possible in the early rounds.

That means there aren’t many surprises, because it’s pretty much impossible to know what to expect going in. Some of these players are well known quantities, others are obscure. And often, it’s the more obscure selections found in out of the way schools or parts of the country in terms of baseball that prove the most intriguing and offer the most upside.

The Tigers made a couple of early position player additions beyond the fifth round, generally featuring players with athleticism and an advanced approach at the plate. The Tigers will really have to max out there tools to get a legit position player prospect out the following names, and that’s unfortunate. But you do see the wise strategy of collecting athletic players including two college shortstops, in the hopes that they can develop their skills.

Beyond them, the Tigers continued to play heavily toward both their own developmental strengths, and the relative strengths of the draft class at this point. They collected a really interesting assortment of project arms, and then finished things off by taking a quite well regarded prep right-hander in Zach Swanson, who most thought would go in the first four or five rounds.

Signing Swanson will be an interesting trick to turn, but by taking a few guys who will sign underslot or not at all, the Tigers bought themselves some wiggle room to pluck another talented high schooler. There are still numerous prep players like Swanson who were expected to go higher, so while the Tigers bonus pool situation looks pretty tight, don’t be surprised if they shoot their shot in one or two cases anyway, and try to make the math work later.

For now let’s run down picks 6-10 for the 2024 Detroit Tigers’ draft class.

SS Woody Hadeen, UC-Irvine

Round 6, Pick 176

The infielder UC-Irvine put his name in the record books for his alma mater by scoring over 80 runs and drawing over 60 walks, which no one had done for the Anteaters before. He thrives on an offensive profile driven by ultra-high contact rates, with Baseball America reporting a 91% overall contact rate and a 96% in-zone contact rate in 2024.

He walked and struck out at roughly equal rates in his first two years at the collegiate level, but he turned that dial all the way up this season. His 62 walks and 35 strikeouts on the year look like a typo, but he simply decided not to swing at balls. Opposing pitchers couldn’t adapt without him punishing them in the zone.

“Hadeen is a ballplayer. He switch hits with two short compact strokes that yield tons of solid contact; getting a fastball by Hadeen is next to impossible. The cherry on top is an extremely selective and advanced approach. The Colorado-born Hadeen has the prototypical tools of a leadoff hitter or 9-hole hitter to turn over the lineup… Hadeen is comfortably an above-average runner and flashes impressive base-stealing instincts,” wrote Prospects Live in June.

The snaggle here is that Hadeen has next to no power behind his prolific contact rates. At 6-foot-2, he’s big enough to access another gear in game with pro training, but that rarely, if ever, actually happens for guys unless they are already hitting bombs in batting practice. Combine that with a true Captain Oppo approach, letting the ball travel and shooting line drives and grounders the opposite way, and it would take a lot to improve his power projections.

Old-fashioned slap-and-dash hitters like Hadeen are rare in the modern age of baseball, but the Tigers are willing to bet on him being an outlier because he doesn’t feel the need to hack at every pitch that comes his way.

Hadeen has plenty of experience at shortstop and he’s rangy and athletic enough to stay there, but his arm strength may present an issue. He’s also gotten playing time in center field and second base, where he will probably continue to take reps as a minor leaguer as well. Long term, if he can put it all together, he has the look of your dad’s favorite bench player who the local media relishes in calling a “spark plug.”

The following clip is two years old, so keep that in mind. There isn’t much else available on Hadeen.

OF Jackson Strong, Canisius College

Round 7, Pick 206

Strong played at Canisius College in the obscure Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. He was a productive player during his sophomore season, but really turned on the jets in 2024. He hit .350/.482/.612 with 11 home runs and 42 stolen bases as a junior. He used his tremendous season as a springboard to commit to Kentucky Wildcats in the transfer portal, which makes signing with a pro team less than a no-brainer for the outfielder.

Despite being a power/speed athlete who has met with success at the low major college ranks, Baseball America reported that Strong was pushed down draft boards due to concerns about his hit tool. He manages the strike zone well, in fact, he walked more than he struck out his season. While Strong’s swing does not appear to have a hitch before triggering, it’s very long and seems to cause his arms to disengage from the power he has coiled up in his legs and core. That can lead to inconsistent in-game power production and leave him especially vulnerable to quality changeups and splitters.

Here’s a comp for you sickos out there: Jackson Strong’s collection of skills strike me as a small school version of Brock Deatherage. Also like Deatherage, he played right field in college, but probably has the range necessary to handle a center field assignment. If he’s deployed up the middle as a professional, it could lighten the load on his bat and improve his chances at reaching a modest ceiling as a situational fifth outfielder. If he can tighten up his swing, the outlook will get much rosier very quickly.

LHP Ethan Sloan, Regis University

Round 8, Pick 236

A four-year contributor at Regis University (Division II), Ethan Sloan flirted with being a starter before finding a home in the bullpen. Sloan moved into the primary closer role as a junior in 2023 and thrived in the same role as a senior.

He led the South Central region with nine saves and was a First Team All-Region selection in 2024. Sloan also posted a career-low earned run average (3.96) and some ridiculous metrics — a 34.7 percent strikeout rate and a 7.8 percent walk rate. He was also named to the All-Academic team for his region multiple times, which is a green flag for a player entering an information-heavy pitching development system.

Major league scouts got a closer look at Sloan in the MLB Draft League, where Detroit’s eighth-round pick made six appearances. Through 11 innings, Sloan struck out 18 and held opposing batters to a .175 average and 0.82 WHIP. The Draft League is where the Tigers found middle rounds darling Jatnk Diaz last year, and perhaps not coincidentally, also where Jackson Strong played this spring.

Reports have Sloan’s fastball topping out at 95 mph, but there’s not much else out there on him. We were unable to find any meaningful information about his pitch mix or video of him playing at a competitive level. We’ve reached out to Regis to potentially find out a little more, with no immediate response. If that changes, we’ll update this article accordingly.

RHP Zach Swanson, Toutle Lake (Wash.)

Round 9, Pick 266

The standout pick for Detroit during the latter part of Day 2 has to be Swanson. He was ranked comfortably within the top 200 players on both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America’s boards, with the reports surrounding him sounding awfully familiar. He has a three pitch mix that centers on a fastball with riding action and a slider that he throws at exceptionally high spin rates.

In previous years, Swanson has lived in the upper 80s with his fastball, but these days, he’s throwing in the low- to mid-90s. There’s a little physical projection left in his 6-foot-3 frame, leaving some to hope that he could find himself in the mid-90s more consistently as he gets older. Baseball America noted that his slider gets sweeperish motion and both outlets agree that his changeup has a long way to go before it is a usable pitch.

The reliever risk tied up in this kind of profile is made more pronounced by the fact that he utilizes a violent throwing motion, which hampers his ability to spot the ball and may raise concerns about his body’s ability to stand up to starter’s workload. But, if a high schooler with his foundational skills didn’t have these issues, he’d be a top-50 player.

This is exactly the kind of pitcher the Tigers have made investments in since the moment Mark Conner and Gabe Ribas joined forces in Detroit’s front office. The idea here is to tap into the swing and miss potential of his fastball by adjusting its usage in the zone, maximize its command through small mechanical tweaks, and back that up with a hard slider or cutter that mimics the heater out of the hand. It’s a recipe they’re very comfortable using as a starting point for young pitchers cut from this cloth, from Jackson Jobe to Jaden Hamm to Blake Dickerson.

RHP RJ Sales, UNC-Wilmington

Round 10, Pick 296

Sales was an immediately productive pitcher for UNC-Wilmington, setting the school record for games started by a true freshman before succumbing to an elbow injury that wiped out his sophomore season. As a result, he has two years of eligibility remaining due to a medical redshirt and has more negotiating power than your typical tenth round college arm.

Sales certainly has the stuff to earn a starter’s projection going forward. He throws as many as five pitches, all of them bendy. His fastball is the kind of high spin four seamer with ride that draws whiffs at the top of the zone and he pairs it with a cutter in the upper 80’s. (Sound familiar?) The best among his offspeed pitches right now is a curveball with big 12-6 downer motion, which he throws in a harder velocity band than the old school Uncle Charlie curve that movement profile might suggest.

Severe control issues plague Sales, and his walk rate was through the roof in 2024 against competition a player with his stuff should have dominated. True, he was returning from Tommy John, which is always skews command in the wrong direction. Detroit will probably send him out as a starter in his pro debut, but if he can’t be reigned in, a move to the bullpen is in his future. He’s built in the mold of a hot and cold middle relief guy.