Bless You Boys

We all know the drill. Don’t get too excited about spring training. For the past three seasons, that’s been pretty easy for fans of the Detroit Tigers. However, as the better prospects are beginning to make their presence felt, and the 2021 roster is fortified with a decent selection of veteran players and reclamation projects,

Time: 1:05 p.m.Place: LECOM Park, Bradenton, Fla.Media: MLB.TV (Pirates’ feed), Tigers Radio NetworkPitching Matchup: RHP Casey Mize vs. RHP J.T. Brubaker Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene and Dillon Dingler on today’s travel roster for Tigers, who face the Pirates at 1:05 in Bradenton. Casey Mize gets the start. pic.twitter.com/VXlVZrzoQY — Jason Beck (@beckjason) March 2, 2021

The Detroit Tigers have been remarkably consistent over the past four seasons. The team has posted winning percentages of .395, .395, and .397 in three of those seasons, the only outlier being their .292 percentage in 2019. The Tigers sunk to the bottom of baseball in 2017 and have failed to improve since then. Tigers’

Time: 1:05 p.m.Place: George M. Steinbrenner Field, Tampa, Fla.Media: MLB.TV (Yankees’ feed), Tigers Radio NetworkPitching Matchup: RHP Kyle Funkhouser vs. LHP Gerrit Cole Pitching lineup today in Tampa:Kyle FunkhouserGreg SotoBeau BurrowsZack Hess–Also available, Ethan DeCaster, Jason Foley, Andrew Moore, Wladimir Pinto, Logan Shore — Chris McCosky (@cmccosky) March 1, 2021 Yankees lineup today vs. the

For many prospects, the cancelled 2020 minor league season was a lost year of development that could have major negative career implications. Minor league contraction may force some aggressive promotions, while the levels of access to quality training have varied wildly from player to player with MLB’s developmental pipeline shut down for much of the

Welcome to March, and welcome to the next step in the trudge toward opening day. We have baseball to watch. It’s starting pitchers going one inning and hitters getting a couple at bats before dudes whose names we don’t know get subbed in, but it’s baseball. In the first of such games, the Tigers swapped

Preseason evaluations of the Detroit Tigers’ farm system recently have focused on two points; the strength at the top of the system, and the weakness in the middle. A key part of the second issue is the lack of interesting starting pitching prospects at the A-ball levels. Keider Montero may have something to say about

Time: 1:05 p.m.Place: Joker Marchant Stadium, Lakeland, Fla.Media: Tigers Radio NetworkPitching Matchup: LHP Tyler Alexander vs. RHP Ivan Nova Other Tigers slated to pitch today:LHP Derek HollandLHP Ian KrolRHP Alex Lange— also available, RHPs Nolan Blackwood, Drew Carlton, Robbie Ross, Jr., Logan Shore. — Chris McCosky (@cmccosky) February 28, 2021 #Phillies lineup today vs. Tigers

The Detroit Tigers selected Akil Baddoo with the third overall pick of the most recent Rule 5 Draft. Finding up to date and relevant information about any of the prospects heading into the 2021 season is hard enough, but for Baddoo that is tenfold. He didn’t play much in 2019 before suffering a season ending

Among the lower tiers of prospects, there are a few general types. There are players with one loud tool, or a particular role in which to excel that forms a narrow pathway to the major leagues. There are young players who may appear raw and undersized, but have plenty of potential projection left to them

Zack Hess had to wait until the seventh round of the 2019 MLB Draft to hear his named called. The right-hander out of LSU had a ton of talent, but he also had a very high effort and funky delivery that scared teams away. The Detroit Tigers selected him with a plan to transition him

Tarik Skubal fully emerged from the shadow of Casey Mize and Matt Manning in 2020. After some early struggles, his major league debut was a success under difficult circumstances and offered a glimpse at his potential to become a very good starting pitcher. Now with some experience under his belt, and a new pitch to

Way back in 2015, the Detroit Tigers selected Texas prep right-hander Beau Burrows with the 22nd overall pick in former GM Dave Dombrowski’s last draft with the organization. While that feels like a lifetime ago, Burrows is still just 24 years old. In prospect terms, that’s not particularly old for a pitcher as long as

Welcome to full-squad session Monday. I woke this morning with a thankfulness that although there are plenty of things to find frustration with when it comes to the front office of the Detroit Tigers, at least they aren’t the Seattle Mariners and the special brand of leadership they have with President Kevin Mather. There’s a

Until they come stateside and reach the full season A-ball circuit, international free agent signings are often a bit of a mystery to MLB fanbases. The top guys will generally have had a lot of eyes on them for a while, and plenty of video to boot, but the majority are known only by reputation

For those hoping the Detroit Tigers would finally start making serious moves toward building a more competitive roster, this offseason has once again been a disappointment. On the other hand, the small signings they’ve made have been oriented more toward upside plays than in recent years, and they’ve done the right thing by stockpiling some

The Tigers are four years deep in their rebuilding process, which means we’re four deep into Tigers bloggers constantly jawing about how the team needs to diversify the way they go about asset acquisition. While the team hasn’t done much in the Asian markets or by gambling on high-value reclamation projects, they’ve overhauled their strategy

As the Bless You Boys staff prepares to dive deeper into the prospects on our top 30 prospect list, there are numerous prospects debated for the final few spots who were close but didn’t make the list. After outlining five players who just missed, there are still others worth highlighting, particularly as they’ve been largely

How does one measure the change of seasons, or acknowledge the return of spring? Do you set your clock by the groundhog’s February 2nd announcements, or are you a “first robin” believer when it comes to spring? Those of us in snowier climates often wait for all the white stuff to begin before we’ll concede

The offseason is drawing to a close, and the Bless You Boys staff have knocked off the ice and are throwing it into Spring mode. That means our prospect content rollout is a full go, and I get to write my favorite article of prospect season, examining the guys who didn’t crack our top 30