LAKELAND, Fla. — Detroit Tigers prospect Cristian Santana spent his offseason in the Dominican Republic working out with Juan Soto. Yes, that Juan Soto, the 2021 National League runner-up for MVP. “I want to be like him someday,” Santana said Friday in his first interview with an American reporter. “He is the best hitter in Major League
The Tigers and Cubs were going in polar opposite directions in 2017. Detroit was headed towards a last place finish that would kick off the massive rebuild from which they’re only now emerging. Chicago was trying to defend their drought-breaking World Series title, eyeing another division championship as part of what looked to be a
Schuyler Dixon | Associated Press Fort Worth, Texas — A former Los Angeles Angels employee accused of providing the opioids that contributed to Tyler Skaggs’ overdose death told a colleague he watched the Angels pitcher do drugs the night before he was found dead in a suburban Dallas hotel room, according to testimony Monday. Eric Prescott
Lakeland, Fla. — And he thought he’d been laboring in relative anonymity all those years. Utility infielder Jack Lopez sat in the empty home dugout at Fenway Park last September. He’d just been called up to the big leagues, his first call-up after 10 seasons grinding through the minor leagues in three different systems. As chronicled
LAKELAND, Fla. — The Detroit Tigers are opening minor-league minicamp this week at the team’s spring training facility. The first pitchers and catchers workout is scheduled for Wednesday in Lakeland, Florida, followed by the first full-squad workout Feb. 21. Players not included on the Tigers’ 40-man roster are permitted to participate in minicamp. Major league players, though, cannot
At Motor City Bengals, we’re counting down our best prospects in the Detroit Tigers system. Our seventh-ranked prospect was Joey Wentz, which you can find here. That brings us to one of the more polarizing players in the entire system: Ryan Kreidler.
LAKELAND, Fla. — The Arizona Fall League was a test for Detroit Tigers right-hander Garrett Hill, a 26th-round selection in 2018 out of San Diego State after two years at Santa Rosa Junior College. The former No. 765 overall pick, now a 26-year-old, wanted to know if he belonged with baseball’s best prospects. Hill posted a 1.98 ERA
Attending a no-hitter is on every fan’s baseball bucket list. Unfortunately, there’s no way to prepare or plan for such a random bit of happy happenstance. Baseball is a numbers game, so let’s crunch the numbers to determine your likelihood of attending a no-hitter, based on venue. To determine this, we used an extremely intricate
Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, there was one thing that my brothers and I did every Saturday in the fall and that was watching Michigan football on WXYZ-TV Channel 7. In my early youth, I tuned into the stations of the day, the Planet 96.3, 89X, WRIF for Drew and Mike in the…
DETROIT — Frank Beckmann, whose near-half century as a Detroit broadcaster included a decade calling Tigers games, passed away Saturday following a rare illness. He was 72. Beckmann’s wife Karen told the Detroit News that he was in critical condition at an area hospice facility following a series of strokes. He also had been dealing
Representatives for the Major League Baseball Players’ Association gathered with MLB executives on Saturday to hear the owners’ latest proposal for a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Contrary to Commissioner Rob Manfred’s claims in his Thursday press conference, the proposals were not substantially different from their last offer, moving the two sides no closer to an
YPSILANTI — Willow Run High School closed in 2013. The building rests near Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti. After its final classes that June, Willow Run School District merged with crosstown rival Ypsilanti Public School District, creating Ypsilanti Community Schools. Eric Haase, a member of the Detroit Tigers, saunters through the hallways and marvels at the
Bill Dow | Special to Detroit Free Press Frank Beckmann, the play-by-play voice of Michigan football for 33 years who also had long stints calling games for the Detroit Lions and Detroit Tigers, has died at age 72 in hospice care Beckmann suffered from vascular dementia and had several strokes recently. “It’s just so sad losing
As more than 100,000 people at Michigan Stadium stood and cheered Charles Woodson, Jim Brandstatter stood in the cramped radio booth and applauded Frank Beckmann. It was the kind of moment when legends are made. Wolverines vs. Buckeyes, November 1997, Ohio State on the move. Woodson, a Michigan defensive back in contention for college football’s most
By Ronald Blum | Associated Press New York — The final blow has been dealt to an on-time start to spring training, with Major League Baseball making a new offer Saturday that the players’ association received as only scant progress in the drawn-out labor talks. On the 73rd day of a lockout that has become the second-longest work
To celebrate Black History Month, MLB Vault will take a look back at some former MVPs. Don’t forget to subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/MLBClassics Follow us elsewhere too: Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLB Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mlb/ & https://www.instagram.com/mlbvault/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mlb TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/share/user/656… Visit our site for all baseball news, stats and scores! https://www.mlb.com/
The voice on the other end of the phone is familiar. So is the enthusiasm. If anybody in Michigan can be hyped for baseball in the middle of winter, it’s Brandon Inge. It’s right around freezing, a tad warm for Michigan in February. The sky is so thoroughly gray that it’s hard to make out
It is an obvious statement that any work stoppage for a professional sports team never sits well with the fanbase. Some will not renew their season tickets, while others may not watch them on television or a streaming service. For the Detroit Tigers, after an exciting season in which they were able to finish better…
The latest player in our Detroit Tigers prospect ranking series is lefty Joey Wentz, who returned midway through the 2021 season after recovering from a Tommy John surgery that wiped away his 2020. There has been debate among the best pitching prospect in the Tigers system since the departures of Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, and…
Lakeland, Fla. — The minute the words came out of his mouth, even he had to know they were going to come back to bite him. Toward the end of a 30-minute press briefing in a resort hotel outside of Disney World Thursday, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred was asked if owning a big-league