Format = Player Position | Age on 1-4-2026 | Highest level played | Estimated time of arrival
1. SS Kevin McGonigle | 21 | AA | 2026
McGonigle is the 37th overall pick in the 2023 draft and has great hands on both sides of the ball, plus speed and budding power. A left-handed hitter with a fast swing, he broke out in 2025, slashing .305/.408/.583 with 19 home runs and just 46 strikeouts against 59 walks in 88 games across three levels. McGonigle has one of my favorite qualities in prospects, which is that hitting is the easy part for him. Detroit isn’t an easy park for lefty power, but the pitching in that division is soft, so maybe it will all end up in the wash.
2. BY Max Clark | 21 | AA | 2026
The third overall pick out of high school in 2023, Clark is a 6-foot-1, 205-pound lefty who slashed .271/.403/.432 with 14 home runs and 19 steals in 111 games between High-A and Double-A. The numbers don’t jump off the page and he hit .251 in those 43 Double-A games, but he has always been above league average against older competition, regularly flashing the power-speed topside that keeps the rotisserie world going.
3. 1B/C Josue Briceño | 21 | AA | 2027
Briceño struggled in his 45 Double-A games (.232/.335/.381), but was dominant through 55 games with High-A West Michigan, slashing .296/.422/.602 with 15 home runs, carrying over his success from the 2024 fall season when he won the Triple Crown. He’s a big guy at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, so maybe he’s just a little worn out, but the Double-A hiccup is enough to rob me of some confidence that he’ll be the next big thing.
4. SS Bryce Rainer | 20 | A | 2029
The 11th overall pick in the 2024 draft, Rainer is a 6’3” 195 lbs left-handed shortstop who draws comparisons to Corey Seager with its easy opposite field movement. The problem is that he only played 35 games as a pro, although he did slash .288/.383/.448 with five home runs and nine stolen bases during that Low-A sample. Could be a decent buying window this winter.
5. 2B Max Anderson | 24 | AAA | 2026
Here’s what I wrote about Anderson in Prospect News: Johnny Levels Up of Marconi’s Cooking:
“With the trade deadline approaching and Detroit’s thirteen games in the AL Central, Tigers 2B Max Anderson (23, AA) should bring some scouts to the stands. He’s hitting .341/.391/.562 with 11 home runs and just 43 strikeouts (14.2%) in 67 games, and while he’s not exactly an extra part of the team’s long-term plans, they already have a lot of pieces in place and even have some big pieces to sort out. On the other hand, their best infield in two years could have McGonigle at shortstop and Anderson at second base. I like situations like this for some reason. I’ve been following this Tigers thing in this space for a while, and it’s nice to see them becoming something close to what people expected to see out of Baltimore.
Well, that didn’t work out. At least not yet. And now the Tigers are considering trading Tarik Skubal. It would have been wise to retain Anderson as he destroyed the AFL, slashing .447/.609/.809 with four home runs in 14 games. The line itself illustrates why I take the fall competition results with a million grains of salt, but you can’t erase exactly what’s happening on the showcase circuit just because of sample size, since no one else will.
6. C/1B Eduardo Valencia | 26 | AAA | 2026
I must be missing something here because I don’t see Valencia as a fantasy prospect anywhere unless I’m looking at the real world, where Detroit just added him to its 40-man roster for fear of losing him to another organization that could certainly justify giving him a Major League spot after slashing .319/.405/.622 with 13 home runs and a 19.1 percent strikeout rate in his first look at Triple-A pitching. I realize it was 50 games, and you can argue that most of the talent is gone in that home stretch, but he was equally effective in 53 Double-A games (148 wRC+) where he was still age-appropriate, especially for a catcher. He’s not a small guy at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, either, so there’s not much reason to doubt the huge power jump from his season-high of six to his 2025 mark of 24 home runs in just 103 games.
7. FROM Cris Rodriguez | 18 | DSL | 2030
Rodriguez signed for a franchise-record $3,197,500 bonus and went on to slash .308/.340/.564 with ten home runs and ten stolen bases in 50 Dominican Summer League games. At 6’3″ and 203 pounds, Rodriguez generates plus bat speed from the right side and already creates loft with regularity. He has as much power potential as anyone in the lower minors.
8. 2B Hao Yu Lee | 23 | AAA | 2026
Lee tapped into a new level of power in 2024 by hunting for fastballs he could pull. Despite the increased aggression, he only scored 17.9 percent of the time while having an 8.5 percent walk rate. The approach didn’t work that well in Triple-A this season. Lee hit .243/.342/.406 with 14 home runs in 126 games. Even with this small step back, he was six percent better than the league average (106 wRC+) and stole 22 bases despite being 4.3 years younger than the league average age. At 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds with no prodigious strength, his ultimate upside is limited, but he should be ready to play high-quality professional at-bats at the Major League level sooner rather than later.
9. SS Jordan Yost | 19 | AFTER | 2030
Yost, the club’s first-round pick this year at 24th overall, is a 6-foot-1, 170-pound left-handed hitter who is just starting to use his excellent contact skills to create in-game power. He wasn’t assigned anywhere after the draft, so there could be an opportunity to acquire Yost at a relative discount in the drafts for first-year players. This organization has been successful with exactly this type of player, and Yost has enough speed to become a five-category contributor to our game.
10. C Thayron Liranzo | 22 | AA | 2027
Liranzo is a powerful backstop who stands at 6-foot-4 and weighs at least 195 pounds. He has a good idea of the strike zone and has impressive hitting skills through 2025 for a switch-hitting catcher of his size. He hit just .206 with 11 home runs in 88 Double-A games this season, so there’s a good chance he starts 2026 at the same level.
Thanks for reading!
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