Hit first, ask questions later.
As draft strategies go, it’s one that’s certainly worth a shot in Detroit. And as team president Scott Harris paused to assess Day 1 of his first draft in charge of the Tigers’ baseball operation, he harkened back to one of his answers at that introductory press conference at Comerica Park last fall.
“We carried the theme that I’ve been talking about since the day I got into this organization into this draft,” Harris said. “We wanted to find hitters who dominate the strike zone, and we still want to find pitchers who can pound the strike zone.”
But want and need are two different things, and what the Tigers did Sunday, first and foremost, was start filling a glaring need in a farm system bereft of the kind of bats that both Harris and Tigers manager AJ Hinch covet.
The Tigers, as fans may have noticed, went nearly a decade between drafts that produced an everyday position player in Detroit — a drought that lasted from Nick Castellanos (2010) and James McCann (2011) to Riley Greene (2019) and Spencer Torkelson (2020). And as a recent Baseball America analysis pointed out, only one team (Washington) has fared worse when it comes to drafting hitters than the Tigers have in the bonus-pool era that began in 2012.
One draft won’t change all that, and one pick certainly can’t make up for previous front-office failures here. But Sunday’s start to the 2023 MLB Draft certainly felt like a step in the right direction for Harris. Or “Mr. Harris,” as the 18-year-old prep star the Tigers selected with the third overall pick — Franklin (Indiana) outfielder Max Clark — addressed his new 35-year-old boss shortly after getting the call.
Mr. Harris then proceeded to use the Tigers’ next pick — 37th overall — to select another prep hitter, shortstop Kevin McGonigle, out of suburban Philadelphia. And he capped the night by drafting his first college bat — Nebraska second baseman Max Anderson — with the 45th overall pick.
Not surprisingly, all three hitters have somewhat similar profiles at the plate. Profiles that weren’t exactly plentiful in the Tigers’ system when Harris arrived last September.
“With the three picks that we just made, we believe in the hit tool for all three of them,” he said. “We believe in their decision-making at the plate, we believe in their ability to make adjustments to what the pitchers are doing to them. And we believe in the adjustability of their swings. We’ve seen them make adjustments throughout their seasons that gave us greater conviction that they will be able to adjust to the pitching that they’re going to find in pro ball.”
None more so than Clark, the smooth-swinging lefty who was widely viewed as the best prep prospect in this draft class. And for quite some time, at that. He says has grown up idolizing Bryce Harper, but the 6-foot, 190-pound speedster’s game probably finds a better comp in Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, the frontrunner for NL Rookie of the Year this season.
He’s a legit five-tool prospect, and Harris laughed Sunday night when he was asked how some of those tools might factor into his fit in Comerica Park.
“We have a really big outfield,” Harris said, smiling, “so foot speed can be an asset for us.”
Clark has plenty of that, to be sure. But his hitting approach also should play well in Detroit one day. And last month when he visited the Tigers’ brass in Detroit, the bright-eyed teenager got a chance to see for himself, taking several rounds of batting practice. Clark said he “launched a few balls and put on a good show,” and though questions about his power potential are there — if not totally fair for an 18-year-old — Harris was quick to add Sunday, “We believe that that the power is still on the come for him.”
Clark does, too, for what it’s worth, especially after hitting bombs over the right-field fence during his first visit to Comerica Park. Still, it’s refreshing to hear him talk about the other ways he intends to damage as a major-league hitter.
“Definitely my gap-to-gap approach is going to play big time there,” he said. “And that’s kind of what I learned through the first few rounds of BP I took. … I think it’s gonna be a big plus for me to play there and kind of let the speed take over with double and triple work in the gap.”
How long fans will have to wait for that is impossible to say right now, and Harris wasn’t about to start talking timelines a few hours after making his first pick as team president.
But Greene played fewer than 200 minor-league games before getting the call in Detroit, and Clark, with his obvious maturity and advanced approach, could be on a fairly fast track himself.
Maybe not as fast as the college bat most analysts expected the Tigers to land at No. 3 heading into this draft. But after LSU’s tandem of pitcher Paul Skenes and outfielder Dylan Crews went 1-2 to start the night, Harris insists Clark was the top player on the Tigers’ draft board, ahead of Florida’s Wyatt Langford.
If so, that’s probably because Clark has the more well-rounded game. But Clark taking an under-slot payday also may have helped the Tigers pry their second selection away from a college commitment as well. And in McGonigle, they added a prospect many scouts viewed as the best prep infield bat as well.
Still, that prep vs. college debate is one every front office has in the draft. And it’s probably worth noting that Mark Conner, the Tigers’ new amateur scouting director, was San Diego’s scouting boss when the Padres spent top-10 picks on prep players in four consecutive drafts from 2016-20. (Three of those prospects were then traded to Washington in last summer’s blockbuster deal for Juan Soto.)
“We talked about it ad nauseam,” Harris said. “But I think it’s important for everyone to remember some of the most talented players in our entire organization were high school draft (picks). Some of those guys have moved quickly. Perhaps not quickly enough for some of our fans. But you can get elite talent from college and high school in the draft. And in this situation, with Max available at our pick, he was the clear pick for us.”
Clear or not, the truth is this was going to be hard to screw up for Harris & Co. The top five players in this year’s class probably all would’ve gone first overall in last year’s draft, when Baltimore took shortstop Jackson Holliday first in a weak class. Maybe even in the 2021 draft, too, when the Pirates surprised many by taking the best college bat (catcher Henry Davis) over the top prep shortstops (Marcelo Mayer and Jordan Lawlar) at No. 1. And luckily for the Tigers, the first-ever MLB draft lottery saw them go from the sixth-best odds to the third overall pick.
Still, in this hit-or-miss game of baseball projections, there’s something to be said for the Tigers’ new approach. Harris’ predecessor, Al Avila, began this Tigers’ rebuild by using three consecutive first-round picks from 2016-18 on college arms, and they’ve all made fewer than 40 starts in the majors. The Tigers no doubt will add some more pitching on Days 2 and 3 of this draft, but on this first night, at least, they came out swinging.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo