Baseball America Top 10 Tiger Prospects

Baseball America revealed its top ten Tigers prospect list yesterday and not surprisingly pitchers Justin Verlander and Joel Zumaya top the list. I also expect to see those two near the top of the Top 100 prospects in baseball list coming out in a few more weeks. The complete list and the expected April destinations can be found in the table below.

As many of you know, the Baseball America List is based more on tools than performance. This is not a bad thing but it’s good to keep it in mind when comparing it to other lists that you’ll see. Since I’m not a scout, I like the Baseball America list because it gives me a different perspective than my own performance based thinking.

After filtering out all the hype, my impression is that the Tigers right now have the best collection of prospects they’ve had in at least 20 years. This is not saying a lot, as their player development system has been a disappointment for a long time but the organization definitely appears to be on the upswing.

Table: Baseball America Top Ten Tiger Prospects

Rank	Player	Pos.	Age (7/1/06)	Expected Opening Day Destination
1	Justin Verlander	SP	23	Tigers
2	Joel Zumaya	SP	21	Toledo
3	Cameron Maybin	OF	19	Western Michigan
4	Brent Clevlen	OF	22	Erie
5	Wilken Ramirez	3B	20	Lakeland
6	Humberto Sanchez	SP	23	Erie
7	Jordan Tata	SP	24	Erie
8	Tony Giarratano	SS	23	Erie
9	Jeff Larish	1B	23	Lakeland
10	Kevin Whelan	RP	22	Lakeland