From up-and-coming stars to last year's college arms, the Tigers' pipeline is stacked entering 2026

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Tigers clearly like developing hitters, especially those who hit left-handed. Several of them have gotten plenty of attention, starting with No. 2 overall prospect Kevin McGonigle, who is ready to break with the big league team on Opening Day.

He’s far from alone at the upper levels, of course. Max Clark (Tigers No. 2 prospect) might have had a tough big league camp, but the No. 10 overall prospect’s ceiling is still extremely high and he is the headliner of the group playing in Friday’s Spring Breakout game against the Pirates. Guys like Josue Briceño, Max Anderson, Hao-Yu Lee and Thayron Liranzo all populate the top 10 of the club’s Top 30 list and are close to knocking on the door.

In many systems, those impending graduations would leave a big hole to fill offensively. Not so with these Tigers, who have a whole next wave of young hitters ready to step into that void. Nine of the organization’s top 10 prospects are position players, with several intriguing ones still at the lower levels.

Two of the most exciting are the club’s past two first-round picks, who both happen to be shortstops. And both Bryce Rainer, the 2024 first-rounder, and Jordan Yost, taken last year, have been exciting to watch on the back fields here this spring. For Rainer (Tigers' No. 3 prospect, MLB No. 35), it’s the return to action that has the Tigers’ brass pumped up. The No. 11 overall pick in ‘24, Rainer’s first full season ended after 35 games when he dislocated his right shoulder diving back to first on a pickoff attempt, requiring surgery. The first part of spring was encouraging to see the left-handed-hitting shortstop serving as a designated hitter in games and taking ground balls. He’ll DH in the Spring Breakout game, though he has graduated to playing shortstop in Minor League Spring Training games.

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“I think the most important thing, the throw itself, both the form and the strength, are returning,” Tigers assistant general manager and vice president for player development Ryan Garko said. “He did a great job in his rehab and actually put on a lot of really good weight, filling out his upper half. That was a hard rehab, but the body looks really good, all the actions at short and the arm strength look good.

“It’s coming out really clean. That’s what’s nice. He’s getting comfortable. He’ll change arm angles as well as anyone and makes throws on the run and he’s doing all of that again in his work. That’s been really really good to see.”

It’s looking like Rainer will start the year continuing to build up and get at-bats with Single-A Lakeland, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him be able to move to High-A West Michigan once he gets going (and the weather warms up). Whether he and Yost (No. 9) share any time in the Rookie-level Florida State League remains to be seen, though they will both be in the Spring Breakout lineup together -- Yost, taken No. 24 overall last July, will be the starting shortstop. The teenager also has the tools to stick at short and has tremendous bat-to-ball skills. There were some questions about impact and physicality, but he’s already starting to answer some of those concerns.

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“You can see how much he’s filled out,” Garko said about Yost, who reported to have gained 12-13 pounds in muscle since signing. “Time is on our side. That’s the thing we keep talking to him about. We’re pretty confident he’s going to grow into a pretty strong young adult. The physicality has already jumped up quite a bit and you can see the way he’s impacting the baseball. There’s gaining weight and gaining strength while keeping your mobility and keeping your speed, which is one of his major tools.”

Don’t sleep on the 2025 Draft college arms

All this talk about hitters in the system could make it easy to forget about the arms added via the 2025 Draft. After taking Yost and Michael Oliveto from the prep hitting ranks with their first two selections, the Tigers selected four pitchers from four-year colleges over their next five picks, a run that began with second-rounder Malachi Witherspoon (No. 11) and ended with Grayson Grinsell (No. 30) in the sixth round. All of them are in the Tigers’ Top 30 currently. Witherspoon, whose twin brother is a top prospect with the Red Sox, has already made some large steps forward.

“He stayed here in Lakeland [all offseason],” Garko said. “We knew about the work ethic and the makeup when we drafted him, and he looks great. He put on some good weight and is moving really well down the mound. The breaking stuff has really stood out. He can really spin his breaking stuff and the fastball is coming out of his hand really well.”

The other three are all left-handers, with No. 17 prospect Ben Jacobs (third round, Arizona State), No. 28 prospect Caleb Leys (fourth, Maine) and Grinsell (Oregon) all showing off intriguing traits.

“It's nice to have three lefties that we really think have starter mixes and fastballs we can build an arsenal off of,” Garko said. “Left-handed pitching is so valuable, so it's nice to see the three of them there together.”

Breakout candidate: Kelvis Salcedo

Signed for $70,000 in January 2023, Salcedo is already a known quantity, coming in at No. 14 on the Top 30 list. But after spending two years in the Dominican Summer League and dominating the Florida Complex League, he could be poised to really take off and become an upper-caliber type of pitching prospect. What he does to follow up his revelatory stateside debut in 2026 could be a ton of fun, though he’s going to be delayed a little bit coming out of Spring Training because of a minor knee issue that flared up while running.

“It’s pretty electric swing-and-miss stuff,” Garko said. “He could fly through the system.”

Super sleeper: Brett Callahan

If Salcedo is the breakout candidate in terms of going from middle of the top 30 toward the top, Callahan is a guy the Tigers think could make a jump onto the list with a big 2026. A 13th-round pick out of St. Joseph’s University in 2023, he’s largely flown under the radar in his pro career. His surface numbers with High-A Michigan last year don’t jump off the page -- a .259/.316/.473 slash line in just 55 games -- and he’s had some fluky injuries that kept him off the field. But he’s had a really good spring, including two home runs in big league Grapefruit League games, and the 24-year-old left-handed-hitting corner outfielder has opened the eyes of the Tigers’ hitting development group.

“His underlying stuff is really good,” Garko said. “He has the combination of high contact rates with really high exit velocities that our group has identified as usual indicators for success at the higher levels.”

Callahan will likely move to Double-A this year and if he can tighten up his swing decisions and cut down on some chase, while staying healthy, the Tigers think he could become a real option in the corners, where his defense is solid, in the near future.