Funny how, in a year when the Tigers had but six draft picks, they made more noise and stoked more fan fire than in years when they've had 40 draft rounds.
This is what adding bats can do to Comerica Park's customers. And, more critically, for a rebuild that now has a shot at becoming a new Tigers roster reliant on more than big arms.
Spencer Torkelson was the grand gift, absolutely, from last week's pandemic-crimped talent sweepstakes that saw the Tigers take Torkelson first, three more potential lineup prizes in the draft's first 73 picks, and two more hitters thereafter, including prep hotshot Colt Keith.
The Tigers haven't drafted a franchise-caliber bat since 1978 when they thought Kirk Gibson had a chance to be just that. But in grabbing Torkelson, the projections are safer. Torkelson is more polished by any measure than was Gibson. He should be a better overall bat with a chance to be a regular All-Star.
The rest of the cast, for all the glitter, comes with questions baseball insists on asking.
Will their second-round choice, a potential steal in Ohio State catcher Dillon Dingler, prove that taking northern hitters can be more than a dice-roll, especially when Dingler had a hamate-bone issue a year ago and did not play summer ball? There was a reason he fell to the draft's 38th pick. Scouts either didn't like Dingler's injury file or his track record from too little showcasing the past year.
Daniel Cabrera, the Tigers' compensation selection, is at the same rough elevation. Is he more likely a big-league fourth outfielder, which explains why he slipped to the draft's 62nd turn, or is he a quality No. 2-style hitter who can be at home at a position where Christin Stewart simply can't find his way on defense?
Take a peek at Trey Cruz, the Rice University shortstop, and venture a guess on whether his bat holds up well enough to make him more than perhaps a newer version of handyman infielder Ramon Santiago, which come to think of it, isn't a bad guy to have on your game-day roster season after season.
And what about Keith, maybe the most athletic of all the Tigers' picks last week? There was a reason a kid with third-round, or better, talent fell to fifth. Whatever the explanation, Detroit is betting that it just might _ emphasis on might _ have made the biggest fifth-round heist since a guy named Jack Morris was snagged in 1976.
It leaves one more pick to be assessed, and wondered about:
Gage Workman, the guy who played third base opposite Torkelson at first base on Arizona State's ridiculously talented infield.
