The Detroit Tigers came into the 2025 MLB season with MLB Pipeline's top-ranked farm system in baseball. But, after the trade deadline, the reevaluated farm system rankings dropped the Tigers outside of the top five, all the way to sixth place.
According to MLB.com's trio of prospect evaluators Jim Callis, Sam Dykstra, and Jonathan Mayo, there's one major, unfortunate reason why the Tigers' farm system rankings dropped from the top spot to sixth overall.
"Detroit takes a slight drop from the top spot after the graduation of Jackson Jobe and some backsliding from Thayron Liranzo," Callis, Dykstra, and Mayo write, "but this remains a system with tons of ceiling, thanks to McGonigle's Minors-best hit tool, Clark's toolsiness, and Briceno's immense pop."
The Tigers' slide from the top spot to sixth comes in large part due to Jobe's graduation from the prospect list. But what makes this unfortunate is that Jobe suffered a season-ending injury early in the year.
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If Jobe were still pitching, even at the mediocre level he did through the first 49 innings of his 2025 season, the Tigers dropping down the prospect rankings wouldn't feel as bad.
But the Tigers drop down the rankings, and don't have Jobe pitching at the same time. It wasn't due to a trade, like some of the team's, which dropped down on the rankings, but rather due to injury.
The fall from the top spot isn't a major deal, but the reason behind the drop, Jobe's season-ending elbow injury, which has led to Tommy John surgery, leads to the prospect ranking drop stinging a bit more than normal.
With Jobe likely out until late 2026 at the earliest, the Tigers are without a former top prospect for a while. Even with Max Clark and Kevin McGonigle being top-10 prospects, the Tigers' drop in rankings, due to Jobe's MLB stint, further highlights how unfortunate his injury is for the Tigers.
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