Cincinnati Reds<\/a> to take Condon with the 18th overall pick, so we\u2019ll have to see if the Tigers even get a crack at him.<\/p>\nPipeline mentions alternatives like prep 3B Bo Lowrance out of Greenville, South Carolina, or Mississippi prep 3B\/C Cole Prosek. Of those two, Prosek seems the more likely choice, especially if the Tigers believe he can stick as a catcher. Finally, prep switch-hitting shortstop Aiden Ruiz is also mentioned, and frankly if Condon is gone, an underslot deal for Ruiz might be most likely. Ruiz makes a lot of contact and has the skills to stick as a plus defensive shortstop, though he\u2019s probably going to top out a little short of average power.<\/p>\n
Baseball America, expecting Condon to be gone already, projects the Tigers to take Ruiz at 22nd overall. They also mention Prosek, and fellow prep left-handed hitters Connor Comeau and London Thome as alternatives.<\/p>\n
Comeau is a 6\u20194\u201d shortstop with a pretty good hit tool despite his lanky, long-limbed frame, who is committed to Texas A&M. He lacks speed, and may be better suited at third base. The hit tool is appealing, and he should have at least average power.<\/p>\n
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Thome, son of Jim, is also a left-handed hitting shortstop. The bat is more of selling point here as he has good recognition and bat-to-ball skills already. He also has a little more power potential than Comeau due to his demonstrated ability to pull a lot of balls in the air, though he\u2019s probably even more likely to move to third base.<\/p>\n
Another interesting wild card in the mix is Stanford commit Tyler Spangler. The northern California prep shortstop played for Concord De La Salle. He has an advanced eye and makes a lot of quality contact, and his 6\u20193\u201d frame has plenty of room to add muscle and get to eventual plus power. That would alleviate concerns if he loses some quickness and has to move to third base. His swing could probably use a little work, as he has a little of Bryce Rainer\u2019s tendency toward bottom hand dominance, lagging the barrel a little excessively.<\/p>\n
Spangler barely played this season due to a back injury, and he\u2019s expected to be tough to sign if he doesn\u2019t go pretty early in the draft, as Stanford can throw some real NIL money at him. There are some who think Spangler is still one of the top prospects in this draft, however, and he does fit the Tigers type both as a player, and in terms of being a bit more of a risk\/reward play due to the injury and lack of exposure this spring.<\/p>\n
Of course, the Scott Harris front office, led in the draft by assistant GM Rob Metzler and amateur scouting director Mark Connor, have avoided pitchers in the first round, but it\u2019s not impossible that this could change. Their strategy of concentrating much of their bonus pool beyond the top round into prep pitching talent has been a failure so far, and the upper levels of the Tigers\u2019 system are decidedly lacking in pitching talent. Perhaps they\u2019ll change gears, but more likely they\u2019ll continue their pivot toward JUCO and college arms beyond the first round, taking RHP Malachi Witherspoon in the second round last year, while continuing to snipe prep pitchers a little later on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 MLB amateur draft is now less than a month away. After all the preseason chatter and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[304088,99954,303352,2319,372,13090,363,151450,174575,99,304086,304087],"class_list":["post-703680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aiden-ruiz","tag-baseball-america","tag-bryce-rainer","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-pipeline","tag-mock-draft","tag-sports","tag-trevor-condon","tag-tyler-spangler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}