The Tigers’ patience with Thayron Liranzo is starting to look justified.
A year after the prospect’s name was tied to the Jack Flaherty trade, Detroit is getting a better read on what it has in him. Liranzo has been up and down since arriving from the Dodgers, but his second selection to the All-Star Futures Game suggests the arrow is pointing back in the right direction.
Liranzo is the Tigers’ lone representative this year, and that matters because it comes after a stretch that tested his stock. He hit .206 with a .659 OPS in 88 games in Double-A, a season shaped by injury and personal tragedy. That drop pushed him out of MLB Pipeline, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus’ top 100 lists.
Still, the broader picture has not gone flat. Liranzo was the Dodgers’ No. 10 prospect in 2024 after batting .272 with a .962 OPS in Single-A, and he entered 2025 as Detroit’s No. 5 prospect, holding that spot into 2026 despite the rough offensive year. This season, he has looked more like the player the Tigers hoped they were getting, with some of his power starting to show again.
The Futures Game nod also reconnects him to the trade that brought him to Detroit. Liranzo made his first Futures Game appearance in 2024 as a Dodgers prospect, only weeks before the Flaherty deal sent him to the Tigers. After the trade, he also took home MVP honors in the 2024 Arizona Fall League’s Fall Stars Game.
Where he fits long-term is still an open question. Dillon Dingler is set to stay behind the plate for now, while Josue Briceño could either split time between backup catcher and first base or move to first base full-time. If Liranzo keeps climbing and becomes too good to leave behind Dingler, Detroit could eventually have a roster puzzle on its hands.
That kind of slower path is familiar for the Tigers. Liranzo has moved at a more deliberate pace than many top prospects, but Dingler followed a similar route and has worked out well for Detroit.
In Other News...
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Jordan Yost, the clubs 2025 first-rounder, comes with a C+ grade and a fair amount of uncertainty about what Detroit sees in him, while Clark is still in Triple-A as the Tigers try to keep his development on track and preserve his eligibility window. The bigger picture is that the pipeline is still active, and the front office will get another chance to shape it in the 2026 MLB Draft, when Detroit is slated to make four selections after losing its third-rounder by signing Framber Valdez. [Read more 🡒]
Tigers Just Took Another Bullpen Flier Fans Will Want To Track
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Granillos path has been a winding one, from St. Louis to Washington and now to Detroits 40-man roster, where he fills a spot while the Tigers decide what comes next. The intrigue is obvious enough: a former top prospect with big-league experience, but also a pitcher still trying to turn pedigree into dependable production, which makes him exactly the sort of arm worth tracking as the season moves along. [Read more 🡒]
Tigers Send A Clear Draft Message With Evan Dempsey At No. 69
The Tigers kept leaning into pitching early in the 2026 MLB Draft, and their latest move brought in another arm with some real intrigue. Detroit used the No. 69 overall pick on Evan Dempsey out of Florida Gulf Coast, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound right-hander who put together a 2.88 career ERA and piled up 207 strikeouts over three seasons while also showing enough with the bat to make him stand out from the usual college pitching crop.
Dempsey is the kind of pick that fits a front office willing to bet on upside and versatility, even if the long-term plan is likely to center on the mound. With Cameron Flukey and Tyson LeBlanc already in the fold, the Tigers made it clear they wanted to leave the draft with multiple paths to impact talent, and Dempsey adds another layer to that approach as Detroit continues building out its next wave of depth. [Read more 🡒]