The Tigers are one of the teams seen to be on the rise heading into 2022, in no small part because of a cavalcade of promising rotation arms that have begun to establish themselves in the big league rotation. Casey Mize, Matt Manning, and Tarik Skubal are three of the most impactful variables that might make the difference for Detroit in 2022. The pedigree of these three are well known, and their arrival in the Majors long-anticipated. Manning was the ninth overall selection of the 2016 draft, and Mize followed two years later going first overall. Skubal was the unheralded of the three, a former ninth round pick who rose to prospect prominence prior to the 2020 season.
But in the year between the Manning and Mize selections, the Tigers spent another first-round pick on a college righty whose road to the Majors took on a more circuitous route. After leading the University of Florida to a National Championship, Alex Faedo went 18th overall to the Tigers in the 2017 draft, signing for a $3.5MM bonus, barely less than it took to sign Manning the year prior. Faedo was a high character right-hander who looked like a future rotation piece based on the strength of his slider.
The gaudy strikeout numbers that Faedo posted in college didn’t translate to pro ball, however, and after making an appearance on top-100 prospect lists prior to the start of his professional career, Faedo soon after fell from the national spotlight. His fastball lost a tick or two of velocity, his change-up never fully developed, and the slider lost just enough effectiveness to dim his prospect star. He remained among Detroit’s better looking prospects, however, with Baseball Prospectus pegging him as the 10th, 6th, and 11th-ranked prospect in the Tigers’ system prior to the 2019, 2020, and 2021 seasons, respectively.
He finished the 2019 season in Double-A having recaptured some of the swing-and-miss that had eluded him in his first couple of seasons on the farm. He made 22 starts for the Erie SeaWolves that year, posting a 3.90 ERA in 22 starts covering 115 1/3 innings with a career-best 28.3 percent strikeout rate. He was expected to compete for a rotation spot at some point in 2020 despite not having tossed an inning in Triple-A, but a bout of COVID-19 delayed his season, and then forearm soreness led to Tommy John surgery, which ended it. Faedo hasn’t pitched since that 2019 campaign, but he’s on his way back. Faedo started throwing bullpens in his recover from Tommy John on January 11th, which should put him on track for game action sometime in March, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press (via Twitter).
The lost time means the Florida native still hasn’t pitched above Double-A, and at 26 years old now, his days as a top prospect are behind him. But expect the Tigers to push him once he’s proven healthy. If he can get himself back up to speed, Faedo could absolutely become a factor somewhere on the roster for the Tigers.
Even before the injury, Faedo had yet to establish a third pitch, so it could be that he eventually makes his bones out of the bullpen. A fastball that reached 95 mph as a starter could play up out of the bullpen, and he certainly wouldn’t be the first former prospect with a slider-forward arsenal to become an impact bullpen arm. Perhaps that’s not the result the Tigers or Faedo hoped for when he was a first round pick back in 2017, but in 2022, the Tigers are going to need some farmhands to pop in unexpected places in order to make a real push for contention. If Faedo can earn his keep on the 26-man roster at some point in 2022, both team and player ought to be encouraged. That’s still a long ways off, but with his first bullpen sessions in the rearview, consider the first hurdle crossed.
So is it safe to say that some of the better performing players, who were drafted lower, don’t have as much money because of multimillion dollar bums like Alex Faedo? I get that there are prospects and young players who should make more money. The Tigers don’t get their money back for investing in this guy, though. Maybe if the multimillion dollar prospects who don’t turn out lose some pay, the ones that actually do a good job can make some money.
lol what? In what industry can you take money back from someone for under-performance? Any signing bonus he received is because he earned it, and you should question why you’re so quick to blame the players for everything. What about the scouts who “missed” (in quotes, because he’s hardly a miss yet…) on him? Every scouting department knows full well that even the most promising prospects can not pan out. And more often than not, it’s not because they are a “bum.”
I agree. You can’t take back money for underperformance. In what industry can you sign a contract that pays you the minimum for the first 3 years and then expect more money for over performance? If it’s okay that the underperformers can still make millions because of the contract then it’s okay if the over performers don’t because of the contract, right?
I don’t know. A signing bonus is different than a contract, though.. Faedo is making minor league pay like everyone else, and if he never makes the majors, that signing bonus will be the most of what he makes in his career. I find it hard to believe that the billionaire-owned Tigers are really missing the 3.5 mil. Is there a different player, in hindsight, that they wish they had given that money to? Sure, obviously. But its a pretty standard signing bonus for a first rounder, and its not like Faedo being picked that high was out of left field at the time.
I get what you mean. I am in no way on the owners side of things. I think they are usually pretty cheap. What I mean is the draft and prospects in baseball are more of a crapshoot than any other sport. For every player that didn’t get what they were worth on their rookie contract, there are several players who combined to earn a lot of money but never contributed anything at all to the major league club.
The signing bonuses are obviously based on the assumption the player will earn it down the line and many don’t. It’s an unfair system but if owners are going to pay for a bunch of prospects knowing most of them won’t work out at all, that’s how it has to be. It can’t be a situation where the players who don’t produce still make money they wouldn’t earn and the players that do produce make the same amount they should earn.
Really, the fairest way around it is to pay all players based on production after they join the team. Then, the teams won’t have problems paying the players that deserve it because they won’t be lagged down by paying players that don’t deserve it. When teams draft a bunch of guys knowing that a large portion won’t contribute as expected it’s difficult to determine which guys will contribute.
As long as there are players out there who don’t really earn their money, there are going to be players out there who are paid less than what they should be earning. We hear a lot of players complaining about their early salaries because they are clearly outperforming their contracts but we never hear any of them point out the payroll that is being absorbed by players who are underperforming their contracts.
If it’s all about the legal contract and the organizations have no ground to complain about someone like Faedo not being worth what he got paid the same rule should apply to both sides. If players sign a contract that allows the team to pay them the league minimum, regardless of production, they should be just as happy about that as owners should be about overpaying guys. I rarely ever hear owners complain about overpaying specific players. Maybe once every few years even though it is very common. It’s so common that there are a ton of them we don’t even know about because they turned out so bad they never really got publicity.
They get paid based on a scouting consensus that they have the best chances to become great ML players. Teams have to compete for the chance to have them.
No contract, not even arbitration, comes with any guarantee of performance. Some free agents are busts for way more money/years. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s fair because that system is the result of a CBA so the owners can hardly cry foul when they bargained for it.
The owners don’t want fair pay for performance, they can live with occasionally sinking 5 millions on a busted prospect if that means they can have early mike trout or juan soto for 3 years for the minimum instead of paying them 50 mil a year. That’s a good gamble to make an in the bottom line owners come out on top.
Good point. When I saw this article it got me thinking a little bit. I know most of the drafted players don’t get a whole lot but a ton of them are drafted. I wonder how much total money has been spent in the draft over the past 20 years or so on players who turned out to not really be very good. I figure if you give a guy a couple hundred grand and he shows up in the majors a few times and produces a little bit it’s probably worth it but if you pay a millions and he’s not very good it’s pretty much a waste. There also has to be decent number of guys that get hundreds of thousands or even millions that never even make it to the majors.
There are estimations that draft dollars are worth about 4-5 times as much as real dollars. Yoan moncada got like 40 mil at age 19 so likely in a free market adley rutschman would have gotten similar money.
That means Alex faedos real worth at the time was like 12-15 mil so really the tigers don’t care about those 3 mil and getting them back does nothing for them.
Now they would love to have those 3 mil back in bonus dollars for next draft but that is probably not realistic.
Bonus dollars are not like real money but more like poker chips for a tournament
It’s best to think of prospects like investments. The team pays a bunch of players money based on what the industry sees as their potential. Not every prospect, or every major league player for that matter, plays up to the potential the teams hope for. Every team knows a lot of their prospects won’t pan out, but if enough of them end up exceeding their development costs the team will do well. That’s why the Rays are good every year without spending much money relative to other clubs, they’re great at identifying and exploiting surplus value.
The majority of the players who “fail” are still providing value, as the teams obviously have to fill minor league rosters for the better prospects to play with. Also don’t forget, the prospects who stall out in AAA are still among the best couple of thousand people in the world at playing baseball.
I recall Faedo making some comment about how he was not used to the effort it required to stay in condition at the minor league level. Apparently, he never had to work too hard in high school or college. Raised a red flag with me at the time.
still kinda wish the Phillies didnt pass on him
Yes, based on how they were valued at the time of the draft, they get paid. Based on how they perform once they make the majors, those players will make more.
Faedo isn’t a forgotten prospect. He just had TJ surgery last year. This year will be his first year back so don’t expect him to compete for a roster spot, That first year is always a difficult one.
If the Tigers add another Starter, Faedo will be pitching out of the rotation at Toledo, and may yet be the starter they envisioned. Regardless of his age, they will have his control for 6 years. Whether age 24-29, or 26-31, it not like he will be in decline.
Not even to mention the forgotten-forgotten prospect, Franklin Perez.
That’s who I thought the article would be about!
The Verlander trade has not aged well.
Sit faedo, sit!
Forgotten prospect: Wentz
Forgotten-forgotten prospect: Faedo
Long gone prospect: Perez
I feel like most organizations have a handful of these guys, but these are some rather notable ones for the Tigers.
All three are forgotten because of their extensive time spent on the IL and ineffectiveness when playing. They weren’t bad, but none of them ever really had standout performances in the minors. All hype.
Wentz intrigues me more as a prospect then Faedo. Still It’s Amazing how many great young pitchers the tigers have coming up.
Faedo Destroyed my Horned Frogs in 2017
Keep an eye out for Beau Brieske & Garrett Hill!
Wentz, Faedo, Brieske and Hill meet Jackson Jobe and Ty Madden… sleeper Tyler Mattison
It’s looking good! Haha I guess that’s why I was confused on why they didn’t take Marcelo Meyer, last year in the first round. They must really see something special in Jobe, because the middle IF depth still looks scarce. .
I give a lot of credit to the Tigers for still taking Jobe over Meyer. I never read anywhere where any ‘expert’ scout or talent evaluator thought that Meyer would fall out of the top 2 spots. Detroit made it clear how much they wanted Meyer but were sure he would be gone when it was their time to pick. They courted Jobe very hard and developed a strong relationship with him and his family, (just like all organizations do when courting these young kids). They told him they wanted him and were going to take him. They were smart and kept their word. No family would ever trust the Tigers with their kid’s future again.
Pitchers are always a better bet since half of a team’s roster is made up of pitchers and the odds of any one of them will be able to help the parent club is much better than that of a position players who may have limited defensive options.
The pitcher bust rate is significantly higher than that of position players.
Guys with his body time seem to struggle to stay healthy and keep their velocity up. Especially once a lot of change is asked of them. I would know, I was very similar
Jobe was ‘still a baby’ at 18 years old when they drafted him. He has lots of growing to do.
“Circuitous”? Has it really been circuitous? The guy had Tommy John surgery. Quit being a clown TC.
The Tigers have had a few Faedo’s over the last 10 years. The most recent I’d say would be Beau Burrows, another 1st round arm who just could never find find a 3rd pitch to become a consistent starter in MLB. They tried moving him to the BP and he got rocked. I now believe he’s in Minnesota’s org. But as far as Faedo goes, who knows what will become of him. This year whatever you get will be a bonus, as year 1 back from TJ is normally a lost year. But if/when he does prove healthy, it’s time to push! He’s now 26 and it’s time to see just what you have here. If he still cannot be a starter, throw him in the pen and see what he can do. And I’m going to say the same for Franklin Perez. Every single time you think he is healthy, something else pops up. Try him in the BP, b/c it’ll be much more intelligent than trying to put him in the rotation again and watch him hurt himself once again!
I think Perez is already in the bp.
The players never asked for a bonus slot system, nor even a draft at all. They never asked for limits on international bonuses, or any rights for amateur players entering the pros. All that is on the owners. They asked for it and they got it. Amateur and minor league players have never even had a seat at the table as their rights were being bargained away.
When the owners wanted to eliminate affiliated baseball in 42 minor league cities, there wasn’t a peep out of the MLBPA.
When they needed the players’ blessing to cut the draft from 40 rounds down to five? Done.
Defer signing bonuses for two years? No problem.
Prohibit draftees from signing major league contracts at all? Done deal.
When MLB owners lobbied congress- along with minor league owners- to carve out an exception to minimum wage laws for minor league players, the MLBPA did nothing. Under the bus they go.
So when a player gets a signing bonus of $3.5 million, he has four seasons in the minor leagues where he can be paid below minimum wage, then another three plus years that he can be optioned to the minors if they put him on the 40 man roster, and then he might get three years making near the minimum salary in MLB.
MLB owners know what they are doing. They know the odds of any given prospect becoming a productive player in the major leagues. The deck is stacked in their favor and they hold all the cards. Most players, including the ones that sign million dollar bonuses, will never make it past the 5 WAR mark for their careers. It’s their system, and they can afford it.
The union does not have the legal right to speak/negotiate for anyone other than their members. What were you expecting them to do?
It’d be nice if everyone would work out. Unfortunately, they don’t so every team has their version of the Faedo, Wentz, Perez types.
That’s why you can never have too much pitching.
This is an absolute crap article. Faedo hasn’t pitched in two years and will most likely spend the year in low A Lakeland to build up his arm strength and stamina. I’m not sure why he’s keeping a spot on the 40 man roster. He’ll be extremely lucky if he makes the bullpen in 2 years.
Hype does nothing but hurt these guys!
Faedo is expected to be in spring training with a chance of making the bullpen.
Al Avila, QUIT SELLING KOOL AID, hire the Superfife and build THE MONSTER!
Together, we can do it.