New Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris has wasted little time making changes to the organization’s front office, firing amateur scouting director Scott Pleis according to Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press.
Pleis has been with the Tigers for the past 15 years, after being hired following scouting roles with the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees. Detroit initially hired Pleis as a national scout in 2007, but promoted him to amateur scouting director in 2010, leaving him in charge of their entire amateur scouting department and handing him significant influence in their drafting strategy. The Tigers were a dominant force during that period, winning four straight AL Central titles between 2011-14 and going to the World Series in 2012, and Pleis was tasked with developing a farm system capable of taking the Tigers back to contention after that core’s decline. That has undoubtedly been a sticking point, however, as Detroit has managed just one winning season since 2015 and finished a disappointing 66-96 in 2022.
Despite regularly picking at the top of the draft, Baseball America currently ranks the Tigers farm system as the 27th best in baseball, while ESPN pegs them at 24th. In their defense, they were a lot higher prior to the season, and part of their drop is due to the graduation of top-five prospects Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene to the Major League club. However, there’s no question the Tigers rebuild has taken longer than expected and while it’s unfair to blame that entirely on Pleis, the organization does need to do a better job of drafting and developing talent. As Baseball America noted in their farm system rankings, “the system as a whole has consistently struggled to produce hitters who become MLB regulars.”
The move could be the first of many for Harris, who took over from former GM Al Avila in September. He’s spent the first three weeks evaluating the organization, and only took control of their day-to-day operations this week, and clearly decided changes to the scouting department were needed in order to get the Tigers back to contention.
It’s officially the Harris era and I know it’s way early but so far I am really liking it!
Me too. Long over due for cleaning house
Early yes….but it’s nice to come out of the Al Avila era with hope at least.
Yes as an O’s fan I understand thoroughly that if you do not have a great front office and scouting director/staff your club can suffer greatly.
Please allow me to add that The I’d have a great staff and it shows. I hope the Tigers can assemble the same.
Please allow me to add that now that the O’s do have a great staff, the farm system and club have exceeded expectations. I hope the Tigers can follow suit.
The Orioles should be their model. Good luck Mr. Harris.
I think the article makes a good point, The scouting is not just finding players with that potential but having staffs at all minor league levels that can tap into that potential.
I mean are teams like the Astros and Braves just good at find top talent? Perhaps, but Id wager some of that is also the tutelage that is given to these players in the minor leagues as well. Many players have the talent, but think of the minors as a refining school to get the talent out. Without direction I think you see what happens when ‘can’t miss prospects’ that miss badly.
nrd1138;
Yes.
I listened to a long interview with Sig Mejdal this past summer a few weeks after the baseball draft. He oversaw the Orioles draft, and has been doing that for the Orioles .Before that he did it with the Astros. Mark Elias brought him over with him to the Orioles.
At one point the said “Our (his departments) job is done, now the players get turned over to the best coaching staff in MLB”. Well, maybe they aren’t – but they’re up there with the Guardians, Dodgers, Braves and a few others.
To be a sustainable contender in MLB today franchises need to make all their players under contract better. At the ML level and the MiL level. Constantly. Bringing in FA’s or trading for players to “fill holes” may work in rotisserie league, but not in MLB. Every year the teams that get better or worse do it because multiple players on their roster play better together. Organizations have different philosophies about hitting, pitching, fielding, baserunning, etc. It takes years to get the non-playing personnel on the same wavelength and working together…..the same with any competitive quality business organization.
There’s one, and then how many more?
My guess is a lot more.
This is how you fix it…no one is safe…produce results or you’re gone!
Guess he was just a Pleis holder for the Tiges
This time around hire a “professional scouting director”. If accomplished, you will not have to do the “fire amatuer scouting director” task.
Maybe the Tigers farm system has dropped in the rankings due to the number of players that graduated from it over the past two years. Mize, Skubal, Manning, Hill, Wentz, Faedo, Brieske, Soto, Lange, Vest, Foley, Alexander, Torkelson, Greene, Kriedler, Castro & Castro, Carpenter, Haase, Rogers, and Clemens have all come up. That can definitely effect your ranking, but for a good reason.
Correct… They lost top prospects in Mize, Manning, Skubal, Torkelson and Greene. They also lost s bunch of lower prospects that got called up and filled in. The system was hit hard over a couple year period. It’s not like they didn’t pan out.
Pretty sure Scott knew what he was doing and should land on his feet quickly. He just got caught up in the organizational housing cleaning.
My above previous post was a feeble attempt at humor in poking fun at the wording chosen for the heading of this story. (I know. I know. I’ll stick to my day job).
If the tigers are smart they will reach out and hire Jason McLeod who had the same job with the Chicago Cubs world series team
Jason McLeod is over rated. If he was so good, then the Cubs would still be contenders and not in such a huge teardown and rebuild.
It would have been a minor reset like the Yankees or the Dodgers or the Giants.
the Giants won 107 games while on a team re set.
I agree SportsFan – McLeod was not very good at drafting and is the maim reason why the second rebuild was necessary. Smart guy, but being buddies with Epstein had a lot to do with why he stayed in his position so long.
Im surprised they didn’t do this the same time they fired Avila.
Everyone who advocated for Jobe over Mayer should lose their job
I think Lawler is better and was available also.
milb.com/player/jordan-lawlar-691783
milb.com/player/marcelo-mayer-691785
They picked starter Ty Madden from Texas with the next pick so there are no excuses for passing on Lawler or Mayer in the 1st round when they desperately need position players who can hit.
Lawlar would’ve been a more than acceptable pick as well. You don’t take a right handed high school pitcher that high because of stuff.
They did… Avila is gone. I think he was the only one in the country that would have taken Jobe over Mayer.
Long overdue! Dodgers have won something like 8-10 Division titles and draft near the end of draft every year. And, the Dodgers always find Rookie of the year candidates every year and future major league players that produce much better than the Tigers players even in many of the later Draft rounds. Same thing with the Cardinals, Astros etc…
The Tigers have been terrible in finding future major league impact players past the 1st round. And, even the Tigers 1st round picks have been questionable.
The Tigers drafted too many pitchers in the first few rounds when there were impact position players, hitters and fielders on the board that could have been foundational pieces to the future Tigers team.
Example, in 2022, the Tigers drafted of a high school pitcher, Jobe, at the expense of SS Mayer or Lawler who are both tearing up the minor leagues as hitters and look like foundational players @ SS or 3B.
Now Job could turn out to be a good major league starter, but the Tigers have drafted many starters in the 1st round that have not panned out yet.
And pitchers like Walker Buehler and foundational position players have been on the board when the Tigers have, consistently, picked lesser players.
Then, they back filled the SS position over paying for Javier Baez who has regressed greatly.?!
Fire some of your scouts and get better talent evaluators out in the field also.
pieces @ SS or 3B.
Not sure your rants are particularly accurate, but no doubt they haven’t been up with the Dodger, Rays, Astros, Cards, etc.
They already have half a dozen SS and 3B in A and A advanced. Some of them are surprisingly good for 18, 19, and 20 year old. But you already knew that, right?
You probably also know that Tarik Skubal was a 9th rounder and promising starter Beau Brieske was a 32nd rounder.
Flores was undrafted don’t forget that either
Through the years the only thing that hasn’t changed is the front office. Had teams that should have won. I really hope this is the change needed. It feels like it is.
I love Mayer, but Jobe can be something special. One can never have enough pitching.
As much as I love Mayer (great pick Bosox), Jobe has potential to be special. Teams can never have enough starting pitching!
I agree you can never have enough SP. But, not drafting the best player and the most blatantly obvious positional need did not make sense. I don’t remember any analysis-projections had Jobe going before Lawlar and Mayer
I’ve been on posting for years on how Avila and cohorts needed to go..!!
Well, that’s the problem – the Scouting Director was an Amateur!
I think the tigers will do another rebuild in 2-3 seasons.
Changing the player dev environment will take like 1-2 seasons at least which means it won’t affect major league production until in about 3-4 years.
Imo that is the process:
1.totally revamp analytics, coaching and development
2.simultaneously try to compete the next two seasons because even the fastest development turnaround won’t be able to have an effect on minor leaguers coming up to the majors until about 2025 at earliest. Try to use the new dev staff on the young major leaguers too to try to “salvage” them
3.if the team isn’t winning in 2024 trade the young core players away for new prospects and bring them into the new development environment. Do not rebuild now because no matter how good harris is establishing a new development culture takes time so likely it doesn’t make sense to bring in new prospects until 2024.
“The Tigers were a dominant force during that period, winning four straight AL Central titles between 2011-14 and going to the World Series in 2012, and Pleis was tasked with developing a farm system capable of taking the Tigers back to contention after that core’s decline.”
That core of Verlander, Scherzer, Cabrera, Castellanos, Martinez, Price, Smyly, Ray? What ever happened to those guys?
The Tigers core wasn’t declining, their braintrust was. Mr. I overreacted to DD selling in 2015 and the rest is history.
I’m liking what I’ve seen from our PBO so far, but hopefully Chris Illitch just keeps his hands off this team and let his hires make all the decisions. Chris has absolutely ZERO baseball acumen, and if you watch his press conferences it is blatantly obvious. Unlike his dad Mike who played in the minors for a bit and knew the game. It’s also amazing to me that AJ Hinch had such a huge part of this decision to hire Scott Harris. Normally if your the manager your just hoping the new President will just keep you around but with Illitch being so green as far as pure baseball knowledge goes he actually leaned on him during the search. I don’t mind it bc Hinch has had some experience in a front office capacity, just really rare to see. But truly hoping that Harris will make a difference and getting rid of some of this dead weight is a good start!
The scouting and player development department has been the worse in baseball for more than a decade. Back when the Tigers were good much of the minors were gutted to get guys at the deadline. Many times overpaying. What the Tigers need to do is hire someone from the Rays, Dodgers or Padres to do player development. Those three teams have been amazing at developing their farms.
I agree! Throw whoever Chris Antonetti’s protege- in that mix.
Nice!