11:50am: The Tigers have confirmed Conner’s hiring.
8:36am: The Tigers have made another addition to their front office this offseason, reportedly plucking Mark Conner from the Padres to serve as the team’s amateur scouting director under recently hired assistant general manager Rob Metzler, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press.
Conner joined the Padres as an amateur scout in 2010 and was promoted to northeast regional supervisor in 2014 before eventually serving as the club’s scouting director during the 2015-2021 seasons. With the Padres, Conner helped draft Robert Hassell, CJ Abrams, Ryan Weathers, and MacKenzie Gore. He transitioned to a special assistant role for GM A.J. Preller in September 2021 and was given the task of evaluating every player within San Diego’s farm system.
The Tigers had been looking for a new scouting director since early October, when the new president of baseball operations Scott Harris fired Scott Pleis. Pleis had held the title of amateur scouting director since 2010. Conner inherits a rather poorly ranked Tigers farm system, with only three prospects in MLB.com’s Top-100 Prospect Rankings after the recent graduations of Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson. However, the team will have a strong draft pick after finishing the 2022 season with a 66-96 record. MLB.com projects that the Tigers have the sixth-highest chance (7.5%) of landing the first overall pick in the 2023 draft.
Conner’s addition to the Tiger’s front office is another retooling of the staff built by former general manager Al Avila. Recent additions include Scott Harris as president of baseball operations and Rob Metzler as vice president and assistant general manager. Additionally, the team is looking to add a general manager.
In the dugout, manager A.J. Hinch has also been hard at work retooling his staff, with hitting coach Scott Coolbaugh and quality control coach Josh Paul both departing the organization.
Woooooooo! Congratulations, Mark!
Nice job, Detroit you really have something.
They always ignore that the reason the Tigers farm is poorly ranked at the moment is that they graduated over 2 dozen prospects to the majors over the last two years.. They make it appear like the system has not been productive. Thats Bull! Greene, Torkelson, Kreidler, Clemens, Rogers, Carpenter, Mize, Skubal, Manning, Brieske, Faedo, Wentz, Lange, Foley, Vest, Alexander to name just some of them. what other team has had that available depth in their minors?
Just going off results based on wins-losses, just look at in-division rival with a lower payroll, Cleveland. Kreidler, Clemens, Rogers, Carpenter, Foley, and Alexander do not “graduate” to the major leagues of good teams. Pittsburgh, Washington, and Oakland, have similar players on their roster every year.
A guy with over 30 homers in the minors doesn’t graduate? You must not know baseball. Rogers also graded as one of the top defensive catchers in the minors with some alright power numbers
Kreidler, Clemens, Foley, and Alexander are definitely still in the minor leagues if they were in a system for a good team. Only one that might be able to stick is Carpenter.
Jake Rogers will be 28 years old in April of 2023. He’s had 255 major league plate appearances in his career. He’s not a prospect.
Alexander and Foley are decent relievers, and are worthy of any mlb team.
Foley struck out 6.4/9 with a 1.376 WHIP and 43% hard hit balls. He got lucky. Alexander was worse. Neither would be on playoff team roster. They made the Tigers roster because of injuries, not requisite talent to stick in the majors.
You’re picking at the bottom of the list. Pull ten prospects from any system, and then pull the next ten. Of course, the second ten are not going to be as strong. Foley, Clemens and Alexander were useable players. Alexander was supposed to be long relief. I never said they put up all star stats. I said, because so many have been called up, their ranking, which was once third, is lower. These articles make it seem like its been a low ranking system for some time. That is absolutely incorrect and needs to be pointed out.
This article specifically states “Conner inherits a rather poorly ranked Tigers farm system, with only three prospects in MLB.com’s Top-100 Prospect Rankings after the recent graduations of Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson.” That’s factual. And many of those critical of the Tigers system for years, including when they were highly ranked, is that their system was extremely top heavy, they didn’t invest in coaching, they were late to analytics. Their on-field results for the past several years seem to give credence to that criticism.
You are ignoring the fact that other teams graduate prospect too…… look at the Dodgers and you have to wonder.
Exactly this, JaredML. It’s also been astounding just how unaware the average baseball fan (Tigers fans notwithstanding), is of our organizations inability to develop hitting prospects. Riley Greene is showing some promise at least, but you’d sure like to think he would given that he was a top pick. Go back the past 20-30 years though, and look at just how miserable this organization has been at developing prospect bats, it’s truly incredible. Just hoping they correct this before Tork is ruined too.
Some of those guys were traded for, they were not developed by us day 1.
Kind of weird to hire the assistant GM before the GM. Don’t most GMs hire their own assistants?
I still think Scott Harris will take the GM role.
That would explain why there isn’t a GM in place before the assistant. Or, maybe he’s waiting for someone who is currently under contract?
Idk, but I like the direction he is going so far.
Ya, I dont know why else you would name an assistant GM vice president of baseball operations. Think it will be the same model as when Dombrowski was president/GM and Avila was assistant GM
Long overdue. It’s good to see he’s served his time for past misdeeds and is no longer being punished by petty front offices.
I was hoping for the Detroit Tigers to hire Jason McCloud former VP of scouting of Chicago Cubs.
I guess Tigers don’t wanted to win
Who said they didn’t consider?
There are better options out there than Jason McCloud.
The Cubs won 1 title and then their farm system was exposed as completely bare of talent. That is on guys like McCloud.
Dodgers win 9 Division Titles in 10 years.
They consistently pick at the end of the 1st round in the Draft.
And, the Dodgers pipeline is always loaded
with present and future major league players/contributors.
Tigers would do well to take note and shoot for that kind of long term success.
What a difference from the Rockies. Now please get Colton Welker to play third.
He was released by the Rockies this summer. Doesn’t look like anything special. Ryan Kreidler looks better.
“plucking Mark Conner”
Not to be confused with plucking Mark O’Connor.
You watch your mouth, sir!
Plucking Bucky Dent
I’ve already reached out to a few Detroit contacts to voice my skepticism and displeasure. As part of my settlement, I agreed to relinquish a vote on hiring. However, I still have an opportunity to overturn this decision. Unfortunately i just purchased a new Greek chef and he’s has locked himself in the panic room with a few bottles of mystery pills so I have to take care of this first.
Congrats to the Mark Conner, the Detroit Tigers and Scott Harris.
Their Front Office, Scouting, Drafting, Player Development, Conditioning,
Coaching and minor league pipeline all needed a long overdue, major overhaul.
Now, hire some talent from the Astros Front Office, since, clearly, they are drafting, signing, developing some of the best young talent in MLB.
Congratulations, Mark Conner.
Didn’t Mr. Harris say he was going to hire a GM?
Why are people saying he is going to take the title?
That wouldn’t be a good way to start, saying one thing and doing something else.
Must be waiting for someone in the WS?
You have to ask.yourself, Why do.the Phillies have 3 Assistant GMs
Greedy or.what?
The Astros have an extra…..