The 2025 A-ball level regular seasons are now over with their postseasons getting underway. The Double-A Eastern League has one series remaining before the postseason, while the Triple-A calendar stretches two more weeks. As the regular season winds down, the Arizona Fall League looms, with play getting underway on October 6 and running until November 12. The Tigers’ farmhands attending will play for the Scottsdale Scorpions this season.
Last year, catching prospects Josue Briceño and Thayron Liranzo
tore the Fall League apart, which Briceño winning a rare Triple Crown as well as the league MVP award. They probably won’t be sending anyone likely to go on that kind of a rampage this season, but they do have plenty of options.
Generally speaking, the Fall League is a place for players who missed time in the regular season to get more reps before heading into the offseason. The majority of players are High-A level, but there is a mix of Double-A and Low-A players that teams will also send out to Arizona for extra work. The Tigers certainly have a lot of prospects who missed time to injury this year. Most of them are pitchers, but they have some options for position players to send out as well.
The most notable, if unlikely, candidate is arguably the top prospect in baseball. Shortstop Kevin McGonigle missed six weeks to start the season after having his 2024 rookie year as a pro cut short by a hamate fracture in his right wrist. I’d be surprised if he ended up in the Fall League, where he would no doubt tear the place apart at the plate, but McGonigle does have a need for extra reps at the shortstop position. With his bat outracing his defensive skills by a wide margin toward a major league debut, and needing work on his transfer and throws to first at game speed, there may be a slim chance that they’d send McGonigle out to get some more game reps.
Most likely, the Tigers will just let their star prospect rest and get a full offseason’s work rather than having him spend a month in Arizona just for another 15 starts at the shortstop position. Multiple teams share roster space on each Fall League team, and there will no doubt be other shortstops needing playing time as well. McGonigle going out there would certainly be a big surprise. It would also be pretty fun to watch, but that’s obviously not in the Tigers’ calculations here.
Position player options for the Fall League
Outfielder Brett Callahan seems a far more likely possibility for Fall League action. The 23-year-old corner outfielder was the Tigers’ 13th round pick in 2023, the first draft under Scott Harris’ front office. He played 71 games in 2024, mostly at the Low-A level, and missed time with injury. In 2025 a leg injury cost him two months as well, and he could really use some extra reps at the plate to help him catch up.
Callahan has nine homers in 55 games for the West Michigan Whitecaps. He’s got natural loft in his swing and average power that is trending up. Callahan is a solid corner outfielder with a good arm and some speed who fits in well in right field. His contact ability and plate discipline need work, and those tools keep him from being a more notable prospect at this point. Losing almost a full season of in-season work spread over 2024-2025 didn’t help matters in that regard. It’s a pretty good bet we’ll see him playing in the AFL.
Our next position player candidate is third baseman Carson Rucker. Like Callahan, Rucker was drafted in 2023, but Rucker was a fourth rounder, taken out of Goodpasture Christian H.S. in Madison, Wisconsin. He was already a cold weather kid in the first place, and then he separated his shoulder early in his debut in the Complex League in 2024, missing nearly all of the regular season. Healthy in 2025, he’s finally gotten regular work but even so he’s now 21 years old and has just 102 A-ball level games under his belt.
Rucker has the makings of a good defensive third baseman, and he packs average raw power already with the promise of more to come as he builds himself up. The plate discipline and contact abilty are lacking and he’s struggled to drive the ball in the air without popping up. The shoulder injury was a major one and it wasn’t too surprising that he struggled in the first half. Since the break he’s found his footing at the plate, cutting down his strikeouts, walking more, and making better contact. However, he’s still not getting enough balls in the air and there’s ongoing work to help his make some adjustments in his swing. Getting time in the Arizona Fall League would allow him to try and build on his second half progress.
Third baseman Izaac Pacheco might be another option for the Tigers. Pacheco lowered his hands and learned to use his legs more effectively this year, shortening his powerful swing and making a lot more good contact after several years of spinning his wheels. Pacheco still has plus or better raw power and solid zone discipline. However, he was still struggling to trim the swing and miss in his game and leverage more balls in the air for home runs. In the second half of the season he’s made signficant progress in that regard. Going out to Arizona would allow him to keep building on that progress with extra reps while he’s already running hot. Pacheco has 17 homers now in 98 High-A games with the West Michigan Whitecaps. At the moment they’re looking for a Midwest League title as their postseason begins after one of the great minor league seasons of all-time ended on Sunday. Beyond that the Tigers may decide to try and keep Pacheco in the groove against comparable pitching and see if those extra plate appearances can set the 22-year-old up for success at the Double-A level in 2026.
25-year-old catcher Eduardo Valencia has broken out in a huge way at the Double-A and Triple-A levels this season. But while the bat has really gone off, Valencia is still more of a first baseman who can catch a bit rather than a full-time defender behind the plate. After missing the better part of three seasons from 2021 through 2023, Valencia has decidedly made up for that lost time at the plate, but the missing defensive reps have really left him behind in the catching department. Valencia is 25 and currently holds a 168 wRC+ with 10 home runs in just 38 Triple-A games, so he’s not going to learn a whole lot facing mostly High-A caliber pitching. The question is whether the Tigers still see him as a viable future catching option with more work. If that’s still in the cards, extra work in the AFL could help him work on his blocking and throwing. More likely, Valencia is viewed as a first baseman competing with Justyn-Henry Malloy as Spencer Torkelson’s understudy.
Other possibilities include outfielder Seth Stephenson, and infielders Peyton Graham and Jack Penney, along with Double-A outfielder Roberto Campos. Campos could possibly use a little more work for a reset after a tough first season at the Double-A level. The 22-year-old still has time, but he really needs to break out in 2026 to avoid ending up firmly in org guy territory. Stephenson leveled up with improved bat speed and showing a little power for West Michigan this season but has struggled with the jump to Double-A as expected. Graham finally put together a good season at the High-A level and will look to make the Double-A jump next spring. Extra reps might be in order for a few of those players.
Pitching options for the Fall League
One of the overriding themes of the 2025 minor league season was the number of Tigers’ pitching prospects who got injured. Many of them were first or second year arms out of high school like Owen Hall, Zach Swanson, and Paul Wilson, none of whom is really an option as they need an offseason to rehab fully. Swanson had Tommy John and won’t be back until the middle of the 2026 season at the earliest.
However, looking to pitchers who missed a lot of time but are now back and healthy, there are plenty of options.
24-year-old left-hander Jake Miller was tracking as the Tigers best southpaw pitching prospect at the Double-A level early this season before missing four months to injury. He’s made two rehab appearances at the Low-A level, but with A-ball now over for the year, Miller will rejoin the Double-A Erie SeaWolves just in time for their final series of the year before the posteason begins for them on September 16th.
Armed with a solid 93-94 mph with a little extra when he wants it, along with a good slider and a changeup that was coming along in spring camp, Miller has perhaps been surpassed as top lefty by fellow SeaWolf Andrew Sears, but he has good potential at least as a relief option in 2026 if he can put the shoulder trouble behind him and start making progress again. A stint in the Fall League for the Tigers 8th rounder out of Valparaiso in 2022 would help get him tuned up a little more heading into an important offseason.
We were one of the few to even rank RHP Carlos Marcano in the preseason, slotting him in as the Tigers 33rd ranked prospect. Marcano showed good control of an average sinker and curveball, but the stuff wasn’t exactly crackling yet so it was a bit of a leap in faith. He got out to a decent start with the High-A Whitecaps, but then went down with an injury in late May and didn’t return until the second half of August. It’s been an eye-popping return as Marcano is suddenly throwing 95-97 mph consistently and featuring a much improved slider to go with the curveball and a decent changeup. His control hasn’t returned in four rehab starts in Lakeland, but his history of strike throwing says it will and with only 48 2/3 innings this year, it makes all the sense in the world to get him another handful of starts before heading into the offseason.
Right-hander Eric Silva is another one who has missed most of the regular season and started rehabbing in Low-A at the end of July. The Tigers acquired the soon-to-be 23-year-old from the Giants at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for 1B/OF Mark Canha. Silva was working as a reliever at that point, but the Tigers appear set on making him a starter, and he’s made six starts for the Flying Tigers with minimal success. Featuring a good slider and a solid fastball but still in need of a better third pitch, Silva could really use the reps to get back on track and return to full strength. He is a pretty solid bet to pitch in the Fall League.
Another possibility is former international free agent LHP Gabriel Reyes. The left-hander really popped in 2024, featuring a quick armstroke, a tough angle to the plate, a nasty slider, and a pretty good sinker that he was touching 95 mph with at his best, though still sitting more 93 mph. Reyes slender six-foot-one frame needed some muscle added over the offseason but instead couldn’t really get into good game shape in spring camp. The Tigers held him back until late April, and since that point he’s been healthy and making his starts, but without much progress. As a result he hasn’t been able to move up to High-A as expected. Reyes has made 16 starts with 78 2/3 innings thrown, and he’s probably got one more start to make in the Low-A postseason for the Lakeland Flying Tigers. Still, he’s been pitching better of late and the Tigers may want to get him a few more starts to try and set him up for a better offseason.
If we simply consider guys who haven’t pitched much and/or are in the middle of making signficant adjustments, there are plenty of other options, particularly in the relief category. RHP Tyler Mattison, RHP Freddy Pacheco, RHP Yosber Sanchez, RHP Wilmer Flores, RHP Richard Guasch, RHP Tanner Kohlhepp, RHP Preston Howey, are just a portion of the Tigers’ relievers on the farm who could potentially use some extra work.
The actual rosters won’t be released for a few weeks when the Triple-A season concludes. Until then we can speculate on how the Tigers might handle a wide variety of players in the system, while watching most of the affiliates play in the postseason.
