The Detroit Tigers selected UC Irvine shortstop Woody Hadeen in the sixth round of the 2024 amateur draft, paying him $300,000. The switch-hitter was known for his outlandish contact ability as well as his defensive versatility. He put all of those traits on display in his full season professional debut in 2025, but didn’t show signs of shoring up his main weakness. As a result he remains a fringe utility player prospect on our 2026 preseason prospect rankings.
Hadeen was your typical light-hitting
shortstop his first two years of college, but he managed to distinguish himself in his junior year by becoming far more selective at the plate. After converting to switch-hitting, Hadeen also just stopped chasing balls entirely, walking 62 times while striking out in just 35 of his 321 plate appearances. It’s a hard path as a slap hitting middle infielder these days, but controlling the strike zone to that degree is certainly unusual, lending credence to the idea that Hadeen might eventually work out as the 26th man on a major league bench.
One of the first moves the Tigers made with him was asking Hadeen to play some center field. He handled that well, looking like his speed and instincts could make him an average center fielder with more reps. While he played shortstop primarily, Hadeen embraced the role, playing plenty of second base and center field as well. He also showed he could hit.
With a compact swing and a short stride from both sides of the plate, Hadeen rarely swung and miss. Instead he peppered the field with a high volume of line drives and went opposite field quite a bit. He hit six home runs, but power and more specifically batspeed will remain the crux in his development. He also racked up 38 stolen bases along the way.
His time was pretty evenly split between Single-A Lakeland and High-A West Michigan, where he was a Swiss Army knife for the Midwest League champions. The move up to High-A didn’t slow him down at all, and as a college hitter with advanced contact ability that was to be expected and Hadeen delivered. He swung and missed just 6.7 percent of the time, and continued to draw plenty of walks.
The problem is obviously the lack of power. Right now he can wait out young pitchers without much command and find a pitch he can put the barrel on, but upper level pitching is going to be able to overpower him in the zone with impunity. Hadeen just isn’t equipped to do enough damage to shake them off an aggressive approach. As a result, getting on base as much as he did in A-ball will be a real challenge as he presumably tackles the Double-A level this year.
Hadeen does all the little things right, plays good defense and runs the bases aggressively. That all around game will keep him a fan favorite in the minor leagues, but the ceiling here is pretty low. Hadeen is 6’2” and weighed 195 pounds after the draft, so he’s not likely to get much bigger. If he can turn pro training into a little more batspeed this offseason, there’s a chance for a career as an up-and-down utilityman, but it’s a narrow path. He’ll be 24 in July, so it needs to happen this season with some success at the Double-A level, or he’ll be entirely into org guy territory. Possibly there’s a little more lucrative professional career overseas if things don’t pop for him in 2026.
