As the saying goes, prospect development isn’t linear. Switch-hitting catcher Thayron Liranzo entered the 2025 season as a top 100 prospect, lauded for his potential 70 grade raw power and his ongoing improvements behind the plate. He was only 21 at the time, and while he was riding high after a good breakout season at the High-A level in both the Dodgers and Tigers’ farm systems in 2024, that’s pretty young to reach Double-A, especially for a player with all the added workload as both a switch-hitter
and as a catcher. It was a really rough year, but we predicted it would go that way in his first look at the level. And while some prospect sites reacted by dumping him down their rankings to varying degrees, shout out to FanGraphs, who did not, we’re pretty unmoved. Time will tell who is correct, but Liranzo was never expected to just rocket through the upper levels in the first place.
The Los Angeles Dodgers signed the then 17-year-old Liranzo out of the Dominican Republic in January of 2021, accepting a meager bonus of just $30,000. His broad 6’1” frame promised future strength and power gains, and Liranzo already had a pretty good arm. The joke is always that no one wants to play catcher in the DR, but Liranzo took to the position pretty well from the start.
He had a good season in the Complex League at age 18, and then served notice with a 24 home run campaign in Single-A as a 19-year-old in 2023. He got off to a shaky start in High-A the next year, but by midsummer his bat had really heated up and his work behind the plate finally started showing more refinement and athleticism. The Tigers acquired him as the centerpiece of the Jack Flaherty trade, and Liranzo put together an impressive closing stretch to the season with the Whitecaps.
Liranzo got a bit overshadowed in the Arizona Fall League, as 19-year-old fellow catching prospect Josue Briceño went crazy out there, hitting 10 homers to win league MVP, but it’s worth remembering that Liranzo hit .375/.492/.667 with a pair of homers in 15 games, with half his hits going for extra bases. There was clearly stiffness in his swing and a tendency to whiff unless a pitch was in his hot zones, but he also showed the plate discipline to make it all work. That strong finish to his 2024 season got him 50 FV grades a spots on national top 100 lists heading into 2025.
No doubt it was a tough go in Erie. Liranzo played through some minor injuries, but he got off to a pretty good start anyway. By June and July, he was doing plenty of damage and looking as though he was adapting well to the tougher class of pitching. Everything then turned on him the rest of the season. He injured his shoulder and was limited to first base and DH days for the second half of the year. There was rumored to be some conflict with SeaWolves manager Andrew Graham over the injury and his effort level. It later emerged that Liranzo’s long-time trainer, who he regarded as a father figure, had passed away during the season as well. By year’s end, Liranzo was looking sluggish at the plate, and getting beat by fastballs to a degree we didn’t see in the first half of the season. His numbers really collapsed in August and September. Meanwhile, after nearly 20 years in the organization, Graham was reportedly let go at the end of the season, so we’re still waiting to hear who will be running their new coaching staff this season.
Liranzo showed up in camp this spring in outstanding condition, having cut a reported 35 pounds while adding strength. Scott Harris remarked that he came to camp looking like a center fielder rather than the thick-bodied catcher they had previously. Once again, his pop times and arm strength are back to above average levels, and while his blocking and framing continue to need work, he looks even more the part of the athletic, agile catcher we saw early in his time with the Tigers. Developing as a catcher takes time. Dillon Dingler was considered an advanced, highly athletic catching specimen coming out of college, and it still took four years to really get him to the point of being a top defender by age 25. Liranzo won’t turn 23 until July.
While Liranzo had a good first half last year in Erie, and continued to post high walk rates and show a discipline approach, there is still plenty of swing and miss in his game. He struck out 31.7 percent of the time at Erie, and while some of that can be attributed to the other struggles last year, we predicted heading into last year that he was going to get carved up more than he did in High-A.
Liranzo has a little more of a compact, line drive oriented swing as a right-hander, but it’s the power in his left-handed stroke that really got everyone excited. He’s posted some huge exit velos already, and when he gets a pitch he likes down in the zone, he is likely to do damage. The problem is that he doesn’t really have the bat control and smooth mechanics to adjust in flight. Especially as his condition deteriorated in the second half, he was really yanking the knob through the zone violently without much feel for the barrel and guessing too much as his discipline evaporated.
His future success is going to depend on his swing discipline remaining strong. Against good stuff in the zone, he’s always going to run higher than average whiff rates. Still, there are few profiles more coveted around the game than a viable defensive catcher with power who hits left-handed. To put it in Tigers terms, Liranzo probably slots in as something like a Jake Rogers type hitter, with the upside of a high strikeout, high walk, power producer like prime Alex Avila.
The hope is that the combination of weight loss and strength gains help Liranzo to be more athletic both in the box and behind the plate. If he can get his legs more involved in his swing it would help him to be a little more adjustable in the box rather than just waiting on mistake pitches and trying to grind out long at-bats. He has the zone discipline to make this work if he can just start putting a few more balls in play deep in counts.
Behind the plate, Liranzo already has posted plus pop times, and his blocking and framing have improved from his A-ball level work. He’s still struggled with his transfer at times, and with his overall mobility in terms of blocking. The better physical condition he’s in this spring bodes well for his sustained development in the catcherly arts.
The Tigers put a big emphasis on catcher defense, and while Liranzo may not develop enough in his blocking and framing to be a major league regular, that’s probably not going to be his role in Detroit with Dillon Dingler holding down most of the reps. The goal is to develop into a viable backup to Dingler, while getting some reps at first base and in the DH slot. That’s not too high a bar for Liranzo to clear, but that extra seasoning in his defense could easily take another two seasons with an ETA of 2028, when he’ll enter the season at age 24. In 2026 he just needs to wash his 2025 campaign, get back to his disciplined approach at the plate, and continue to refine his defensive game in Erie.
