David Briggs: The Tigers' slugging super prospects won't skip straight past Toledo, will they?

Jun. 23—There are two things most people in Toledo couldn't tell you: The name of a player on the Mud Hens and a better way to spend a summer night than watching the Mud Hens.

In minor league baseball, where there's little correlation between wins and tickets sold, we come for the event and stay for the game, the here-today-gone-tomorrow pieces largely interchangeable.

Yet every now and then, there comes along a young talent so tantalizing that he's worth the price of admission on his own.

Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene — perhaps the best tandem of slugging prospects in the sport — are two such talents.

And, with increasing vigor, both are knocking on Toledo's door.

The question is if and when the Tigers will open it.

As Torkelson and Greene begin to mash at Double-A Erie, it's fair for local baseball fans to be both excited and wary.

Remember, the last two times we got our hopes up this high, we missed the party.

Justin Verlander — the second pick of the 2004 draft — skipped straight from Erie to Motown in July, 2005. Then, two years ago, just when Casey Mize was carving through Double-A and on the brink of a promotion to Toledo, the first overall pick in 2018 was sidelined by an inflamed right shoulder and ... yada, yada, pandemic, yada, yada ... he went direct to Detroit, too.

Now, we have two more headliners, who along with Mize are the Tigers' most heralded prospects since Verlander, the toasts of Tank-A-Palooza.

Torkelson, the No. 1 overall pick last year, is billed as a generational slugger, ranked by MLB.com as the second-best talent in the minor leagues.

For good reason, too. You should have seen him melting baseballs clear out of Fifth Third Field during last summer's taxi squad workouts. The guy who hit 25 home runs his first season at Arizona State — breaking Barry Bonds' freshman record at the school (11 in 1983) — and had 54 homers and 110 walks in just 129 college games is the real deal, with power for days to all fields.

This year, despite a slow start, Torkelson, 21, batted .312 with 17 extra-base hits — including five homers — and 28 RBIs in 31 games at Class A West Michigan. Since, he has hit .296 with two homers and seven RBIs in his first six games at Erie.

His sidekick, meanwhile, is in no one's shadow.

With a smooth left-handed swing, Greene, the fifth pick of the 2018 draft, has batted .283 with eight homers and 26 RBIs in 40 games in Erie this year, and only now is heating up. In his last five games, the 20-year-old outfielder has 10 hits and two homers.

Rated by Baseball America as the ninth-best prospect in the minors, Greene would be the top farmhand for 23 other franchises.

And, like Torkelson, he appears on the fast track to bigger things.

Again, the only question is when.

So I asked Tigers vice president of player development Dave Littlefield.

"It's always difficult to say," he said this week. "The players determine that by how they perform. The onus is on their shoulders, not really the decision makers. ... We're always open to moving players, but generally speaking, they determine that more than we do."

As a brief aside, I might suggest that's not always the case.

While I had Littlefield, I circled back to Matt Manning's recent promotion to Detroit. Manning is an electrifying talent and the Tigers' top pitching prospect, but, even with an excellent final outing in Toledo, the 23-year-old right-hander certainly didn't earn his call-up in any traditional sense, given his 8.03 ERA in seven starts here.

What gives? Some in the Twitterverse — yes, I should stop right here — wondered if perhaps the move up was an indictment on the Hens' coaching staff. To me, that's unfounded and unfair, but I was curious how Littlefield would respond.

"I don't think of that at all," he said. "That's a half-empty, grassy-knoll theory. What you're looking at is a body of work. You've got a guy who was pitcher of the year in the Eastern League [in 2019] and who has performed exceptionally well throughout his career. ... [This year], he had some spring training glimpses where he did some good things and there were times even amid the outings that didn't go as well that he had certain periods or innings or batters that were good. The last one he pitched better.

"It's the body of work. He's on the [40-man] roster. He's a highly talented guy. This is no reflection on the Triple-A staff. I take offense to that, quite honestly."

Now, back to our scheduled programming.

With respect to the timetable for Torkelson and Greene, our only hope is that the journey to Detroit includes a Glass City layover.

Here's betting it will. And later this season.

Or not. Traditionally, Double-A is a haven for top prospects, Triple-A more of an extension of the big-league roster. Therefore, if a young star is good enough to be one step away from the majors, some teams just go ahead and toss him into the fire.

Among those who once skipped Triple-A entirely — and I don't count anyone who debuted last year — include Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Ken Griffey, Jr., Clayton Kershaw, Manny Machado, CC Sabathia, and Giancarlo Stanton. (Heck, if you keep going back, Bob Feller, Al Kaline, and Sandy Koufax never spent a day in the minors.)

But, fortunately for Toledo fans, these jumps remain the exception.

There is a much longer list of phenoms who did spend time in Triple-A, from Alex Rodriguez to Mike Trout to Bryce Harper to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., to Wander Franco. Even for the biggest talents, the top bus league remains an indispensable finishing school.

"It's extremely valuable," Littlefield said. "The players are better, the game is played cleaner. Sometimes, there are more talented ballplayers with physical tools in Double-A, but just the know-how of playing the game, the breaking balls, how guys are more savvy ... you've got men, guys with families in Triple-A that have been through the grind. It's a much more mature league. It's definitely an asset to play in Triple-A."

We're holding the Tigers to that!

When it comes to the chance to see two of the game's brightest, most thrilling prospects, in the spirit of Motown, I ain't too proud to beg.

First Published June 23, 2021, 4:04pm