Tag Archives: Tigers

26 Sep

how’s the view?

Former Ole Miss pitcher Mickey Callaway and ex-Jackson State slugger Dave Clark will have a great view of what could be great series at Comerica Park over the next four days. Callaway is the pitching coach for Cleveland, which needs one win to clinch the American League Central title. Clark is the third-base coach for Detroit, which probably needs to sweep the series – and get some help down the road – to earn a playoff berth. The Tigers, 2-13 against the Indians, trail the Tribe by 7 games in the division and are 1.5 games out in a wild card race that has five teams still in contention for two spots. Callaway’s pitching staff has the sixth-best ERA, the fourth-best batting average against and the fourth-most strikeouts in the majors. Detroit has an impressive array of hitters – Miguel Cabrera, Justin Upton, Victor Martinez, J.D. Martinez, Ian Kinsler, etc. – but the Indians actually have outscored the Tigers 751-719. On the Tigers’ bench is former Richton High star JaCoby Jones, batting .222 in his 12 big league games. Maybe he’ll be an unexpected star. That kind of thing does happen, ya know.

01 Sep

three things

In a home run-mad month in the major leagues, nobody hit more than Brian Dozier, the pride of Itawamba AHS and Southern Miss. Dozier hit his 13th August bomb on Wednesday in Minnesota’s 8-4 loss to Cleveland. In Twins history, only Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew hit more homers in a month (14 in June 1964). Dozier has 32 on the year and 107 in his MLB career. This from a 5-foot-11, 200-pound second baseman who hit 16 homers in his four-season minor league career and 16 in four years at USM. Nobody saw this coming – or did they? “There’s not a whole lot that the guy can’t do,” USM coach Scott Berry recently told WDAM-TV in Hattiesburg. Berry said he could tell Dozier was a special player when he won the starting shortstop job as a true freshman. … In his second big league game, former Richton High star JaCoby Jones led off the ninth inning with a double and then scored the game-winning run for Detroit, diving across home plate on a sac fly to beat the Chicago White Sox 3-2. Tyler Collins’ fly ball to left with one out wasn’t deep, so Jones and third-base coach Dave Clark, the former Shannon High and Jackson State star, had to make a snap judgement. “I really couldn’t understand (Clark),” Jones told mlb.com. “I’m pretty sure he was just saying, ‘Go, you’ve gotta run.’ I was going to go anyway, regardless, unless he was just (imploring) me to stop.” Jones is 4-for-8 with two RBIs and three runs for the Tigers, who are battling for a playoff berth. … Hunter Renfroe, the former Mississippi State standout from Crystal Springs (and Copiah Academy), belted his 29th homer for Triple-A El Paso. The right fielder is hitting .306 with 104 RBIs and 94 runs in 128 games. Certainly, he is ready for a big league look. But San Diego reportedly will wait until El Paso’s season is over to call up Renfroe. The Chihuahuas have five regular season games remaining and then the Pacific Coast League championship series.

30 Aug

debut alert

JaCoby Jones, the former Richton High star, is in the Detroit Tigers’ lineup for tonight’s game against the Chicago White Sox at Comerica Park. Jones, 24, is playing third base and batting eighth. The Magnolia State’s best prep player in 2010 before going off to LSU, he was a third-round pick by Pittsburgh in 2013. Jones, who has also played shortstop and center field as a pro, was batting .257 with 20 doubles, seven triples, seven homers and 43 RBIs at the Double-A and Triple-A levels in the Tigers’ system. He is rated their No. 9 prospect by mlb.com.

17 May

back in action

JaCoby Jones, the former Richton High star, has been reinstated from the 50-game drug of abuse suspension he received last fall. Jones is expected to be in the lineup tonight for the Double-A Erie SeaWolves in the Detroit system. Reports say he’ll see time this season at third base and center field in addition to shortstop. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound Jones, rated the Tigers’ No. 8 prospect by mlb.com, batted .250 with six homers and 20 RBIs in 30 games for Erie in 2015 after a trade from Pittsburgh. Jones was hitting .280 in the Arizona Fall League when he was slapped with the suspension. Detroit invited him to big league spring training this year and he hit .313 with a pair of homers. He hit 23 homers in A-ball in 2014. P.S. Drug suspensions will probably end the career of former Hinds Community College standout Travious Relaford. Currently serving a 50-game suspension, he recently received an additional 100-game ban for a third drug of abuse violation. Relaford batted .237 at Class A Augusta in the San Francisco system in 2015, his fifth pro year.

17 Mar

leading the way

Brian Dozier has jokingly called himself a “Grapefruit League All-Star” for the good numbers he usually hangs up in spring training. The Southern Miss product is doing it again. Dozier went 2-for-3 and belted his second home run for Minnesota on Wednesday, boosting his Grapefruit League average to .435. Dozier was an American League All-Star in 2015 and, entering his fifth MLB season, the Tupelo native has emerged as a leader for a Twins team that many expect to contend. Dozier hit 28 homers last year but batted just .236. The average may rise in 2016. Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci recently noted that Dozier, typically a pull hitter, is one of a number of players “making swing path adjustments—the counterattack to shifts” and has been going to right field frequently this spring. P.S. Some familiar names appeared in the Toronto box score on Wednesday: Ex-Mississippi State star Chad Girodo threw 1 1/3 clean innings, D.J. Davis, the 2012 first-rounder from Stone County, got an at-bat and so did Brett Wellman, son of former Mississippi Braves manager Phillip Wellman. Girodo, bidding to make the Blue Jays’ bullpen, has not allowed a run in four appearances. Davis, a top 10 prospect in the Jays’ organization, is coming off a good 2015 season in A-ball but reportedly needs to improve in some areas. The younger Wellman, who used to serve as a bullpen catcher for the M-Braves, has been in the Toronto system for three years after playing at Auburn-Montgomery. … Detroit has given Richton’s JaCoby Jones a lot of work in big league camp. In 13 games at shortstop and third base, he is batting .231 with a homer and three RBIs. A 2013 third-round pick by Pittsburgh, Jones reached Double-A last year but will start this season on suspension for a failed drug test last fall (see previous posts).

17 Jan

your name here

Now that he has his name on a street — Dyson Drive — in his native McComb, Jarrod Dyson will seek to get his name penciled in as the Kansas City Royals’ regular right fielder this season. Dyson, who has never had more than 292 at-bats in any of his six MLB seasons, apparently will go into spring training vying for playing time with Paulo Orlando. Dyson signed a one-year deal on Friday for $1.725M, avoiding arbitration. A lefty hitter and a strong defensive outfielder, he batted .250 with 31 runs and 26 steals in 90 games in 2015. Orlando, a right-handed hitter, batted .249 with seven homers and 27 RBIs in 86 games. Speed, of course, is Dyson’s key tool, and pinch-running has been his primary role. He has 146 bags (and 165 runs) in 443 games with the Royals. The Southwest Mississippi Community College product stole three bases and scored one run in the 2015 postseason; the one run proved to be the game-winning run in the decisive fifth game of the World Series. P.S. Former Pillow Academy star Louis Coleman signed a one-year contract with Kansas City for $725,000. The right-handed reliever pitched in just four MLB games last year but has a 3.20 career ERA. … Itawamba CC product Desmond Jennings, who played just 28 games for Tampa Bay in 2015 because of various ailments, signed a one-year, $3.3M contract and avoided arbitration. Jennings, the Rays’ likely left fielder, is a .249 career hitter with 48 homers and 93 steals over five seasons. … Richton native JaCoby Jones and Southwest Mississippi CC alum Kade Scivicque have gotten non-roster invites to the Detroit Tigers’ spring camp.

11 Jan

tiger tales

There could be some Mississippi flavor coming to the Detroit Tigers’ roster in the near future. Richton’s JaCoby Jones and Madison’s Spencer Turnbull are rated among the top nine prospects in the Detroit system by both Baseball America and mlb.com. And not too far behind is Kade Scivicque, a Southwest Mississippi Community College product who has been labeled a “hidden gem” in the club’s 2015 draft crop. Jones, a shortstop acquired by the Tigers from Pittsburgh in a trade last summer, was rated the No. 5 prospect on Baseball America’s chart, released last week. The former Mr. Baseball, who played at LSU, batted .257 with 16 homers, 80 RBIs and 25 steals in 2015, finishing the season in Double-A. He also played well in the Arizona Fall League before getting slapped with a 50-game drug of abuse suspension that will carry into the 2016 season. That setback notwithstanding, Jones “has the raw tools to be an exciting difference-maker,” reports MLBPipeline, which rates Jones ninth in the Tigers’ organization. Former Madison Central star Turnbull, who pitched at Alabama, was pegged No. 9 by BA (and fifth by mlb.com). Turnbull, a 6-foot-3 right-hander, went 11-3 with a 3.01 ERA as a starter in low Class A last season. Wrote BA’s Ben Badler in a website chat, “I do think ultimately his best role will be in the bullpen. … (H)e has the two-pitch mix led by that wicked power fastball that would play well in that role.” Scivicque, an All-America catcher at LSU, was drafted in the fourth round and played at two levels of A-ball last summer, batting .269 with five homers. He is reputed to have outstanding defensive skills.

06 Nov

a wrong turn

Scratch JaCoby Jones from Saturday’s Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game. The former Richton High standout has been suspended for 50 games for a “drug of abuse” violation. Rated the No. 10 prospect in Detroit’s system by Baseball America, Jones, a 23-year-old shortstop, just finished his third pro season and is batting .274 with 40 homers overall. He was originally drafted in the third round out of LSU by Pittsburgh in 2013 and traded to the Tigers this summer for big league pitcher Joakim Soria. The suspension reportedly is for a recreational drug, not a performance enhancing drug, if that makes any difference. The suspension starts with the remaining 12 games on Scottsdale’s AFL schedule and will continue through the first 38 games of the 2016 season, wherever Jones is assigned, which will probably be Double-A.

28 Oct

there and here

Though you won’t find his name on the top prospect charts, former Mississippi State standout Adam Frazier would seem to be a player on the rise. Currently playing in the talent-laded Arizona Fall League, the left-handed hitting shortstop is hitting .333 (8-for-24) for Glendale. Batting leading on Tuesday, he went 2-for-3 with an RBI, two runs and a steal. Frazier, 23, hit .324 at Double-A Altoona in Pittsburgh’s system this season, his third pro campaign, and made the Eastern League’s midseason All-Star Game. He is at .291 for his career with a .353 on-base percentage. … Richton High product JaCoby Jones, a shortstop prospect in Detroit’s system, has been playing some third base in the AFL. “I love short,” Jones told the Detroit Free Press. “I played there all my life … . But if third base is where my future’s at, I’ll start getting better at it.” The 6-foot-2, 205-pound Jones is batting .364 to date for Scottsdale. … Of Atlanta’s top 10 prospects on Baseball America’s recently revealed chart, it’s possible none will be in Pearl to start the 2016 season. No. 1 Hector Olivera already has made the big league club, three of the others were in low Class A in 2015 and three more were just drafted in June. (One of those, Austin Riley, the former DeSoto Central High star, checks in at No. 5 after a strong debut season at the lowest levels of the system.) Max Fried pitched in low A in 2014 and missed all of last season with an injury; it seems unlikely the Braves would start him in Double-A. Mallex Smith opened 2015 in Mississippi but finished at Triple-A Gwinnett, and Lucas Sims went 4-2, 3.21 for the M-Braves and is a candidate to be promoted next spring. However, there could be an influx of talent to Mississippi from just outside the BA top 10: Johan Camargo, Connor Lien, Dustin Peterson and Rob Whalen, to name a few. All played at high A Carolina last season. … Former Jackson Generals pitching coach Jim Hickey has signed an extension with Tampa Bay to remain the Rays’ pitching coach through 2018. He has been with the club since 2007. … Ex-Jackson Mets star Dave Magadan, who “parted ways” with Texas after three years as hitting coach, is expected to land another job in the big leagues sometime soon. In a published report, Magadan said he would like to get closer to his Florida home. … East Central Community College product Marcus Thames has been mentioned as a candidate for hitting coach with the New York Yankees. He was the Triple-A hitting coach in their system in 2015. The Yanks are one of four teams Thames played for in his 10-year MLB career.

19 Oct

in the zone in arizona

Former Richton High star JaCoby Jones has come out swinging in the Arizona Fall League and ranks among the league leaders in several categories. Jones, a shortstop in the Detroit system, is batting .538 (7-for-13) with a league-leading five runs plus two homers (tied for the lead) and four RBIs. Jones, 6 feet 2, 205 pounds, was drafted in the third round out of LSU by Pittsburgh in 2013 and was traded to the Tigers this summer. He batted .250 with six homers, 20 RBIs and 10 steals in 37 games for Erie in the Double-A Eastern League; he was rated the Tigers’ No. 10 prospect at season’s end. … Ole Miss product Stuart Turner, a Minnesota prospect, is on the Scottsdale team with Jones but hasn’t played yet. Turner, a catcher, played for Southern League champ Chattanooga this summer. … Ex-Mississippi State star Adam Frazier went 3-for-4 with a pair of triples and two RBIs in his one AFL game to date with Glendale. Frazier, a lefty-hitting shortstop in the Pirates’ organization, hit .324 in Double-A in 2015 and has a .291 career average over three pro seasons. … Johan Camargo and Connor Lien, who figure to be with the Mississippi Braves in 2016, are playing for Peoria. Shortstop Camargo is 3-for-8, outfielder Lien 1-for-8.