Tigers Fans Should Be Insanely Excited For Colt Keith

In my lifetime, there's been one absolute- The Detroit Tigers STINK at developing position players. Sure, they've developed a few fine players. Curtis Granderson and Nick Castellanos, to name a few. But it's been a long time since the Detroit Tigers developed a star bat. You have to go back to the days of Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, and Kirk Gibson. When healthy, Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter look like they're going to be long-term options for the Tigers, but we're still a ways away from declaring either one of them stars. The same goes with Spencer Torkelson, who, in two short years, has already seen a ton of stops and starts to his major league career. But it's a new regime with new player development, and so far, the Crown Jewel of the Tigers' minor-league system is Colt Keith.

The 21-year-old infielder showed a ton of promise in the latter part of last season in high-A ball. The Tigers found it best to start him this season in AA, and he didn't last long there. He had a .585 slugging percentage in 59 games in Erie with the Seawolves, and he promptly got called to AAA. All he's done so far in AAA is mash. He came into tonight with a 1.475 OPS in three games in Toledo, and tonight, he went deep again, turning on a hanging breaking ball and putting at a ridiculous 473 feet to right field.

There are still a few kinks that Colt Keith needs to work out. His defense at third has proven to be shaky in the past, but I speak for all Tiger fans when I say, "We'll take it." This organization needs bats. They need to figure out a way to develop offensive players. Since Al Avila's great fire sale of 2017, this team has consistently had one of the worst offenses in baseball year in a year out. That needs to change. They don't hit for power, but Colt Keith does, and while I have no issue with him staying down in the minor leagues for a bit to figure things out defensively, it seems like the bat is good to go. 

So I'll address the elephant in the room and answer the question that Tigers fans been asking me for the last month and a half- "Will we see Colt Keith at the Major League level the season? Right now, yes. He can't stop hitting home runs. That's usually a good sign. But you never know what the next week/month will look like for Keith. Maybe he will start taking his lumps down in AAA. This stuff is impossible to predict. But he has ascended through the tiger system so far, and if the bat continues to be elite (which right now, I'm getting no indication that it won't), then Colt Keith will be in a Detroit Tigers uniform very soon. 

Please don't ruin this boy. Please.