For most of the last decade, the Detroit Tigers farm system slumped far behind most of the league in terms of scouting and player development. A lack of high picks and minimal spending on coaches and training personnel, analysts, and facilities, left the organization running a fairly barebones affair during the later years of Dave Dombrowski’s tenure. It took Al Avila far too long to begin turning the player development system around, but finally major changes came to pass and the Tigers slowly began catching up on the pitching side in recent years.
The problem was that the position player side of the development equation remained stalled.