Detroit Tigers prospect Bryce Rainer appeared to be in midst of a breakout season in 2025, until a dislocated shoulder abruptly ended it in June.
Assuming a clean bill of health, evaluators seem to expect the shortstop to pick up right where he left off. On Tuesday, MLB Pipeline projected the top prospect for each organization for 2027, predicting Rainer to be the crown jewel of the Tigers’ farm.
That nugget should give Tigers followers reason for optimism on a few fronts: One is the continued ascension of Rainer, the No. 11 overall pick from 2024 out of a California high school. The second is the assumption that two of the Tigers’ current top prospects — infielder Kevin McGonigle and outfielder Max Clark — will have exhausted their prospect eligibility because they’re showing off their skills with the Tigers in Detroit.
Also among Pipeline’s projections is former Orchard Lake St. Mary’s star Ike Irish leading the Baltimore Orioles’ prospects.
Rainer, 20, was hitting .288 with an .831 OPS, with five home runs, five doubles and 22 RBIs in 35 games when he injured his shoulder diving back to first base in a game for the Flying Tigers last June. The injury required surgery and ended Rainer’s season, halting progress in which Pipeline said in May that Rainer was poised to “make big leaps” in the prospect landscape. Similarly, Baseball America wrote in July, a month after his injury, that Rainer was “gaining steam” as a top prospect.
Rainer currently is ranked No. 37 among Pipeline’s top 100 prospects, and No. 24 by Baseball America. Both will update rankings at some point this winter. He is ranked No. 3 on The Detroit News’ list of top 50 top Tigers prospects, behind McGonigle and Clark. McGonigle is baseball’s No. 2 overall prospect, according to both outlets, and both are expected to get long looks in spring training with the Tigers.
“Top 10 overall prospects McGonigle and Clark seem like safe bets to graduate,” Pipeline’s Sam Dykstra writes. “With his left-handed pop and rocket arm, Rainer could slide into that tier assuming he fully recovers from 2025’s right shoulder surgery.”
Irish, meanwhile, was selected No. 19 overall in last summer MLB Draft out of Auburn. In a small sample size, the catcher/outfielder hit .230 (.593 OPS) with a home run and 12 RBIs in 74 at-bats for low Single-A Delmarva. He is ranked No. 6 among Baseball America’s top 10 Orioles prospects for 2026, a list updated and released this month.
“Like (Samuel) Basallo before him, Irish could be an absolute masher in the O’s system,” Dykstra writes, “albeit with questions about his future place on the diamond.”
