Riley Greene

Greene was one of a handful of hitters who needed Tommy John surgery at the end of the 2023 season. Greene's surgery was on his non-throwing elbow, so it should not impact the timeline of his return to the field. The impact to his swing and production will be another story. Green had a successful rookie season hitting for a solid average, accepting walks while flashing his overall athleticism. The biggest flaw on Greene's young resume is the swing and miss which leads to a bottom quartile strikeout rate but good things happen more often than not when he does get bat to ball. He was not afford much time facing lefties as a rookie, but hit .279 in 93 plate appearances, but all 11 of his homers came against righties. Detroit saw enough from him to have him hitting second or third when he did start, and we should not expect that lineup position to change in 2024. He may get off to a slow start coming off surgery, but the volume should be there in the end.

Greene appeared likely to break camp on the Tigers' Opening Day roster, but a foul ball off the foot delayed his arrival to the big leagues until mid-June. He would go on to slash .253/.321/.362 across 93 games as a rookie, hitting five homers while successfully stealing only one bag in five attempts. In a vacuum, these numbers are rather uninspiring, but the fact that Greene was right around league average by wRC+ as a 21-year-old speaks volumes. The fifth overall pick in 2019, Greene was considered among the top prospects in the game at the time of his call-up. The Tigers are going to give Greene every chance to succeed. We've already seen that he can hold his own against big-league pitching, but it would be nice to see him cut down on the strikeouts (28.7%). How quickly he does that will determine his trajectory.

The top prep hitter in the 2019 draft class, Greene was a top-15 overall prospect heading into 2021 and his final season in the minors couldn't have gone much better. He jumped over High-A and logged a 145 wRC+ at Double-A as the youngest hitter at that level. Greene was then pushed to Triple-A, where he was once again the youngest hitter, and he improved his rate stats across the board en route to a 153 wRC+. His 32.8 Hard% was elite for a hitter his age in the upper levels, and he surprisingly stole 16 bases on 17 attempts, despite having never graded out as a plus runner. Base stealing is not all about pure speed, and if Robbie Grossman stole 20 bases for the Tigers in 2021, Greene could get to that mark over a full season. A trip to the Arizona Fall League was canceled due to a concussion suffered at the end of the Triple-A season, but he cleared protocols in October and had a normal offseason. However, he sustained a fractured right foot in early April that is expected to keep him out of game action for 6-8 weeks. While his fantasy value depends on when he's able to return to the field, Greene could win an everyday role once he's healthy, and he has five-category upside once he ultimately makes his major-league debut.

A pure hitter first and foremost, Greene has an excellent understanding of the strike zone and has no trouble getting to his plus raw power in games. He has a very fluid left-handed swing and while he is not a burner, all of his movements in the field are smooth, especially for a 6-foot-3, 200-pound bat-first player. It was obviously a small sample, but he hit .417 with two home runs and a 2:6 K:BB in 18 plate appearances as a 19-year-old in big-league spring training -- a very loud way to start an unconventional year of development for the No. 5 overall pick from 2019. He emerged as one of Detroit's team leaders at the alternate site and became fast friends with the other face of this rebuild, Spencer Torkelson. Greene is much more advanced than the typical 20-year-old, so he will spend most of 2021 at Double-A, setting up a 2022 MLB debut. This is a safe offensive profile to bet on in dynasty leagues.

Greene was seen as the consensus top prep hitter in the 2019 draft, which led to the Tigers selecting him fifth overall. He is now the offensive face of a pitching-heavy rebuild with no end in sight. Greene quickly earned a promotion from the Gulf Coast League to the New York-Penn League and while he didn't set the world on fire there, the patience (11.0 BB%) and all-fields laser show (30.6 LD%, 39.7 Pull%) he displayed led to a promotion to Low-A. His inexperience started to show against Midwest League pitching, but at that point it had been quite a long season for the 18-year-old. Greene will likely be a below-average runner in the majors, which should force a move to right field. He projects as a high-AVG/high-OBP left-handed hitter who could grow into 30-homer power. The key will be for him to let the power come naturally while maintaining his strong plate skills and approach in the meantime.