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Matt Vierling’s Minor League rehab assignment took him from Triple-A Toledo to Single-A Lakeland, where for two nights, the 28-year-old became the grizzled veteran in an infield that includes last year’s first-round Draft pick, Bryce Rainer, at shortstop.
Vierling was impressed.
“Talented kid, really talented,” Vierling said. “He made a play in the hole, flipped it to first, hit a ball 109 [mph] to left-center field. He’s a talented kid, and he looks like an athlete, which is cool.”
Early evaluations of Rainer agree.
“Rainer is really good,” noted one evaluator who doesn’t hand out praise easily.
Not bad for a 19-year-old in his first season of pro ball as one of the youngest players in the Florida State League.
From the moment he stepped onto the infield in North Port in Spring Training to make his pro debut in the Tigers’ Spring Breakout game against the Braves, Rainer has looked advanced for his age. And after a brief adjustment period in April, he has started to tear up the FSL, backing up his standing as the Tigers’ No. 3 prospect and the No. 47 prospect in MLB Pipeline’s Top 100.
“When you talk about ceiling and talent and upside, there’s no one to be more excited about from a talent perspective than Bryce,” Tigers vice president and assistant general manager Ryan Garko said in Spring Training.
Rainer fell a triple shy of a cycle on Sunday in a 3-for-5, four-RBI performance. His home run was an inside-the-parker on a line drive into the right-field corner; Fort Myers right fielder Jefferson Valladares tried to get a ruling that the ball was stuck underneath the outfield padding but to no avail. Rainer’s double was a 106.4 mph line drive into right-center, and Rainer deked center fielder Maddux Houghton into thinking he would stay at first.
A day earlier, Rainer hit a traditional home run on an opposite-field loft to the left-field berm. He went 8-for-21 with five runs scored and seven RBIs in the series, raising his OPS for May to .916. He already has a half-dozen balls in play with exit velocities of 109 mph or higher, and he’s batting 12-for-25 (.480) against four-seam fastballs in ballparks where Statcast does tracking.
He has taken into games the skills that impressed Tigers officials in Spring Training and earned him comparisons to Corey Seager, not just with the left-handed bat but with the 6-foot-3 frame.
While the Tigers tend to have prospects play multiple positions from an early stage to help enhance their versatility and widen their potential pathway to the big leagues, Rainer has stayed exclusively at shortstop so far, which speaks to his standing on what has become a deep depth chart at shortstop for Detroit.
“His defense is really good,” Hall of Famer and Tigers special assistant Alan Trammell said in Spring Training. “In my opinion, I’m pleasantly surprised at his defense at this point in his career. He’s just getting his feet wet in pro ball.”
It’s early, but so far, Rainer hasn’t seemed overwhelmed by anything.
“He’s a cool kid,” Vierling said. “He’s chill. That’s the vibe that I get.”
On one hand, the Tigers clearly want Rainer to get settled and find a daily routine that works for him in his first taste of pro ball. But if Rainer continues to hit, he could give team officials an interesting decision to make later in the summer if and when fellow middle infielder Kevin McGonigle, the organization’s No. 2 prospect, moves to Double-A Erie and opens up an infield spot at High-A West Michigan.