A Full Breakdown of the Detroit Tigers prospects headed to the Arizona Fall League

The Arizona Fall League rosters have been released this week with a lot of intriguing prospects on each team. There are six teams full of prospects from Major League teams that will play starting October 6th. I’ll be writing an article and making Twitter posts about each team’s roster. This will cover the prospects on the Detroit Tigers who will be on the Scottsdale Scorpions this fall. The team will consist of players from the Houston Astros, San Francisco Giants, New York Mets, and the Washington Nationals as well.

Detroit Tigers:

Dariel Fregio RHP: After spending four seasons at St. Leo University a Division II school Fregio has spent the last few seasons playing for the Washington Wild Things in the Frontier League and going to Australia for a winter to pitch. The Tigers signed Fregio before the 2025 season of Indy ball started in May. He spent the season mostly in the High-A bullpen but pitched a total of 12 innings between the Complex League and Low-A. In 27.2 innings in High-A he looked great with a 2.28 ERA and 3.55 FIP while striking out 26.6% and walking 9.2%. Fregio doesn’t have the biggest velocity but has some good pitch shapes. His main pitch, a sinker, sits in the low 90s with 15” of IVB and 15” of HB he struggled to throw it for a strike in his time in Low-A though. He has a slider in the low 80s with tight movement and a mid 80s changeup with decent fade. Fregio is already 25 years old and it’ll be interesting if he can still get older and more talented hitters out this fall. 

Carlos Lequerica RHP: Signed by the Tigers right after the 2023 draft Lequerica spent his four years in college between 3 schools ending at the University of Miami in his last season. He has been good out of the bullpen the last two seasons but pitching to a 4.36 ERA and 3.74 FIP in 33 innings in 2024 and a 2.35 ERA and 3.80 FIP in 2025. This season he spent it entirely in High-A with 53.2 innings where his strikeout rate dropped to 19.4% and his walk rate raised to 9.7% despite his drop in ERA. I’m not sure what caused that drop but it seemed Lequerica transitioned into a contact pitcher out of the bullpen as his groundball rate rose to 45.3% an 8% jump from 2024. In 2024 he got a lot of weak contact with his low 90s fastball that has natural cut and his deep fading changeup. He mostly leaned on the changeup against left handed hitters and switched to his low 80s slider against righties. Lequerica is already 24 years old and needs to start moving to the higher levels so like Fregio the Tigers are testing him this fall. 

Jake Miller LHP: Drafted out of Valparaiso in the 8th round of the 2022 draft Miller had barely pitched in college and has been a swingman mostly at every level. His first full season he was only able to pitch 35.1 innings to a 7.13 ERA. He came back in 2024 and dominated throwing multiple innings between Low-A, High-A, and AA to a 1.85 ERA and 2.50 FIP in 87.1 total innings. He struck out 30.4% and walked only 5%. He was getting ready to continue his dominance this season and pitched well in four starts in AA to start the season with a 2.12 ERA but he went down with a back injury and missed more than 4 months only making his return for 3 innings in Low-A before the season ended where he looked back to his old self. Miller has a very deceptive delivery that lets his average stuff play way up. He shows hitters the ball really late in his wind up and his arm slot will take his low 90s fastball and create some rise leading to whiffs. His best pitch is a mid 80s changeup with some nasty sink and is super difficult for right handers to watch. He has two sliders, one tighter one in the low 80s and a sweeper with a big horizontal break in the high 70s. He has the arsenal to develop as a starter which he started to do this year and will probably continue that this fall.

Kenny Serwa RHP: Another pitcher signed out of Indy ball by the Tigers this year. Serwa graduated from Dayton in 2022 and went undrafted. He went to Billings in the Pioneer Independent League after he finished at Dayton and pitched well but didn’t pitch at all in 2023. He returned to baseball in 2024 pitching for the Chicago Dogs in the American Association, another Independent League and pitched pretty well. It was enough for the Tigers to sign the 27 year old last January and he pitched the entire season this year. Starting in Low-A he pitched 36 innings to a 2.75 ERA and 2.88 FIP. Serwa was promoted to AA where he finished the season making 17 starts with 82 innings to a 3.95 ERA and 4.02 FIP. There’s no data on Serwa but I have seen his Pro Day from back in January where the Tigers signed him from and he’s a knuckleballer. He actually has two, one that sits in the high 80s and a second that is around 80 mph. His four seam fastball sits in the mid 90s while his sinker sits in the low 90s. He also has a low 80s curve with some good drop. He’s hard to make contact with because of a crazy arsenal that could change what a hitter looks at for every pitch. He also has a repeatable delivery that makes it hard to tell what he’s doing. Serwa is the only knuckleballer this fall and it’ll be interesting to see how hitters react to that.

Max Anderson 2B: A bat first second baseman ever since he was drafted in the 2023 2nd round Anderson has just hit. This season was his real breakout starting in AA where he slashed .306/.358/.499 for a 146 wRC+ and he continued to hit solid in AAA with a slash of .267/.327/.422 for a 103 wRC+ in 32 games. Anderson has a quick slashing swing that he uses a lot more than a lot of minor leaguers. He swings a lot for a reason because he makes a lot of hard contact with a 48.6% hard hit rate in AAA this season. He of course struggles to lay off balls out of the zone and only walks at a 5.4% rate but that’s alright when he is getting consistent hard contact. This season it was obvious he was working on pulling the ball in the air more and that worked leading to 19 homers. He still has a higher groundball rate than most at 45.8% he can work with that at the MLB level and potentially hit enough to be big in an everyday lineup. So far Anderson has spent most of his time in the field at second with only a few games at third but there are reports the Tigers are planning on moving him to a full time third basemen this fall to hopefully get him more playing time at the next level with Torres blocking second. 

Kevin McGonigle SS: Currently fighting for the top prospect spot in all of baseball McGonigle has turned into an absolute beast at the plate since being drafted out of high school with the 37th overall pick in 2023. He might not have the ceiling of a player like Konnor Griffin with the Pirates but McGonigle has the best floor of any minor league player. Both his full seasons have been shortened because of injuries though. In 2024 McGonigle started late due to a hamstring injury and had to end early due to a broken hamate bone. After playing in the first game of the season at High-A but missed the next month with an ankle injury. This season between Low-A, High-A, and AA he slashed .305/.408/.583 for a 183 wRC+ with 19 homers in just 88 games. He’s so hard to beat with only a 11.6% strikeout rate compared to a 14.9% walk rate. He rarely chases and only swings at 45.4% of swings showing his advanced swing decisions. He makes contact on 83% of swings while hitting most pitches hard. Even though McGonigle doesn’t have the highest raw power, it probably sits around average, it’s already playing in game and he’s hitting a ton of pull fly balls. He’s such a well rounded hitter and should start the season in AAA next season with a shot at the MLB roster in spring. In the field he’s focused on playing shortstop but an average arm could move him to second base in the future. He’s a reason to tune into every Scottsdale game this fall alone.

Jack Penney 2B/SS: Drafted out of Notre Dame in the 5th round of last year’s draft Penney looked great in his first full season. He got out to a hot start for the first 2 months hitting .262/.409/.341 but he went down with an injury in late May and didn’t return to the High-A lineup until mid July. He continued to hit well after the injury, slashing .270/.358/.416 for the last 3 months of the season. In total Penney hit .262/.382/.373 for a 128 wRC+ in 71 High-A games in 2025. He doesn’t have great raw power but slaps the ball all over the field and walks at a 15% rate. He’s super patient at the plate only swinging at 40.7% of High-A pitches and makes contact at a 77% rate. Penney doesn’t really chase and makes enough contact in the zone to hit well. He does have a 20.3% strikeout rate though which dropped a lot from his 14 game sample size in Low-A after the draft. He has shown a pretty good glove at both second and short and has the ability to play third where he played a good amount at Notre Dame. He’s your typical solid gloved middle infielder who makes a lot of contact. 

Thank you for reading for shorter breakdowns check out my Twitter @drew-durstock. Each day I'll release a new team's prospect breakdown.