One player this spring training that has turned some heads has been Brent Dlugach. Brent was one of the non-roster invitees to this years spring training and has done well, well enough to have Jim Leyland say:

“He’ll go as far as his bat takes him. He could probably play shortstop in the big leagues right now defensively, but shortstops have become a little more part of the offense than they used to be.”

He was recently among the 10 players cut from the Major League camp and was reassigned to the Minor League camp. This has still left me wanting to find a bit more about Brent as I had heard of him but really hadn’t looked at his abilities thus far. Here’s what I found out.

Brent was the 163rd pick overall in the 2004 MLB Draft (6th Round) out of Memphis at the age of 21. That’s right, he was a Memphis Tiger before he was a Detroit Tiger. The 2004 draft was also the year the Tigers picked up Justin Verlander. Other players drafted before Brent:

1. Justin Verlander
2. Eric Beattie
3. Jeff Frazier
4. Colin Mahoney
5. Andrew Kown

He’s consistently played the shortstop position and always showed incredible ability at the position. His issues have and continue to be at the plate. Never one who hit for power, he showed the most potential his first full year as a professional playing for the West Michigan Whitecaps in 2005. Here he posted his best offensive season, better than most of his years at Memphis as well hitting: .283/.317/.387. At the same time he suffered from a high strikeout-walk ratio of 6.37 getting 121 strikeouts over 488 at-bats.

In 2006 he was reassigned to Lakeland where he spent most of the season. His stats dipped a bit hitting .256/.299/.366 as well as upping his strikeouts to 144 over 465 at-bats. He did make an appearance in two games for the Mud Hens gaining six at-bats and no hits with two strikeouts during the International League playoffs.

Brent Dlugach was one of the few non-roster invitees to the Major League Spring Training Camp. He had a pretty good run at it with Leyland spotting him 19 at-bats where he racked up 6 hits for a .316 AVG and a solo home run. Not bad and this showing has likely kept his name on the radar of top Tiger infield talent. My guess is that Brent will spend most of the ‘07 season with the Erie Seawolves mainly because of the absence of Tony Giarratano who would have been in Toledo. He has a very big year ahead of him regardless of where he gets placed and depending on how the Carlos Guillen contract talks shape up, an important one for the Detroit Tigers organization.