2025 Detroit Tigers prospect reports #5: C/1B Josue Briceño

Briceño has established himself as one of the Tigers’ most promising young thumpers, but there are questions about his defensive home.

The Detroit Tigers signed Josue Briceño as part of the final group of international prospects under Al Avila’s leadership, and the young catcher has blossomed into an excellent parting gift from the erstwhile general manager. He was on our radar at this time a year ago, but the growth he showed during the 2024 season was beyond anyone’s expectations. For years, Detroit’s pipeline lacked in both high quality international prospects and legitimate catching depth, which makes Briceño’s arrival exciting on multiple fronts.

After spending the majority of his previous two years in the complex league, Briceño’s 2024 began with an assignment to the Lakeland Flying Tigers. He was hitting well through the first month of the season, boasting a .306/.405/.426 line with excellent strikeout and walk rates before a knee injury took him out for the bulk of the season. He struggled a little in his brief regular season return from rehab, and his season stats reflect that lag, but overall it’s impossible to categorize his season as anything but a success.

The injury turned out to be a blessing as Briceño took it as an opportunity to improve his strength and conditioning and made some adjustments to his swing once he could hit again. Because he’d missed so much time, the Tigers assigned him to play in the Arizona Fall League in October just after he turned 20 years old in late September. There he showed off the gains he’d made in a jaw-dropping assault on Fall League pitching.

Assigned to play with the Scottsdale Scorpions, Briceño hit .433/.509/.867 with ten home runs in 25 games. This from a young hitter who only had 224 plate appearances at Low-A Lakeland under his belt when he headed out west. Those numbers aren’t a mistake; he hit like a sledgehammer against older competition in an environment usually reserved for more experienced players.

Briceño homered against right-handers and left-handers. He launched an absolute missile off of top pitching prospect Andrew Painter to straightaway center field. It was a performance impressive enough to earn him the league’s MVP honors. No one in the AFL hit for a higher OPS, and he would have walked away with the Triple Crown as well if the league awarded one.

Al Avila signed Briceño as a 17-year-old catcher out of Maracay, Venezuela, notable for baseball fans as the childhood hometown of Miguel Cabrera, back in January of 2022. By 2023 he was showing out in the Complex League. He attacked rookie level pitchers stateside, showing off an advanced eye and outstanding contact ability for his age, though there was skepticism about his long-term future at the catcher position as he filled out his 6’4” frame.

A trend that continued into 2024 was his ability to draw almost as many walks as strikeouts. He wasn’t quite the precocious contact hitter that Kevin McGonigle is, but Briceño isn’t too far behind in that regard. He doesn’t swing at many balls and his plate coverage is good. His main issue entering this season continued to be the amount of ground balls he was hitting, and during his rehab process, the Tigers challenged him to get make some adjustments.

In an interview at the conclusion of AFL action, Briceño credited a swing change for the successes he saw in there. In his time with the Low-A Lakeland Flying Tigers, he was an very good pure hitter who rarely chased or whiffed much, but the power wasn’t translating because his stiff-legged swing was producing too many hard ground balls. He put a lot of effort into his rehab, taking on the Tigers’ challenge to use the time to get stronger, leaner, and more flexible in his lower half. That set him up to make the swing changes that unlocked his power.

The Tigers helped him adjust his setup to help him get a little more loft in his swing. He’s now batting from a lower crouch and the adjustment obviously paid huge dividends in the Fall League as he unleashed tape measure shots to center field and right field, while still showing the ability to drive balls over the wall to the opposite field as well. He was the first player in the Arizona Fall League to reach double digit home runs since 2011.

We were already optimistic about Briceño’s future last spring. The contact ability and discipline was outstanding for his age. The one real flaw in his hitting was the amount of ground balls he produced. His return from injury dispelled those concerns. The Fall League is a small sample size, but Briceño hasn’t even hit much against Low-A pitching coming in, and with a swing change and his conditioning gains he was a whole new level of power threat.

One could conceivably view Briceño as the best hitter in the system. We’ll wait for a little more confirmation in 2025, but he’s not too far from McGonigle’s pure hitting ability, but Briceño now shows plus in-game power with the potential that he’s just getting started here.

2025 Outlook

Though he never played at the High-A level in 2024, I see no reason why he couldn’t start the year with the Whitecaps in 2025 and advance to the Erie SeaWolves well before the season is out. The AFL is typically populated with prospects of a much more advanced nature than what Briceño would face in a return trip to Lakeland, and he was an absolute terminator in that setting. If he can demonstrate that it was no fluke by cleaning up in High-A too, there’s really no reason to softpedal his advancement through the minor leagues.

The question isn’t whether he can hit, it’s whether he can continue catching. There are some concerns about the trajectory of the young catcher’s body composition long term. He added 30 pounds in the three years since he signed on with the team, not all of it good weight. His lack of agility and development behind the plate brought his long term defensive value into question and after the knee injury the Tigers kept him at first base the rest of the year.

There is good news on that front too, though. In an interview with Tigers Minor League Report, Scott Harris reported that the Tigers used Briceño’s knee rehab as an opportunity to help him lean up a little and add functional strength, and he came out of the season in better condition than when it started. That certainly played into his swing changes, helping him to launch more balls in the air, but it may play into his defensive ability as well.

Detroit has become pretty good at teaching catching, and they’re heavily incentivized to keep Briceño behind the plate to see how much he can improve now that some of the strength and flexibility issues have been addressed. Though he’s seen a little time at first base as well, things are pointing toward at least one more season behind the plate for the slugger. It will still be difficult for his defense to catch up to his bat, but it’s worth finding out for now.

Ultimately, though, the timeline on which he’ll reach the major league depends on Briceño’s hitting. Offense will always be his greatest area of strength, and he’s shown maturity with very advanced plate discipline and power. He has the potency to stand up to an assignment at first base if that is ultimately necessary to get him to the bigs. The way we see it, he has an even chance to become the most productive hitter of any Tigers prospect, period.