Tigers prospect Briceño takes home Fall League's Joe Black MVP Award

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – You don’t always know that you’re witnessing history when you see it. But anyone who watched Josue Briceño on a daily basis during the 2024 Arizona Fall League campaign knew that he was hitting at a prolific rate unlike anything seen in the circuit’s 32 years.

On a tear from the moment that he arrived in the desert, the Tigers’ No. 9 prospect was named the Joe Black MVP Award winner Saturday after becoming the first player in AFL history to win the Triple Crown.

The league’s list of previous MVPs includes MLB notables from Nolan Arenado (2011) to Gleyber Torres (2016), but most impactful for Briceño is that he becomes the first Venezuelan-born honoree since the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2017. The two also share the distinction of being the two most recent recipients of the award to have done so in their age-19 campaign.

“To share the honor with a fellow Venezuelan [is] incredible. To share with Ronald Acuña Jr.? Even more so,” Briceño said via interpreters Annalee Ramirez and Analis Castro. “To win something like this is exciting.”

“Any time you put your name next to some of those other names, it’s really incredible,” Scottsdale and Double-A Richmond manager Dennis Pelfrey said earlier in the week. “But what I talk about a lot is not trying to be somebody else. Be the first Josue Briceño, and then players the next five or six years in the AFL will be trying to match what he did.”

A brief synopsis of Briceño’s incredible run through Fall League pitching:

Oct. 12: 3-homer game, 5 RBIs
Oct. 16-22: 4 straight multihit games, 3 homers, 6 RBIs
Nov. 12: 5-for-5, 2 doubles, 4 RBIs
Nov. 11-13: Reached base safely in 11 straight plate appearances

The Arizona Fall League is supposed to be hard, especially if you’ve just turned 20 years old. But it appears Briceño missed that memo. The first hitter to reach the double-digit home run plateau since Mike Olt in 2011, Briceño tore through the premier prospect circuit, leading the way with a .433 average, a .509 on-base percentage and his 10 homers. He also led in OPS (1.376), hits (39) and total bases (78) to boot, finishing with 27 more bases than the next-closest batter (Salt River's Caleb Durbin).

“It’s very easy power and it’s a pretty simple stroke,” Scottsdale hitting coach Casey Harms said of Briceño earlier in the week. “He’s the same guy, day to day and at-bat to at-bat, so that puts him in a position to have success.”

Going on a historic 25-game run at the dish didn’t seem to be in the cards for Briceño earlier this season when he missed over three months due to a PCL sprain in his right knee. Knee injuries for a backstop -- a young one in particular -- are concerning, so when the left-handed hitter headed to Arizona, the Tigers decided it would be as a first baseman/designated hitter.

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“I’m the kind of person that needs to maintain a certain calmness to be able to achieve what I want and gain a level of consistency,” Briceño said. “This is the pace I’ve been working toward. There were certain changes to my batting stance that helped me. I’d say my return in general after the injury, as well -- I didn’t lose that [feel] or the mechanics because of the injury.

“I think it has helped me a lot, playing first base, because I can focus a little bit more on hitting. But just like any other position, you still want to focus on both.”

For years, Tigers fans became accustomed to a native of Maracay, Venezuela, manning first base. Miguel Cabrera is likely to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after he becomes eligible in 2029, an achievement that all players at the Fall League dream of. But for Briceño, the Cabrera parallels are deep: the two are from the same hometown, and on his current trajectory, it may not be long before he gives Detroit another Maracay-born first baseman in the Majors.

When Briceño joined the Tigers as part of its 2022 international signing class, he tied for the third-highest signing bonus ($800,000). There was a lot to like in his raw power and size -- 6-foot-4, 200 pounds -- but sometimes it takes a bit of development for offensive production to come to the forefront.

“There are things that happen in the academy and within the organization that aren’t seen,” Briceño said. “There are so many things that help you mature -- as an organization and as a player, this is what we look for.”

Fellow Tigers prospect Thayron Liranzo (No. 6) became the first player in franchise history to earn Fall Stars Game MVP honors earlier this month. Briceño adds to the organization’s recent run of prospect honors by becoming the second Detroit player to take home the league’s MVP (Chris Shelton, 2004).

After being serenaded with “M-V-P!” chants when coming to the plate over the season’s final days, Briceño joins names like Acuña Jr., Arenado, Kris Bryant (2013) and Royce Lewis (2019) as winners of the Fall League’s most prestigious on-field honor.