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What were you doing in 1997? Because Max St. Pierre was drafted in the 27th round by the Tigers that year and began his professional baseball career as a fresh-faced 17-year-old catcher in the their minor-league system. Since then, Pierre has played in 977 minor-league games without once putting on a big-league uniform. That streak ends Wednesday, though, because according to MLB.com, the Tigers are planning on calling up St. Pierre when the rosters expand.
St. Pierre started with the GCL Tigers in '97 and stayed there in '98. He bounced around the various levels of Single-A for a while until getting the call to Double-A in 2002. He's played 444 games at Double-A, and since 2006, he's been shuttling between Double-A and Triple-A (the level he's spent the second-most time at with 204 games played) since 2006.
Except for 2007, when he spent a year in the Brewers' organization, he's been in the Tigers' system the entire time.
This year has been one of St. Pierre's better offensive years. With Double-A Erie, he hit .217 but with a .347 OBP and .500 SLG in 20 games. Of his 13 hits, five were homers.
With Triple-A Toledo he's hitting .295/.352/.465 with five more homers in just 38 games. The 10 total homers is just one shy of his career high, which he set in a full season with Erie back in 2003. All of his triple-slash numbers are better than his career norms. While it did take some time, the 30-year-old has finally hit himself onto a big-league roster.
As the Tigers' emergency catcher he might not see a ton of playing time in the next month, but it's hard to believe there will be another September call-up that will appreciate his first taste of the majors in quite the same way that Pierre will.
I'm not sure how many people would put on the catcher's gear 92=77 times in minor-league games without even one big-league call-up (it's safe to say that many people would've gotten discouraged by this point, I think), but it's finally paid off for St. Pierre.
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