The Tigers expected to enter Spring Training with four rotation spots secured. Jack Flaherty’s surprisingly quiet market allowed Detroit to reinstall him as the #2 starter behind Tarik Skubal. Righty Reese Olson filled that role down the stretch last year after the Tigers traded Flaherty to Los Angeles. Free agent signee Alex Cobb would’ve had a mid-rotation role in his own right.
It didn’t take long for an injury to intervene. Cobb is battling inflammation in his right hip, which is likely to lead to a season-opening injured list stint. It’s an alarming start to his Detroit tenure, as the veteran righty missed a good portion of last year rehabbing a 2023 labrum repair in his opposite hip.
What had been a camp battle for one spot expands to a competition for two vacancies. Detroit has a handful of recognizable names — including a few one-time top prospects who are still looking to establish themselves — in the mix for those jobs behind the Skubal/Flaherty/Olson top three.
Aside from Roki Sasaki, the 22-year-old Jobe may currently be the sport’s most talented pitching prospect. Baseball America, Kiley McDaniel of ESPN, and MLB Pipeline each placed him as their #2 pitching prospect. Keith Law of The Athletic ranks Jobe as the #1 pitching prospect — Law excluded Sasaki from his ranking based on the latter’s NPB experience — while Eric Longehagen of FanGraphs had Jobe behind Sasaki and Andrew Painter.
Evaluators agree that Jobe has top-of-the-rotation ceiling. He’s the most exciting player in this group, but he’s far from a lock to break camp. The 6’2″ righty’s MLB experience consists of four relief appearances — two apiece in the regular season and playoffs — last fall. He has started all of two Triple-A games.
Jobe spent most of last season at Double-A Erie, where he turned in a 2.36 ERA with a 27% strikeout rate but walked nearly 13% of opposing hitters. He missed two months because of a hamstring strain. Last year’s 91 2/3 innings nevertheless represented the most he’s thrown in a professional season. Even if he breaks camp, he’s unlikely to make 30+ starts and top 150 innings. The Tigers surely don’t want to burn him out early in the year. Jobe still has a full slate of options and could begin the year with Triple-A Toledo.
The first overall pick in 2018, Mize is now a few seasons removed from being one of the game’s top pitching prospects. The 27-year-old’s body of work has been decent but underwhelming relative to expectations. Mize pitched to a 3.71 ERA over 30 starts in 2021, his first full season. Tommy John surgery essentially cost him the next two years. The Auburn product returned to action with a 4.49 ERA across 102 1/3 frames last year. He showed plus control and got a lot of ground-balls but managed only a 17.3% strikeout rate.
Mize hasn’t missed many bats and gave up a lot of hard contact last season. He’s still sitting in the 95-96 MPH range with his fastball, but none of his top four offerings (four-seam, slider, splitter, sinker) got especially strong results last year. It looks like he’s trending towards a fifth/sixth starter role. Mize still has a full slate of options, but he’s 61 days away from reaching five years of service time. At that point, he cannot be sent to the minors without his approval. He’s making $2.34MM and under arbitration control for another year beyond this one.
The Tigers inked Maeda to a two-year, $24MM free agent deal last winter. It looked like a good value at the time, but the veteran righty had a terrible first season in the Motor City. Maeda allowed more than six earned runs per nine across 112 1/3 innings. He struck out just 19.8% of batters faced, a huge drop from the 27.3% mark he’d posted during his final season with the Twins. His home run rate climbed for the fourth consecutive season.
Maeda lost his rotation spot last July. He worked in long relief until the final weekend of the season, when he picked up a spot start after Detroit had punched its postseason ticket. Detroit left him off their playoff rosters. While Maeda was essentially a non-factor by season’s end, president of baseball operations Scott Harris said early in the offseason that the Tigers would give him another chance to earn a rotation spot out of camp. The Tigers kept him on the roster all offseason, suggesting they’re still holding out some hope that they’ll get something positive from what’ll be a $10MM investment this year. Maeda can’t be sent to the minors, so if he doesn’t win a rotation spot, he’ll either head back to long relief or be a release candidate.
A seventh-round pick in 2021, Hurter made his MLB debut last August. The 6’6″ lefty came out of the bullpen for all but one of his 10 appearances. He averaged 4.5 innings per appearance, though, so he was more or less operating as a bulk arm who generally followed an opener. Hurter had a strong debut, pitching to a 2.58 earned run average through 45 1/3 frames. He struck out 21.7% of batters faced against a 3.4% walk rate while getting grounders at an excellent 53.1% clip.
Hurter leans most heavily on a sinker that sits in the 92 MPH range. That pitch gets a lot of grounders but rarely misses bats. He showed more swing-and-miss potential with a low-80s breaking ball. Hurter recorded a lot of strikeouts up through Double-A. Hitters started putting the ball in play much more frequently at the top minor league level. There’s volatility with that approach, which is demonstrated by the 5.80 ERA which Hurter posted across 19 Triple-A appearances (18 starts). The Tigers could have some questions about his arsenal would play against right-handed hitters, in particular, if he works as a traditional starter.
Detroit added Montero to their 40-man roster during the 2023-24 offseason. They called him up for the first time late last May. The 24-year-old righty took the ball 19 times (including 16 starts) and worked 98 1/3 innings of 4.76 ERA ball as a rookie. The underlying marks weren’t great. His 18.7% strikeout rate and 9.4% swinging strike percentage were each a few points below average. He surrendered more than 1.7 home runs per nine innings. Montero’s 7.5% walk rate was fine and his fastball sat in the 94-95 MPH range, but his rookie year was mostly a struggle.
Montero has missed more bats in his minor league career, albeit with shakier control than he showed in his MLB action. He struck out 24.1% of opponents across 13 Triple-A starts. A walk rate north of 13% contributed to an unimpressive 5.03 ERA over 48 1/3 frames. Montero still has two option years and can bounce between Detroit and Toledo. While he has been a starter throughout his professional career, perhaps there’d be some intrigue in seeing how his stuff plays in a relief role.
Manning, 27, is another former top 10 pick and top prospect in this mix. The 6’6″ righty has made 50 career starts over the past four seasons. He carries a 4.43 ERA across 254 innings. As with Mize, he has shown decent control but struggled to miss bats (16.4% strikeout rate). Manning fell fairly far down the depth chart last season. He only made five major league appearances while taking the ball 15 times for Toledo. He posted a 4.28 ERA while striking out a quarter of batters faced over 69 1/3 minor league innings. He battled a lat injury in the second half and was sidelined from around the All-Star Break until the middle of September.
This will be Manning’s final option year if he spends at least 20 days in the minors. He’s on track to qualify for arbitration next winter. It’s approaching make-or-break territory if he’s going to carve out a significant role in Detroit.
Madden reached the majors for the first time last August. The Texas product had a limited role as a rookie. He pitched to a 4.30 earned run average with a 16.8% strikeout rate across 23 innings. Madden missed a lot more bats in the minors, where he punched out 28.3% of opposing hitters over 22 starts. That was about the only positive from his minor league numbers, though. Madden allowed nearly seven earned runs per nine. He gave up way too many home runs and walked nearly 10% of batters faced.
Baseball America ranked Madden as the #18 prospect in the Detroit system this winter. The outlet writes that his four-pitch mix and command are fringy. The stuff has been good enough to get whiffs against minor league hitters, but he’s probably ticketed for Triple-A to begin the season.
My guess is that Jobe and Mize make the rotation, Maeda reprises his relief role from the 2nd half of last year and the others settle in as relief in the bullpen or depth at Triple A, depending on how the rest of Spring Training goes. Alas, Manning seems destined to be depth until he either puts it all together or injury gives him a new chance in the bigs. Mize appears to be focused on true improvement this year and like Skubal has 2 more years left before free agency. It’s in the Tigers best interest to give him an opportunity in a big league rotation, even if it means keeping Maeda in the bullpen.
I’d say start with Mize and see how he does.
I’d call the Cardinals and work a deal out for Fedde.
It’s becoming obvious that Jobe and Maeda are going to get every chance to win those two spots. Maeda is light years ahead of where he was at this time last season preparation-wise, and if he makes one more solid start, I think he’s a lock. Jobe has been getting rave reviews about the pitches he’s refined/added so we’ll see how he looks in a game this week.
Mize looked decent on Sun but will probably need one of the aforementioned to falter in order to win a spot out of camp. He will be the first one called up to spot-start when someone gets injured.
Keider can still use some fine-tuning in Toledo but he’ll get plenty of opportunities this season, whether it’s starting games or coming out of the pen.
Manning – who knows? He looked pretty bad in his first start and I definitely don’t see him making the team out of camp. There are a couple guys who probably have moved ahead of him in the pecking order at this point (Hurter, Madden). There have been talks about giving him a bullpen spot, but I think he’d be better off getting a fresh start with a new team.
And let’s not forget that Gipson-Long is pitching bullpens and might be ready by late Apr/May.
2nd year back from TJ suggests we could see the better Mize this year – low 4-ERA, 22.5%K rate, 22 starts… worth a Buck gamble IMO
At first glance, I was hoping the Tigers had an up-and-coming pitching prospect named ‘Camp Battle’.
You would think Mize Maeda and Manning would have first shots at it…..or someone else whom you consider tradable.
Jobe is almost certainly going to Toledo to start the season.
Mize gets a shot at starting.
Maeda probably gets a shot at starting too. It would probably take a major injury for them to eat that $10 million.
I think Hurter has great potential, I hope there’s room for him.
Seems like they don’t have much faith in Hanifee or Gunther repeating their success of ‘24.