Melton had a quieter season in 2024 but remains one of the Tigers’ top pitching prospects.
Jackson Jobe stayed atop the prospect rankings in 2024, and Jaden Hamm was the breakout pitcher of the year in the system, but don’t forget about right-hander Troy Melton. After a major breakout season in 2023, Melton had a quieter year tackling the Double-A level, but there is still plenty to like in his game. If he can make a little more progress this year, he could be on the doorstep of his first call-up by August or September.
The Tigers drafted Melton with their fourth round pick in 2022, which was Al Avila and Scott Pleis’ final draft running the team. Melton wasn’t that well heralded coming out of San Diego State, but he had velocity and could spin the baseball. He made a ton of progress to leap up draft boards, and that growth was enough for the Tigers to pay him full slot value.
Melton got out to a rocky start, but quickly started to dominate for Low-A Lakeland in 2023. The Tigers moved him up to High-A West Michigan by May and there he was absolutely overpowering all season long. He threw a ton of strikes, and was almost never hit hard en route to a 2.48 ERA/2.95 FIP combination. Melton was still fairly raw, but he was very impressive at his best. He was topping out at 99 mph, issuing very few walks, and High-A hitters could not square him up much at all.
The 2024 season at Double-A wasn’t quite the next step forward as hoped. Melton had some struggles pitching in traffic, had a rough patch in the home run department, and was eventually shut down in late August with a strained right shoulder. Still, he struck out 27.7 percent of hitters, and walked just seven percent. The talent level remains high, and he was able to improve his secondary pitches along the way.
On the other hand, while Melton continued to pound the zone with fastballs and limit free passes, he struggled at times with runners on the basepaths. His changeup is a pretty good weapon for him, but the breaking stuff is still inconsistent and he’ll occasional spike some sliders and give in and fall back too much on trying to blow hitters away. There is a lot of potential here. We expect a bounceback season in 2025, but there is enough relief risk present to keep him at a 45 future value grade for the moment.
Beyond the velocity and spin rates, one of the reason I’ve been pretty high on Melton is his rapid transformation since the start of his junior year of college in 2022 to today. He wasn’t even thinking about pitching until his senior year of high school made it clear that a career as a catcher was not in his future. After a tryout, he walked on at San Diego State as a freshman, and was still extremely raw as a pitcher over the next few season even as the velocity improved and he starting punching a lot of tickets.
In pitching years, he’s younger than his age, having just turned 24 in December. Melton tore up High-A in his first pro season, and the trajectory was impressive. He handled Double-A decently in his second pro season, but the progress was more incremental and he did get hit hard in too many outings considering the raw stuff he’s working with. So, the orientation turns from mildly optimistic about his chances to hold down a rotation spot in the major leagues to more neutral this preseason.
Early in Melton’s college career, his delivery was a messy, unbalanced, long-armed affair. Major refinements didn’t really occur until his junior year in 2022, but when they did Melton’s velocity and draft stock began rising rapidly. His coaches got him taking the ball straight back out of the glove to load and fire without a pronounced arm path. With that more modern arm position, Melton added velocity, vertical movement, deception, and better command by using his body more effectively and keeping his armstroke simple and compact. Suddenly his fastball was popping and scouts were taking notice.
Even after those adjustments in college, he still tended to tilt his upper body back toward second base a lot as he wound up. The Tigers got him into a simpler position where he holds his posture consistently and continued the work to keep his arm folded with a shorter stroke to deliver the ball, rather than winding through a long arm path. They’ve also helped him drive down the mound more effectively to build extension and take advantage of his long limbs. Add pro conditioning work, and the result is a powerful and compact delivery that produces good extension, a better heater overall, and better command as well.
These are opposite angles in the clips below, but even from early 2022 in his draft year with the Aztecs, when he was already implementing much of this, to High-A with the Whitecaps in 2023 in the lower clip, there are pronounced differences.
Troy Melton has a lot going for him on the mound. Not only has he been up into triple digits with his fourseam fastball, but he boasts pretty high spin rates on both the fastball and his breaking ball. He also packs a solid changeup that flashes plus, and he doesn’t issue many walks. There’s plenty to like.
Consistently commanding his stuff is still a bit of a work in progress though. When he’s on he gets quality riding life to the top of the zone and whiffs on both his changeup and slider. However he still has days where he struggles to locate the slider in particular, and will fall back on the fastball too much under duress. Melton got it going and started making pretty good adjustments on that front last summer, but then blew up again in August. We can possibly attribute some of that to fatigue leading up to the shoulder injury, but either way he wasn’t able to convincingly take the next step.
Melton’s fastball typically gets good vertical movement with some run and is very effective at the top of the zone. He can comfortably sit 95-96 mph in his starts, and he can reach back for 98-99 mph. He topped out at 101 mph in spring camp back in 2023, quickly getting himself on the radar before he’d pitched above Low-A. Still, that was a rare occurrence of triple digits for him. He throws plenty hard enough anyway.
Where he needs work with the fastball is in commanding it better to both sides of the plate without losing that good life. Too many at-bats featured Melton peppering the top of the zone with fastballs that were fouled off or lined somewhere when he was ahead in the count. A little more artistry to tie hitters up and then get them chasing away would be helpful. Perhaps more than anything else, he just needs to develop more confidence in his secondary pitches rather than leaning too much on the fastball when he’s in a tight spot.
The major work in progress in terms of pure stuff remains focused on his slider. That pitch is typically 85-86 mph with tight spin and good depth, but he’s still working to command it consistently. Less often used is a curveball at 79-80 mph that has good 12-6 action but remains more of a pitch to steal strikes with rather than a whiff generator.
The slider, which Melton has referred to as a cutter in the past, was a new pitch for him in 2023. It’s a solid weapon for him now, but it took time to improve his consistency. He will still struggle to command it occasionally, sometimes with dire consequences. More to the point though perhaps is the fact that it’s a really good looking pitch in isolation and does gets it’s share of whiffs, but it doesn’t seem to play off the fastball nearly as well as the changeup. Sharpening that pitch is a big key for him this season as he looks to move up to the Triple-A level. I’d love to see him throwing a bit harder and tighter version this spring. Either way, if Melton can sharpen his command of the slider a little more he’s going to be in good shape and will probably move through Triple-A without too much difficulty.
The equalizer for Melton is a pretty good changeup that gives him a solid starter’s arsenal. He sells it pretty well and his extension and delivery help make it tough to pick up out of his hand. It’s sometimes a little firm, but he gets whiffs with it and often has more confidence in it than the slider. The action is pretty standard fading changeup fare, but when he’s got command of both the fourseamer and the changeup he is a big problem for even good Double-A hitters. That pitch continues to mitigate the relief risk in his profile.
In his favor is the fact that Melton throws a lot of strikes and has kept his walk rates low the past two seasons. He had a stretch from mid-May to the beginning of June in which he gave up seven home runs in 12 innings of work spanning four starts. In two of those outings his pitch counts were up and the Tigers pulled him before he could get through two innings. That little stretch really hurt his numbers in the HR/9 category in particular. By July, he was commanding the slider more effectively and mixing things up better and the whiffs started piling up for him. Unfortunately, his numbers took a hit again in early August and the Tigers eventually shut him down at the end of the month with a right shoulder strain.
After so much progress in 2022-2023, a year of trying to refine his game while taking some lumps from tougher competition wasn’t too surprising. Melton’s breaking stuff did improve and the whiffs started piling up for him as the year went on. However, he still had stretches where his command wasn’t sharp and he fell back into trying to overpower hitters with the fastball. A portion of that is more about about composure with runners on base than anything physical. Melton would often cruise for long stretches of his starts only to blow up for a few runs when opponents got some traffic on the basepaths.
2025 Outlook
Because Melton finished with an injury and could use some more refinement, a tune-up trip back to Double-A Erie may be in order to start the season. After throwing 92 innings in 2023, he managed 100 2⁄3 innings in 2024, but pretty clearly ran out of gas late in the season. His assignment will probably just depend on how he looks in March. So there are still some key questions for him to answer this year, and his prospect status as a potential starting pitcher did take a hit in some quarters.
Melton should get another full season starting. He’s got plenty of stuff and enough control to believe he’ll start putting it together more consistently this season. The Tigers may well have a good mid-rotation starter here eventually. I’m still fairly optimistic about his chances. And obviously he’s got the stuff to be a good high leverage reliever if he can’t take the next step as a starting pitcher. We’re very interested to see him in spring camp. It wouldn’t take much improvement for his stock to soar with a strong showing in Lakeland.