The Oklahoma righty throws hard and is a longer term project than your average SEC righty.
In the second round of the 2025 MLB Draft , the Detroit Tigers selected Malachi Witherspoon, a right-handed pitcher from the University of Oklahoma.
This is their third pick of the evening, having selected Jordan Yost in the 1st round and Michael Oliveto in Competitive Balance Round A. Witherspoon’s main claim to fame is being the twin brother to Kyson Witherspoon, who was drafted 15th overall by Boston.
Like his brother, this Witherspoon is a big, strong, hard-throwing righty from Oklahoma’s rotation. He stands 6’3 and is listed over 200 pounds, which he uses to sit in the upper-90s with his fastball. A low arm slot and good extension should help the pitch play up, but things didn’t work out that way in college, as his ERA was over 5.00 in both seasons at Oklahoma. Scattershot command and bad shape on his fastball hurt, as did the lack of any consistent secondary offering.
At times, both his high-80s slider and his more vertical, low-80s curveball have shown promise and flashed plus, but he didn’t throw either with any real consistency as a starter, and his rarely-used changeup left him open to punishment from SEC lefties.
All of his pitches are undermined by poor command, likely brought on by his struggles to repeat his delivery. It’s awfully hard to know where the pitch is going if he rarely knows where it starts from.
MLB.com rated Witherspoon as the 121st player on their board; FanGraphs had him at 98. Detroit selected Witherspoon 62nd overall, so clearly they see traits they like here. It’s also likely he signs for under the $1.45M slot bonus attached to the pick.
Obviously, the velocity stands out, and the Tigers have excelled at remaking deliveries to be more efficient and effective, so there’s hope he can smooth out the command issues and fix the shape of his fastball. Detroit’s also been successful in identifying which change-up or offspeed hybrid pitch, such as a splitter, a spike change, or a seam-shifted wake change-up, is best suited for a pitcher.
Hopefully, they’ll be able to remold Witherspoon. He’s reasonably short on innings since he came out of Oklahoma’s bullpen in 2024, too, so there’s a bit more projection here than is typical for a mid-round college arm.
With the Tigers being short on impact pitching in their system right now, the hope is clearly for Witherspoon to add some much-needed oomph. He’s likely to be a slower burn than usual out of the college ranks, but if the tweaks they have in mind come to fruition, there’s a solid payoff down the line.