The timing seems a little peculiar now but hey we’ll take it.
The Detroit Tigers have promoted the game’s top pitching prospect, Jackson Jobe, to Triple-A Toledo. The Tigers Torkmoil account on Twitter was first to get wind of the promotion coming last night, and it was confirmed on Saturday afternoon by MLB Pipeline and the local beat writers.
The Toledo Mud Hens are headed to Omaha to take on the Storm Chasers in their second to last series of the season next week. After pitching on Thursday, Jobe could theoretically start in Tuesday’s series opener, but the Tigers will probably let him acclimate to his new club for an extra day at least, making a Triple-A debut more likely on Wednesday. That would set him up to pitch both Tuesday the 17th of September and Sunday the 22nd, both at home against Columbus, if they want to get him three more starts this season.
Jobe is currently at 82 2⁄3 innings pitched on the year, and the Tigers presumably had a goal of 100+ innings this season as they build him up to go 130 and more in 2025. A hamstring injury suffered at the beginning of May cost him about six weeks, making managing his innings pretty easy the rest of the way. Jobe only through 64 innings in 2023 after a lumbar strain delayed the start of his season, but his work in the Arizona Fall League got him over the 80 innings mark for the 2023 campaign overall.
Obviously, I’ve been openly wondering what they were waiting for in terms of Jobe’s promotion for the past two months. Apparently they wanted to see a start like his seven inning dominance of the Reading Fightin Phils, the Phillies Double-A affiliate, on Thursday (video below). Jobe punched eight tickets and went seven innings for the first time in his career. In that start he allowed a run on three hits and two walks, but even there, two of the hits were weak contact that his defense couldn’t handle.
We’ve noted for most of the year just how badly Jobe has been squeezed in most of his outings. His 12.7 percent walk rate seems as much about Double-A umpiring as anything to do with Jobe, who continues in start after start to attack the strike zone with extreme aggression. Only in a few recent outings was his struggling much with his control, and he’s sorted out that issue pretty quickly. His 27.1 percent strikeout rate is a little lower than his stuff would suggest it should be, and it will certainly be interesting to see how he fares under the challenge system at the Triple-A level. If the automatic balls/strikes system was still in use in half the games, it still would likely affect Jobe less than most, as he’s rarely getting any edge calls to begin with.
Jobe continues to fire good fourseam fastballs in at 95-96 mph with the ability to reach back for more, and even late in his outings he can pull out 98-99 mph as required. He hasn’t gotten as many whiffs on the heater as you’d like, and there’s been ongoing work to improve his extension and release angle incrementally over the past year. Part of the issue continues to be that Jobe doesn’t really have to set hitters up. He’s just pounding the zone relentlessly and without fear, and the two home runs he’s allowed this seasons say Double-A hitters, other than the elite prospects out there, have no real chance against him even when they are making some contact. It’s almost never good contact.
Jobe is working with his cutter quite a bit, giving him essentially a very hard slider in the low to mid-90’s. The flatter angle on that pitch has made it really tough on hitters compared to his actual slider, which has pretty insane break but still pops too obviously out of his hand at times. The really devastating offering in his repertoire this season has been a split-change he developed in 2023 that has now become a 70 grade weapon for him.
There is still work ahead to compose all these pitches in sequences that help them all play off one another to their best ability, but taken individually, Jobe arguably has four plus-plus offerings when he’s dialed in, and his misses are generally small. The Tigers have worked with him on his stride and lead leg block recently, and the tune-ups really all seemed to come together in his most recent outing.
It will now be up to Triple-A hitters to force him to command the whole package a little more consistently, but as I’ve been saying for months, Jobe is much further ahead than Reese Olson was when he was promoted, despite being a year younger. He would likely take an even quicker leap with major league defenders and catching around him, and the tutelage of Chris Fetter and his staff in his ear. We can hope for a start or two with the Tigers at the end of the season, but probably we’re going to have to wait until 2025 to see it. No doubt it will be worth the wait. Just keep that arm healthy.
This is a bit of a blow to the Erie SeaWolves playoff chances, and while that doesn’t matter a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, it’s somewhat funny to promote him now. He could’ve started three games for Erie, including potentially two postseason games, and then moved up to Detroit rather just getting 2-3 starts at the Triple-A level. When they declined to promote him as he dominated his way through June and July, allowing him to prepare and pitch in a “big game” or two relative to his level seemed the likeliest outcome for a fairly conservative front office. Instead, they’ve decided to give him a look at the next level and a more consistently experienced brand of hitter. We’re excited to see him conquer the next peak on his way to the major leagues.
Odds are it won’t take him very long.