Jackson Jobe and Casey Mize round out the final two spots.
On Saturday morning, the Detroit Tigers finalized their starting rotation to begin the 2025 season. Top prospect Jackson Jobe and Casey Mize earned the final two spots behind Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, and Reese Olson. RHP Keider Montero has been optioned to Triple-A Toledo to begin the year.
The decisions on the rotation were pretty straightforward. Montero would’ve have to dominate and Jobe struggle for the former to snag the final spot. Instead both had solid camps, with Montero unable to make a strong case for himself over Jobe’s raw talent. Either way it’s a good sign if Keider Montero is your sixth or seventh best starter, depending on whether offseason free agent signing Alex Cobb can get back on the mound as he works to recover from hip surgery last season, you’re doing pretty well.
The fourth spot was already locked up. Casey Mize has outpitched everyone not named Tarik Skubal this spring, and his spot has seemed assured for weeks. The former 1-1 overall pick has returned from Tommy John surgery with an amped up fastball, and this spring has finally found the handle on his secondary pitches. His splitter has been hugely improved, looking like a true weapon for the first time in his major league career.
Meanwhile, Jackson Jobe, the Tigers consensus top prospect and generally ranked as the top pitching prospect in baseball, had a solid enough spring to earn the last spot in the rotation. He’s still searching for the finer points of his command, and the strikeouts have still been a little harder to come by than his high powered, high spin stuff would lead one to expect. There just isn’t much he was going to learn against minor league hitters at this point.
Much better to turn him over to head pitching coach Chris Fetter and his staff from the start this season. The 22-year-old will need his workload monitored this year as he’s yet to top 100 innings in a season, but there’s no sense wasting his efforts on Triple-A games.
For his part, Montero has pretty outstanding stuff in his own right and he’s been a workhorse throughout his minor league career. His slider and knuckle curve are every bit Jobe’s equal, and the split-change he’s developed isn’t too far behind. He just has some of the same issues in terms of struggling to put hitters away at times and refining his command and he’s two years older.
Jobe’s bigger fastball is currently the major differentiator between the two, but the top prospect also packs a really good cutter and just has some extra dimensions to his game.
The Tigers already moved Kenta Maeda to the bullpen, and sent Matt Manning to minor league camp. We’ll see if Maeda is part of the plan to keep Jobe’s workload limited in the early part of the season. One would expect they’ll start Jobe like anyone else but keep a quicker hook in outings where he struggles through the middle innings. They probably won’t have a specific innings total in mind, but will be watching him like a hawk for signs of fatigue later this summer.
Left-handed pitching prospect Brant Hurter is another good depth starter, though his final role hasn’t yet been announced. They also have a good pitching prospect in RHP Troy Melton graduating to Triple-A Toledo this spring. Ty Madden, like Cobb, is likely to miss at least the first month of the regular season, but all in all, that’s a pretty good stockpile of pitching talent backing up the rotation.
In position player news, utilitymen Ryan Kreidler has also been optioned to minor league camp. Jahmai Jones has survived another round of cuts. There may be more announcements prior to the Tigers leaving for the west coast on Sunday evening. The final bullpen spot is still up for grabs, as is the fate of Justyn-Henry Malloy. Spencer Torkelson appears to have a spot on the active roster locked up.