Tanner Kohlhepp brought the funk on Wednesday

The Tigers reliever has struggled to run through the minor leagues, but he continues to throw some of the sickest stuff in the system.

The month of July will mark right-handed reliever Tanner Kohlhepp’s fourth year as a professional. Most fans of the Detroit Tigers don’t know his name, yet he’s one of those pitchers with such outlier stuff that if he finally overcomes the injuries and inconsistency to just a modest degree, he could be a household name very swiftly. That makes him interesting, even as something of a longshot at this point.

The Tigers selected Kohlhepp with the third pick in the fifth round of the 2021 amateur draft out of Notre Dame . He received the standard slot bonus, and from the beginning it was easy to see why the Tigers were so high on a college reliever. The right-hander was a rare model with three potential plus pitches. Kohlhepp’s snappy, low arm slot delivery produced a twoseamer with enormous tailing action, occasionally running it up to 99-100 mph. He packed a pretty nasty slider and a developing unicorn of a changeup that was already a factor for him against left-handers.

Trouble struck almost immediately, as Kohlhepp tore his UCL in extended spring training in 2022. He was out for a year and a half without ever pitching in a regular season professional game. Fortunately, things went as well as could be hoped with the surgery and subsequent rehabilitation. He was finally back on the mound in late June of 2023. While he was wild at times, he also punched out a whopping 35.1 percent of the Low-A hitters he faced with the Lakeland Flying Tigers.

Finally in 2024, he completed his first full season, striking out 78 hitters in 61 ¹⁄₃ innings of work for the West Michigan Whitecaps. That was a big step and allowed him to start making progress on tuning up his stuff, while his improved conditioning showed in more consistent shapes and strike throwing overall. He issued too many free passes, but he only gave up two home runs along the way and there was minimal hard contact in the air. In fact, Kohlhepp has only allowed those two home runs total in his 85 total innings pitched.

Finally, with a full season of work and a healthy offseason behind him for the first time as a pro, this is a decisive year for Tanner Kohlhepp. As he showed in his inning of work on Wednesday against the Twins, the stuff is still fairly ludicrous. We haven’t even discussed his freakshow of a changeup yet. If you’re betting on which Tigers minor leaguer will emerge to help in the second half, he’s a solid under the radar bet. And if they get a little lucky, he’ll take a big step with his command and they’ll have a heck of a late inning reliever.

Kohlhepp stands six-foot-four, weighing 210 pounds officially. He’s been known to hit 98 mph and occasionally beyond, but more typically he’s 95-97 mph with a little extra in the tank. He throws hard, and while he doesn’t get good extension from his short delivery, he can really spin the twoseamer with a lot of horizontal run and it is really hard to barrel up. He gets his share of whiffs, but there are also a lot of ground balls off the heater.

He backs that with a tight 86-87 mph slider, which registers as a cutter out of that arm slot. The more slider-ish version has plenty of depth and he can also shorten it up into a firmer, cutter style pitch with smaller break to spot strikes down on the gloveside edge. Kohlhepp’s snappy, low three-quarters release adds deception and plenty of horizontal movement to his twoseamer, and his closed off setup and quick arm give him a little added deception as well.

The changeup is just a bit of an alien pitch. Kohlhepp can really put a ton of sidespin on the baseball from his release angle, and in the case of the changeup it creates something pretty close to a screwball, with a lot of horizontal movement and the bite of a slider as opposed to the usual fading action on most circle changeups. Most pitchers are trying to kill spin on offspeed pitches, while Kohlhepp posted an eye-popping average of 2844 rpms at 88 mph on Wednesday in his inning against the Twins.

For reference, the highest average spin rate for a changeup in the major league last season was Devin Williams 2720 rpms. Williams “airbender” has baffled hitters and made him one of the more valuable relievers in the league over the past five seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers . He was dealt to the Yankees this winter.

If Kohlhepp just had his fastball and slider, he’d be a nice bullpen prospect. The changeup gives him another layer of possibility to become a heck of a weapon. The issue is locating this stuff when everything moves this much. That the Tigers left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft last fall, and then no one selected him, illustrates both his relative inexperience having not left the A-ball levels behind yet, as well as the ongoing concern about his strike throwing.

Thanks to Tigers Minor League Report for getting some footage.

What might go underestimated, is that Kohlhepp isn’t just living on strikeouts. He collected a 50 percent ground ball rate in 2024, and as mentioned, has only given up two home runs total. You can wait for a walk, but other than the odd hanger, hitters do not drive the ball off of him, and his strikeout rates are plenty good enough for him to thrive even if the walk rate is a little high. It just can’t be this high, and he needs to cut down on the odd waste pitcher here and there. Upper level hitters are going to do more damage, and he can’t get away with quite so many walks.

2025 Outlook

Presumably, Kohlhepp will start the season with Double-A Erie unless he’s just locked in all spring camp long. What he needs to do, is master the run on his fastball a little better and spot strikes to both sides of the plate. If he can do that, everything else will play off that just fine. He just needs to be more willing to come after hitters in the zone when he’s ahead. So far, hitters can’t do much of anything other than trying to grind out a walk. That will change as he tackles the upper levels this year, but we’d still be surprised if he was hit very hard.

After nearly four years as a pro, battling injury and trying to build himself back up, Kohlhepp is showing the Tigers’ coaching staff what he can do. If they can help him throw more strikes, Tanner Kohlhepp will see a lot more of the Tigers’ coaching staff in the future, perhaps as soon as this summer. There’s certainly risk that he’ll never command everything consistently enough, but for now he remains an interesting name to watch this year.