Detroit’s top pitching prospect is coming up to start on Wednesday. His long-term role this season is still up for debate.
Troy Melton, welcome to Detroit. On Monday afternoon, it was announced that the top pitching prospect in the system is joining the Detroit Tigers rotation. The 24-year-old, currently the Tigers’ top pitching prospect, will make his debut on Wednesday against Pittsburgh.
For now, Melton will slot into the rotation, and his long-term role in the majors is likely as a starting pitcher, but expect him to work in a flexible role for now as he adapts to the major league and works to refine his game with Chris Fetter and his staff. If he shows well enough, he’ll mix into both a six-man rotation and the bullpen down the stretch and into October.
Melton is a tall, hard-throwing righty who exploded onto the prospect scene in 2023, had a quiet, but still good 2024, and has been spectacular again in 2025. The 2022 5th rounder out of San Jose State always had the raw tools to be successful, but has made substantial upgrades to his delivery and pitch mix since turning pro.
Now, he features almost 7 feet of extension, a fastball that sits around 96 and regularly touches 98+ mph, a hard cutter that comes in close to 90mph, and then a slider and a power changeup. To top it off, Melton pounds the strike zone, posting a 66% strike rate in Toledo this year. Even better, he’s rapidly learning how to turn premium stuff into strikeouts against top-tier competition.
Over the last two years, Melton has really only been prone to the occasional blowup as he’s gotten used to the adjustments he and the Tigers have made in his pitching mechanics and his stuff. He has consistently posted strikeout rates above 27% and walk rates in the 6-7% range, making it tough for opposing lineups to stack things together.
Occasional misses and poor pitch selection, along with a friendly home park for home runs, had him homer-prone in 2024, but even that’s been reversed so far in 2025. The main fly in Melton’s ointment is a classic with young pitchers: an innings limit. Melton threw 65.1 innings in 2023, then 100.2 last year, and is already up to 75.1 in 2025. Realistically, that means he’s looking at 130-140 innings as a ceiling this year, so he only has about 60 or so remaining.
That’s probably enough to be an opening-style starter this year, and for the moment, it makes sense to bring him up and let him work as a starter as the Tigers’ staff helps him with some further refinements. However, once he’s gotten some starts and gotten a little more comfortable at the major league level, the Tigers will be better off putting him in the bullpen and letting him eat every couple of games to get ready for the role he’s set up best for in late September and hopefully into October.
In either role, he’ll work with Chris Fetter to improve the changeup and make some other minor tune-ups, but right now, he’s about as major league ready as a pitching prospect can be. Now, Detroit gets to a 10-day trial before the trade deadline to see what they have and how much they think they’ll be able to get from him the rest of the season.
If he adapts quickly to the major leagues, Melton could easily join the leverage relief corps. We already saw AJ Hinch bet on a rookie’s overpowering stuff with Jackson Jobe last year, and Melton could have months of major league experience to Jobe’s weeks by the time October rolls around. Melton already has more impressive strikeout stuff than all of Detroit’s relievers than Will Vest, and Hinch and Fetter like Melton a lot and have been high on him since spring training.
By testing him out now, Harris can get a better idea of what Melton can bring, and thus, what to pursue at the deadline. A strong showing could let Harris use his ammo on one top arm instead of two medium-leverage ones, or even free up the resources to upgrade the lineup.
We already know they’re poking around the bullpen market, but starting deadline season with a difference-making arm from Toledo would be huge. For now, Melton will look to follow up a stellar stint at Toledo against major league hitters.