Detroit Tigers Face Tough Rotation Decision After Top Prospect Struggles

The Detroit Tigers are officially less than two weeks away from the start of the season.

Entering spring training, much of the discussion surrounded what the team's plan was going to be in the starting rotation. With the only real locks being American League Cy Young winning ace Tarik Skubal, splash signing Jack Flaherty and high upside young right-hander Reese Olson, there were roughly four names to fill the out the final two spots.

After the team gave Alex Cobb a lucrative one-year deal, he looked to be a lock as well before unsurprisingly suffering an injury and now is out for Opening Day and potentially beyond.

The names vying for the final spots realistically include former No. 1 pick Casey Mize, a bust signing from last winter in Kenta Maeda and a surprise from down the stretch of 2024 in Keider Montero, but all eyes were understandably on top prospect Jackson Jobe.

Though he is just 22 years old, Jobe is seen as one of the most can't miss prospects in all of baseball. He made his debut at the end of last season and things went up and down, though the youngster entered camp seemingly having tuned some things up and ready to step into the starting rotation.

Through his first three starts of the spring, Jobe had posted an ERA of 3.12 and demonstrated some of his nasty stuff. While of course he was still very raw, no major hiccups indicated it would be in the best interest of the Tigers to throw him out there and let him learn on the job.

On Thursday however, Jobe had his worst game of the spring thus far and for the first time really dealt with a bump in the road, giving up three hits and two home runs with a walk to the New York Yankees, struggling with command en route to throwing 68 pitches in just 3.2 innings.

Perhaps most concerning was the fact that Jobe is just not generating enough swings and misses. With just three misses on 28 swings on Thursday and a 17.1% whiff rate in his 12.1 innings this spring, he falls well below the league average in that category.

Jobe's pitches weren't just being put in play, they were being hit hard as well with a high average exit velocity on the batted balls including a 450 foot home run from Paul Goldschmidt.

While it can be seen as just a regular old tough day, the overall performance from Jobe offers the first potential inkling of doubt this spring as to whether the righty is ready to go right from the jump this season.

Jobe has all the talent in the world and is going to be a factor at some point this season. But clearly having some things to work on along with strong springs from Mize and Montero, there is a case to be made to start him in Triple-A and letting him continue to develop.

On the other side of the coin, just as strong of an argument is that experience is the best teacher and Jobe should be allowed to figure it out while developing the big leagues.

Regardless of what Detroit decides to do, it's a much more difficult choice than it seemed to be even just a week ago and will be the main focus of discussion over the next 10 days or so until it's resolved.

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