To the D, or not the D, that is the question.
Will Jackson Jobe break camp with the Tigers?
Or will the top pitching prospect in baseball begin the season in Toledo?
With opening day a little more than a week away — the Tigers get going March 27 at Dodger Stadium, the Mud Hens the next day at Fifth Third Field — count me here for the forthcoming takes as sizzling as Jobe’s 102-mph fastball.
Mine: The Tigers can’t go wrong.
Sorry.
I know that’s not the answer fans want in a debate as compelling as it is complicated, given the long-term implications of the next few weeks.
If Jobe starts with the Hens, it will be easy to call the Tigers an unserious organization — to suggest they are more worried about playing games than winning them.
All they have to do is keep the 22-year-old fire thrower on ice in Toledo until April 16 and — should their best-laid plans come to pass — they would get an extra year of their phenom at the peak of his superstar prime. (If Jobe accrues less than 166 days of MLB service time in 2025, he will be eligible for free agency after the 2031 season instead of 2030.)
A cynic might accuse the Tigers of manipulating his clock.
But …
I am in a charitable mood, and, truthfully, the Tigers face two good choices.
If their ace in training is ready to deliver in Detroit, they have every reason to slot him right into the big-league rotation. They’re built to win now and — because of a new incentive program that rewards clubs for promoting their top prospects at the start of the season — expediting Jobe could help them later, too.
If Jobe needs just a little more work, a few more weeks of finishing school in Toledo makes perfect sense.
My mind is as wide open as this year’s AL Central.
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To quickly reset, here’s the deal: The Tigers have three starters locked into the rotation — reigning Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, and Reese Olson — leaving the final two spots for the taking. Jobe is among the four candidates, along with Kenta Maeda, Casey Mize, and Keider Montero.
The case for Jobe as the opening day starter in Toledo is … well, PRETTY PLEASE, TIGERS! WE WANT TO SEE HIM!
Also, yes, he needs more polish.
The third pick of the 2021 draft has just six appearances above the Double-A level — two uneven starts at Toledo, four relief outings in Detroit — and his stuff continues to look better than it plays.
Jobe has an A-plus-plus repertory of pitches — beginning with that triple-digit heat and a destructive slider — and the confidence to match.
“I’m done with trying to dot a gnat’s [butt],” Jobe told reporters this month. “Here’s my stuff. If you hit it, great. Odds are, you’re probably not.”
The hangup: They are hitting it.
While Jobe has a 3.65 ERA in four spring training starts, his whiff rate is just 17.1 percent, mirroring his struggles to miss bats in Toledo and Detroit last year, too. He induced three misses on 28 swings against the Yankees last week, allowing three hits — two of them homers — in 3⅔ innings. (The average major-league whiff rate last year: 25.1 percent.)
Jobe could use a little time to hone his control with the birds in Toledo before migrating up I-75.
On the other hand …
His stuff really is that electric — “I don’t even want to watch,” Skubal said on a recent podcast, “because it’s better than mine” — and it feels like only a matter of time before he puts it all together.
Not for nothing is he among the Vegas favorites to win AL Rookie of the Year. Jobe has plus-850 odds on FanDuel, trailing only New York’s Jasson Dominguez (+350) and Boston’s Kristian Campbell (+550) and Roman Anthony (+750).
What’s more, if the Tigers are similarly confident Jobe will be in that conversation, they now have every reason to start him off in Motown.
Where teams used to squirrel away major league-ready prospects in the minors for a few weeks to retain an extra year of team control, the latest collective bargaining agreement features the Prospect Promotion Incentive program — a carrot meant to discourage clubs from engaging in service-time shenanigans with their top young stars.
All you need to know: The Tigers would earn a compensatory extra draft pick after the first round if Jobe is Rookie of the Year or places in the top three of Cy Young voting within the next three seasons … but only if Jobe earns a full year of service time in ‘25.
As a cautionary tale, they might look to the Pirates. Paul Skenes won the NL Rookie of the Year award last season, but Pittsburgh didn’t get the draft pick because it kept its pitching sensation in the minors until May. Oh, and Skenes earned the full year of service time anyway on account of his rookie honors.
My guess is Jobe will begin in Detroit, but every case is unique.
In this one, I suspect the Tigers will get it right, because it will be hard to go wrong.
First Published March 19, 2025, 7:30 p.m.
