The Tigers expected to enter Spring Training with four rotation spots secured. surprisingly quiet market allowed Detroit to reinstall him as the #2 starter behind . Righty filled that role down the stretch last year after the Tigers traded Flaherty to Los Angeles. Free agent signee wouldve had a mid-rotation role in his own right. It didnt take long for an injury to intervene. Cobb is battling inflammation in his right hip, which is likely to lead to a season-opening injured list stint. Its an alarming start to his Detroit tenure, as the veteran righty mi sed a good portion of last year rehabbing a 2023 labrum repair in his opposite hip. What had been a camp battle for one spot expands to a competition for two vacancies. Detroit has a handful of recognizable names including a few one-time top prospects who are still looking to establish themselves in the mix for those jobs behind the Skubal/Flaherty/Olson top three. Aside from , the 22-year-old Jobe may currently be the sports most talented pitching prospect. , , and each placed him as their #2 pitching prospect. ranks Jobe as the #1 pitching prospect Law excluded Sasaki from his ranking based on the latters NPB experience while had Jobe behind Sasaki and . Evaluators agree that Jobe has top-of-the-rotation ceiling. Hes the most exciting player in this group, but hes far from a lock to break camp. The 62 rightys MLB experience consists of four relief appearances two apiece in the regular season and playoffs last fall. He has started all of two Triple-A games. Jobe spent most of last season at Double-A Erie, where he turned in a 2.36 ERA with a 27% strikeout rate but walked nearly 13% of opposing hitters. He mi sed two months because of a hamstring strain. Last years 91 2/3 innings neverthele s represented the most hes thrown in a profe sional season. Even if he breaks camp, hes unlikely to make 30+ starts and top 150 innings. The Tigers surely dont want to burn him out early in the year. Jobe still has a full slate of options and could begin the year with Triple-A Toledo. The first overall pick in 2018, Mize is now a few seasons removed from being one of the games top pitching prospects. The 27-year-olds body of work has been decent but underwhelming relative to expectations. Mize pitched to a 3.71 ERA over 30 starts in 2021, his first full season. Tommy John surgery e sentially cost him the next two years. The Auburn product returned to action with a 4.49 ERA acro s 102 1/3 frames last year. He showed plus control and got a lot of ground-balls but managed only a 17.3% strikeout rate. Mize hasnt mi sed many bats and gave up a lot of hard contact last season. Hes still sitting in the 95-96 MPH range with his fastball, but none of his top four offerings (four-seam, slider, splitter, sinker) got especially strong results last year. It looks like hes trending towards a fifth/sixth starter role. Mize still has a full slate of options, but hes 61 days away from reaching five years of service time. At that point, he cannot be sent to the minors without his approval. Hes making $2.34MM and under arbitration control for another year beyond this one. The Tigers inked Maeda to a two-year, $24MM free agent deal last winter. It looked like a good value at the time, but the veteran righty had a terrible first season in the Motor City. Maeda allowed more than six earned runs per nine acro s 112 1/3 innings. He struck out just 19.8% of batters faced, a huge drop from the 27.3% mark hed posted during his final season with the Twins. His home run rate climbed for the fourth consecutive season. Maeda lost his rotation spot last July. He worked in long relief T.J. McConnell Jersey until the final weekend of the season, when he picked up a spot start after Detroit had punched its postseason ticket. Detroit left him off their playoff rosters. While Maeda was e sentially a non-factor by seasons end, president of baseball operations Scott Harris said early in the offseason that the Tigers would give him to earn a rotation spot out of camp. The Tigers kept him on the roster all offseason, suggesting theyre still holding out some hope that theyll get something positive from whatll be a $10MM investment this year. Maeda cant be sent to the minors, so if he doesnt win a rotation spot, hell either head back to long relief or be a release candidate. A seventh-round pick in 2021, Hurter made his MLB debut last August. The 66 lefty came out of the bullpen for all but one of his 10 appearances. He averaged 4.5 innings per appearance, though, so he was more or le s operating as a bulk arm who generally followed an opener. Hurter had a strong debut, pitching to a 2.58 earned run average through 45 1/3 frames. He struck out 21.7% of batters faced against a 3.4% walk rate while getting grounders at an excellent 53.1% clip. Hurter leans most heavily on a sinker that sits in the 92 MPH range. That pitch gets a lot of grounders but rarely mi ses bats. He showed more swing-and-mi s potential with a low-80s breaking ball. Hurter recorded a lot of strikeouts up through Double-A. Hitters started putting the ball in play much more frequently at the top minor league level. Theres volatility with that approach, which is demonstrated by the 5.80 ERA which Hurter posted acro s 19 Triple-A appearances (18 starts). The Tigers could have some questions about how his arsenal would play against right-handed hitters, in particular, if he works as a traditional starter. Detroit added Montero to their 40-man roster during the 2023-24 offseason. They called him up for the first time late last May. The 24-year-old righty took the ball 19 times (including 16 starts) and worked 98 1/3 innings of 4.76 ERA ball as a rookie. The underlying marks werent great. His 18.7% strikeout rate and 9.4% swinging strike percentage were each a few points below average. He surrendered more than 1.7 home runs per nine innings. Monteros 7.5% walk rate was fine and his fastball sat in the 94-95 MPH range, but his rookie year was mostly a struggle. Montero has mi sed more bats in his minor league career, albeit with shakier control than he showed in his MLB action. He struck out 24.1% of opponents acro s 13 Triple-A starts. A walk rate north of 13% contributed to an unimpre sive 5.03 ERA over 48 1/3 frames. Montero still has two option years and can bounce between Detroit and Toledo. While he has been a starter throughout his profe sional career, perhaps thered be some intrigue in seeing how his stuff plays in a relief role. Manning, 27, is another former top 10 pick and top prospect in this mix. The 66 righty has made 50 career starts over the past four seasons. He carries a 4.43 ERA acro s 254 innings. As with Mize, he has shown decent control but struggled to mi s bats (16.4% strikeout rate). Manning fell fairly far down the depth chart last season. He only made five major league appearances while taking the ball 15 times for Toledo. He posted a 4.28 ERA while striking out a quarter of batters faced over 69 1/3 minor league innings. He battled a lat injury in the second half and was sidelined from around the All-Star Break until the middle of September. This will be Mannings final option year if he spends at least 20 days in the minors. Hes on track to qualify for arbitration next winter. Its approaching make-or-break territory if hes going to carve out a significant role in Detroit. Madden reached the majors for the first time last August. The Texas product had a limited role as a rookie. He pitched to a 4.30 earned run average with a 16.8% strikeout rate acro s 23 innings. Madden mi sed a lot more bats in the minors, where he punched out 28.3% of opposing hitters over 22 starts. That was about the only positive from his minor league numbers, though. Madden allowed nearly seven earned runs per nine. He gave up way too many home runs and walked nearly 10% of batters faced. Baseball America ranked Madden as the #18 prospect in the Detroit system this winter. The outlet writes that his four-pitch mix and command are fringy. The stuff has been good enough to get whiffs against minor league hitters, but hes probably ticketed for Triple-A to begin the season. Doug McDermott Jersey