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What Detroit Tigers rookie Jackson Jobe did this offseason to become even more unhittable
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- What Detroit Tigers rookie Jackson Jobe did this offseason to become even more unhittable
LAKELAND, Fla. — Detroit Tigers right-hander Jackson Jobe is about to embark on his rookie season.
The 22-year-old needs to earn his spot on the 2025 Opening Day roster in spring training, but the former No. 3 overall draft pick is already one of the favorites to win the Rookie of the Year Award in the American League.
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He made his MLB debut in late September 2024 .
"I'd love to win Rookie of the Year," Jobe told the Free Press on the Jan. 26 episode of the "Days of Roar" podcast . "I think we get an extra (draft) pick from that. It helps everyone if I win Rookie of the Year. That would definitely be something really cool to accomplish for my career, but I think winning a World Series would be cooler. Doing both would be pretty cool."
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Jobe added two pitches — curveball and two-seam fastball — to his pitch mix in the 2024-25 offseason at PitchingWRX in Oklahoma City while training under personal pitching coach Alex Marney . He now has six pitches: four-seam fastball, cutter, changeup, sweeper, curveball and two-seam fastball.
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He wants to generate more strikeouts.
From 2023-24, Jobe experienced a decrease in strikeout rate and increase in walk rate in the minor leagues. He had a 2.3% walk rate and 32.6% strikeout rate in 2023, followed by a 12% walk rate and a 25.6% strikeout rate in 2024.
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In 2024, Jobe ranked in the 90th percentile for reaching two strikes across all levels of the minors, only to rank in the 13th percentile in called-strike-plus-whiff rate in two-strike counts.
"I'm working on my two-strike execution," Jobe said.
Detroit Tigers pitcher Jackson Jobe (21) walks off the field after 2-1 win over Tampa Bay Raysat Comerica Park in Detroit on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024.
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Jobe struggled to miss bats throughout last season in two-strike counts.
"The sweeper is not really a swing-and-miss pitch anymore, at least for most guys," said Jobe, whose high-spin sweeper and high-velocity fastball made him a famous prospect at Heritage Hall High School in Oklahoma City. "I need something that's going to put guys away. That comes with me experimenting with the curveball to have that north and south approach playing off my four-seam while still having the east and west approach with the cutter that's really a slider and the changeup, as well as working on a two-seam."
Here's the attack plan: The four-seam fastball moves up (to both-handed hitters); the curveball moves down (to both-handed hitters); the cutter and sweeper move glove side (away from right-handed hitters); the changeup and two-seam fastball move arm side (away from left-handed hitters).
The curveball should help Jobe prevent hitters from sitting on his 97 mph four-seam fastball early in counts while generating late-count swing-and-miss, especially against lefties. His two-seam fastball — labeled a sinker — is a high-velocity pitch that should help him attack righties inside, making his four-seam fastball more effective against righties and setting up more late-count swing-and-miss against righties on the outer third of the zone.
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"I'm trying to add a little bit more depth to get more north and south to my arsenal because I have the carry four-seam," Jobe said. "If I have something with a little bit more depth, like a curveball, then I think that might play a little better."
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Jobe completed 95⅔ innings across 23 games (21 starts) at four levels in the 2024 season: three starts in High-A West Michigan, 16 starts in Double-A Erie, two starts in Triple-A Toledo and two relief appearances in MLB. He had below-average whiff rates in Triple-A (20.2%) and MLB (9.5%), though both came in small samples.
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The average whiff rate for MLB pitchers is about 25%.
Aided by two new pitches, Jobe is looking to take the next step in his swing-and-miss development — notably against MLB-caliber hitters — in the 2025 season, all while expecting to throw at least 130 innings in his rookie campaign.
"I'm going to experiment with something a little different this year, at least in spring training, and see how it goes," Jobe said. "I have a couple of new things added to my arsenal that I think are going to be beneficial."
Aside from new pitches, Jobe talked to the Free Press on the "Days of Roar" podcast about his 2024 season, making his MLB debut as a reliever, and preparing his body for the 2025 season, among other topics. ( Some questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. )
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How do you recap your 2024 season?
"Overall, I think it was good. Looking back at the numbers, it was really good versus how I felt about it. I want to be a guy that goes out there and punches (strikes out) the world, doesn't give up any runs, no hard contact or anything. I did a really good job of that in the first half of the season. I had the hamstring injury (from early May to early July), and every single time I go through rehab, which hopefully I can stop, but I find myself with something new each year (back injury in 2023, hamstring injury in 2024), so I'm working on that. Rehab is hard. You're going through the mental stuff of trying not to compensate for the injury, and you take however many weeks off from throwing, so you're having to reteach yourself how to throw. A lot of times, I find myself creating little bad habits, which creep into the game. I didn't really feel myself coming out of rehab. I was still feeling well, but I didn't feel the way I did coming into camp before the injury. I came into spring training, and it was the best I'd ever felt or looked in my life. I came back (from the hamstring injury) and was a little rusty. I still put up good numbers, but I just wasn't as sharp as I was coming out of camp. Being somewhat newer to pitching (after becoming a full-time starting pitcher as a senior in high school in 2021), I'm still figuring out my cues and what to take out there with me to catch play. Overall, I felt good about my year, but I feel like I'm definitely far away from reaching my potential. There's still so many things I feel like I can work on and a few things I can do to make it better out there on the field."
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What did you learn from your MLB experience as a reliever in 2024, with four innings in the regular season and 1⅔ innings in the postseason?
"Coming out of the bullpen, never had done that. Being in the big leagues, never done that. Being in the postseason, never done that. There were a lot of new things for me, but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. I take the mindset that I'm out there in Double-A or whatever facing guys. I know that my stuff plays in the big leagues, or else they wouldn't have called me up in that position. Even having Fett (pitching coach Chris Fetter ) not overcomplicate things, like we had the scouting report meetings that show what stuff plays best to each hitter, but then I remember him coming up to me and telling me to go out there and trust my stuff — don't overcomplicate it. I felt good about the way I handled myself and the way I trusted my stuff out there. I would have liked to punch every single guy. I didn't do that. But it was a great experience, and it's going to make this year a whole lot easier. I think it was a really good experience for me to have in my back pocket moving forward in big situations, knowing that I was out there in the postseason facing the best hitters in the world and had thrown four innings in the big leagues leading up to that. I think the whole experience is going to take me a long way."
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Your changeup has become the best swing-and-miss pitch in your mix. How did you develop it?
"I started throwing this same changeup my senior year of high school. When I was in high school, if you're a guy that throws hard in high school, you don't really need to throw a changeup. It was hard for me to work on that. Being a harder thrower in high school, and guys typically being late on the heater, you don't really need to mix in the changeup, but I tried to show it as much as I could. I've had that same grip up until now. I'm still throwing that. I think I realized how good of a pitch it was in my first year of pro ball. I really didn't throw it as much as I do now, but the results of it were really good. Getting more comfortable with that and understanding that, and being able to mix it, especially to right-handed hitters, having the sweeper being my bread-and-butter when I got in, guys knowing that. Having something that starts middle and dives arm side (changeup) versus starting middle and diving glove side (sweeper) really helped those pitches perform, and now guys have to be worried about the changeup as well. I got the movement and everything dialed in. Now I just gotta do a little bit better job of executing it, especially to big league hitters."
You became famous for your sweeper — the big slider — in high school, but that's not your main swing-and-miss pitch anymore. Can you explain?
"I was throwing the sweeper before the sweeper was called the sweeper. It was just the big slider. That was my pitch in high school, the high rpms (rotations per minute), everyone loved it. Spin rate just came out. No one understood it. But it was cool. So everyone loved it. And then I got into pro ball, and my first year (in 2022) was really good, and then in 2023, it slowly started to lose effectiveness. When I say effectiveness, I mean the swing-and-miss factor. I wasn't getting as many swings and misses. I was getting more takes. It seems like everyone in the baseball world fell in love with the sweeper. There are like eight pitchers on every team that throw a sweeper, so guys are seeing sweepers all over the place, so that pitch has definitely lost effectiveness as far as swing-and-miss goes. Last year, it turned into more of a get-me-over pitch, get me to two strikes, and then I was using other stuff to punch tickets when I could."
What are the keys to your four-seam fastball, and how important is fastball command?
"The biggest thing is making sure I'm staying through it, getting the backspin and letting it have that carry effect and ride up in the zone. My heater took a lot of damage in 2023, and then we moved from the first-base side of the rubber to the third-base side. For whatever reason, that helped me carry it a little better and added a little bit of deception. I think it performed a lot better (in 2024) than it did (in 2023). The biggest thing is making sure I'm staying behind it and getting that good backspin to miss bats. ... (Fastball command) is a big deal. I got the chance to speak to (2023 AL Cy Young winner) Gerrit Cole in spring training, and one thing he said to me, he was very adamant about it: When you get to the league, guys are going to make you command all four quadrants of the zone, and they're going to make you do it over and over again until you can prove to them that you can command your fastball . Hearing from a guy like that who's done it for however many years and is one of the best pitchers in the game, probably going to be a Hall of Famer, most definitely, shows you how important it is. It's never going to be perfect. He's definitely still working on it. But if you can understand your miss patterns and locate in different parts of the zone with that pitch, it's going to take you pretty far."
How did you prepare your body for the 2025 season?
"It's a little bit different of a mindset. This is my first offseason where I haven't focused on gaining weight. I feel like I've put my body, physically, in a pretty good spot to take on 130 innings, throw hard, sustain velocity throughout outings. Now it's just about the little stuff, like not letting a hamstring injury creep in. Making sure I'm taking care of the little details with my shoulder care and preparing my body — not just getting under the bench press and trying to put on mass. I'm focusing on the little things like mobility and hamstring work, definitely still hammering that, making sure my back is in a good place. Checking all the boxes to make sure nothing creeps in this year, as well as being smart with my ramp up by making sure I'm not getting going too fast. In the past, I may have done that. This is going to be a different year. I'm expected to throw more innings than I ever have, so I'm preparing myself for that and not coming into camp trying to make the team with my first bullpen. I'm being smart about it and staying consistent with my routine."
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Now that you're a big leaguer, what is the biggest lesson you learned during your career in the minor leagues?
"Trust the process. The minor leagues are very mentally tough. There are times where you think you should be in a different spot than you are, and then you're going through rehab, and you want to get out quicker than you are. There are a lot of mental battles that you have to go through. In the end, I'm extremely thankful for all the ups and downs that I went through, even in 2022 in Low-A putting up a 5 ERA through three months. I heard all about that. It prepares you for being on the biggest stage possible. Being able to go through that, having all those experiences — surrounding yourself with good people is another big one. Finding people that you can trust in the organization, people you can vent to. It definitely gets lonely down there sometimes, but you can't beat yourself up too much about it. Everything is going to help you progress and grow and mature."
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold .
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jackson Jobe Detroit Tigers: What rookie did this offseason
