What Can We Expect From Jackson Jobe in 2025?

September 25th, 2024. The Tigers, having won seven of their last eight, were up 7-1 on the Tampa Bay Rays with a playoff berth just days away. Tigers fans already had plenty to cheer about.

Ten years of a playoff drought were on the verge of coming to an end. Then, in the top of the ninth, the Detroit faithful erupted as top prospect Jackson Jobe jogged out of the bullpen and towards the mound.

What a way to make a debut. A packed Comerica smiling ear-to-ear, a big lead, and a clean inning. Although Jobe will not make many more bullpen jogs, the front office putting him on the team during their playoff push showed the level of talent he has and just how much this team believes in his arm.

As the calendar flips to 2025, I want to dive into this rotation and see what type of role Jobe could have this season. Sure, seeing Jobe in the Opening Day rotation and 30+ starts would be awesome, but not guaranteed. I do think he is ready for the majors, but it is a little more complicated.

How Many Innings Can We Expect?

As frustrating as it can be, the reality is your young pitchers are going to have some variation of an innings limit. Considering Jobe has had injuries in the past, I do not see him as an exception to this rule.

So, let’s take a look at some recent Tigers along with arms across the league to help paint us a picture. Obviously, each player is different and injuries impact this data but it will at least give us some idea of the Tigers’ way.

A quick glance will tell you 150 innings was about the max for these players. Digging through other top tier pitching prospects from 2020-2022, you see a similar trend.

Somewhere between 120-150 innings, for the most part. Even Seattle’s Logan Gilbert, a true workhorse, posted just over 120 innings (total) in his debut season.

Jobe’s minor league innings, some due to injury, stack up like this:

Having less than 15 innings above Double-A and being expected to be in a big league rotation is much more common than it once was, especially for top-end talent. While I am less concerned about whether Jobe is ready or not to pitch at the highest level, his innings do raise concern.

Although injury in 2024 is the reason Jobe did not reach 100 innings, it still plays a factor in projecting his 2025 workload.

We cannot assume a completely healthy season or 30+ starts. The development and coaching staffs have a number in mind and if I had to guess I’d say it would lean towards the lower end of the 120-150 inning range. The plan to get there can take several different paths.

How to Use Jobe’s Innings

I’m sure we all remember Casey Mize and his three or four inning outings in September 2021. The Tigers elected to keep Mize on a schedule and shorten his outings instead of shutting him down early. The Tigers have the ability to go a similar route thanks to the number of bullpen arms that can go multiple innings.

Short, scheduled, outings would allow Jobe to stay in the every fifth game routine but would cause the bullpen to be a bit of a shuffle. We know the Tigers are no stranger to unique bullpen usage, but over a longer period of time, it becomes more and more difficult.

Detroit could pivot to a similar route that Miami took with Eury Perez. Perez pitched for roughly two months before being optioned to the minors for a stint and later called back up to finish the season. This path would allow for shorter outing to happen in the minors and allow for a late season push.

With all that micro-managing on his innings, Perez did not pitch well upon return, only to go down with Tommy John the very next year.

You’ll find mix reviews on this path and is not the most conventional.

The least sexy option is to start Jobe in Triple-A. Give him more innings in the high minors while limiting his innings in hopes of working up to a full workload that can last through the end of the season and potentially the playoffs.

Keep in mind, that this option would allow for the most major league starts to happen in more ideal weather. If you get 20-22 starts of Jobe this year, having those take place once the weather warms up does have some appeal.

Sure, Jobe not being on the Opening Day roster would be frustrating. I’m not saying it is what I prefer, but if that is the path the Tigers take I would understand. His 2025 starts are a limited resource and when they decide to use them is important.

Projected Performance

Jackson Jobe, rightfully so, has received a ton of hype. I think it is important to remember prospect lists are based on a career projection and not a rookie season. Even the best pitchers take time to refine their craft, settle on a pitch mix, and learn how to get batters out at the highest level.

While Jobe’s upside is immense, we need to keep in mind this is a 22-year-old without much experience. Growing pains are likely to happen and growth throughout the season is more important than the final ERA. We want Jobe to make strides into September and October.

Projection systems have their flaws, especially for players with small sample size, but do offer some idea of what a players season can look like.

FanGraphs writer Dan Szymborski recently did the Tigers projections which have Jobe logging 101.3 innings, 4.63 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 18.1% K%, across 25 starts. Your first thought is probably “Well, that’s disappointing” but it could be closer to the truth than we would like to admit.

I’d expect his strikeout numbers to be a bit higher. He has the stuff to rack up strikeouts, but his command will need to develop more. Jobe will not be able to get away with as many in-zone pitches as he did in the lower minors. All of this is completely normal for a young pitcher and should not take away from what he can eventually become.

Working with the Tigers coaching staff, along with Jake Rogers and Dillon Dingler on a more regular basis, should help to shrink the learning curve. I’ll side on the under 4.63 ERA and lean closer to a 4.30 ERA thanks to a full offseason of health and development.

While reading this probably didn’t induce the excitement you had hoped for and maybe even raised some concerns, I do think the rotation will be okay.

Alex Cobb can help fill out some innings and Keider Montero also could take a step forward. Also, we still have a couple of months before Opening Day and additions can be made.

The Tigers still need to make a couple of moves, but I’d say the excitement for this season is as high as it has been in years. We’ll see what the roster looks like come spring, but knowing top prospect Jackson Jobe is in the mix will give fans excitement.