January 30, 2025

In next month’s draft, the Tigers have the opportunity to add a pitcher who matches their developmental strengths.

The deadline for tendering contracts to arbitration-eligible players or releasing them was Friday afternoon. Teams had already added their prospects to their 40-man rosters in order to protect them from the Rule 5 draft in December. So, with the exception of any additions made in the interim via trades or free agency, rosters are pretty much set for the draft.

As expected, the Tigers handled their roster setting. They protected catcher Dillon Dingler and pitcher Wilmer Flores, joining pitcher Keider Montero, who was added earlier to keep him from leaving in minor league free agency.

The most notable Tigers prospects who have remained unprotected are reliever Andrew Magno, outfielder Roberto Campos, and utility man Tried Cruz. They also chose not to keep lefty pitcher Jack O’Loughlin from becoming a free agent, despite the fact that we thought he deserved a spot on the 40-man roster. He received “over 15 offers” right away and signed with Oakland the next day. The Tigers’ roster currently stands at 37 players, so they’re well-positioned to add in the offseason while still taking a player in the Rule 5 draft.

Players chosen must spend the entire season on the active roster of the team that chose them and can only be optioned to the minor leagues during the season if their rights are acquired in a subsequent trade. Selected players are returned to their original team if the claiming team chooses to release them during the season to clear an active roster spot.

As a result, teams are frequently drawn to players who they believe can be hidden on the bench, which means that the most commonly chosen demographic is power armed relievers or backend starter types deployed as mop-up duty swingmen.before the 2021 season.Typically, the few intriguing position players in any Rule 5 draft are selected early, as the Tigers did with Akil Baddoo prior to the 2021 season.

Starting pitching is heavily represented among this year’s available players, which is good news for the Tigers. A player selected in the December draft will frequently have a mismatch between his or her talent and results, either outperforming or failing to meet expectations. Detroit has made a lot of money in recent seasons by connecting the dots for pitchers with a broken fastball, and they may find another opportunity here.Most Rule 5 starters begin their careers as relievers, so don’t expect the rotation to be filled right away, but a wise pick here could bear fruit nicely a year or two down the road.

The Winter Meetings for this offseason are scheduled for December 3-6, with the Rule 5 draft taking place on the final day of the industry gathering. Let’s take a look at some of the intriguing players the Tigers might consider drafting.

RHP Cole Wilcox, Tampa Bay Rays San Diego signed Wilcox as a third-round pick in 2020, but promptly traded him to Tampa Bay for Blake Snell. That means two high-ranking executives — Mark Conner and Rob Metzler — were separately involved with a braintrust that decided to pay a high price to acquire Wilcox. If they haven’t lost faith, they can do it again, but this time by buying low.

When Wilcox is at the peak of his powers, no one can deny his power. He uses a supercharged sinker and has been clocked at 100 mph on occasion. Hitters struggle to lift the ball against him, and in 2023, he induced an astounding 54 percent groundball rate. With a big frame, a power slider, and a tumbling changeup to back up that velocity, he’s been labeled as an obvious starter type for a long time.

The problem is that Wilcox was nickel and dimed to death when he returned from Tommy John surgery last year. He ended up with a 5.23 ERA, a 4.96 FIP, and fewer than one strikeout per inning. He wasn’t a victim of bad luck, at least not according to his.281 BABIP-against.

I’ve looked everywhere for an explanation, but there isn’t one except that he’s taking longer than expected to adjust to live pitching. If it’s true, that’s fine; TJS isn’t the career killer it once was, but it still affects each player differently. A scarier possibility is that surgery and rehab may have had an impact on his mental approach. He was open about changing his process to avoid ever having to go through a major rehab process again, and if (that “if”) is causing him to hold back from tapping into his high gear, the road back to his old self will be uncertain.

RHP Taylor Dollard, Seattle Mariners Dollard went from being an unremarkable relief prospect in the 2020 draft to becoming one of the top starting pitchers in Double-A in 2022. His unlikely career trajectory would have led to a major league debut if he hadn’t suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in his third start of 2023. The M’s leaving him unprotected surprised me, but they’re probably counting on the fact that he’s a hard thrower and the uncertainty surrounding his injury to keep him safe.

Dollard can pitch backwards thanks to a trio of very bendy offspeed pitches, and he uses his low-90s fastball in on the hands to leave same-handed hitters reaching for the more potent slider outside. His curveball has a lot of downward movement, which is entertaining to watch, but neither FanGraphs nor MLB Pipeline believe it’s a swing and miss pitch. It’s a nice change of pace, but it reads as a curve pretty quickly out of the hand.

His final pitch is a split change, which, while not as good as the slider, is likely his most intriguing offering. Because of the splitterish nature of the pitch, it averages only 1200 RPM, occasionally dipping as low as 1000 RPM. In an interview with The Couch GM, he explained that he switched from a traditional grip to a split grip because he tended to “baby” the traditional grip. He can produce a more convincing arm action by switching to the split grip, with the low spin providing the diving action of a changeup.

Chih-Jung Liu, RHP
Liu was signed by the Red Sox out of Taiwan in 2019, at the age of 20. That means he’s older than the average international signee being considered in the Rule 5 draft, and he’ll turn 25 not long after the season starts next year. According to FanGraphs, Liu is the most likely of Boston’s unprotected players to be selected on draft day. If he is chosen, the plan will most likely be to put him in relief to mask his mediocre command and hope that his stuff improves.

Liu’s fastball serves as the foundation of his pitch mix. He’s a fantastic on-mound athlete, capable of hitting 98 mph. Because he’s on the smaller side for a starting pitcher, his velocity is a little lower, but it’s still plenty to bust the chops of any hitter who gets too comfortable in the box. He struck out a ton of guys in Double-A and even threw a no-hitter in May, thanks to his high heat and a slider that is already bumping up against plus grades.

What holds him back is mostly emotional. He arrived in the United States with a splitter that showed plenty of movement and upside, but he struggled to find consistency with it. He put that on hold in 2021 in favor of developing a curve or standard changeup, but neither of those caught on, and he reverted to his original three pitch mix. The occasional soft, loopy curve will still be used by Liu, but it has no place in his repertoire.

Furthermore, while athleticism is generally a good predictor of command development, it never happened for Liu. His delivery, which includes a small head whack, is not designed for extension or repetition. This means he leaves too many fastballs in the zone and lacks the perceived velocity gain to get away with it. As a result, he was bullied in Double-A when his command was off, and he finished with a high walk rate and an inflated ERA.

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