DETROIT — The final games of the Triple-A season were here, and Jackson Jobe was preparing to head home to Oklahoma City. Then, Sunday, he learned he was going to stay back at Triple-A Toledo, where he would be on the standby taxi squad with a chance to pitch in the major leagues.
The next morning, Jobe’s phone rang. Ryan Garko, the Tigers’ vice president for player development, was on the line. He told Jobe he was coming to the show.
Less than 24 hours after the Tigers announced the stunning news to the public, the 22-year-old Jobe strutted onto the field at Comerica Park. On a foggy Monday morning, he ventured to the outfield and went through his pregame stretches. Minutes before, he had walked straight through a throng of reporters, fist-bumping each one. In a season where the Tigers have encouraged call-ups to avoid interviews on the dizzying day before their debut, Jobe posted up at his locker and took questions for nearly six minutes.
With a stature that has grown more and more imposing since the day he was drafted on some of the best sheer stuff in all of baseball, he seemed like a prospect well prepared for this moment.
“I feel great,” Jobe said. “Been a crazy past couple days. I feel like everything just happened so fast. But I’m glad to be here. Couldn’t be more excited.”
Not even two months ago, Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris rejected any idea Jobe would skip Triple A and head straight to the major leagues. Jobe spent all of August and into September in Double-A Erie. He was promoted to Triple-A Toledo and made only two starts as a Mud Hen. With the Tigers chasing down and now protecting a wild-card spot, the circumstances around the team changed. So, too, did the thinking around Jobe.
“We are entering the last week of the season with a one-game lead on the wild card with a real chance to get into October for the first time in a long time for this team,” Harris said on the “Turning The Corner” podcast. “We felt like if we have a player like Jackson who can really help us, we should just press the button and give this organization every possible chance, give this team every chance, to get in and hopefully play pretty well in October.”
Tigers president of baseball ops Scott Harris joined the pod and discussed Jackson Jobe’s promotion.
Full episode:https://t.co/3CsKOt9aMU pic.twitter.com/cpjX0nCxm0
— Turning The Corner Podcast (@TurnCornerPod) September 24, 2024
Jobe will pitch out of the bullpen — “he might be in the bullpen for five minutes for his career,” manager A.J. Hinch joked — for the Tigers over the final six games of their season. The team entered Tuesday’s game against the Rays holding a one-game lead over the Minnesota Twins for the American League’s final playoff spot. Jobe’s promotion is perhaps the most aggressive move to date in Harris’ tenure. Harris is also operating in easily the most competitive environment the Tigers have seen since at least 2016. Officials began deliberating the move over the team’s six-game road trip.
“When Scott brought it to my attention that he thought Jackson should be in play,” Hinch said, “we wanted to talk further about how I would use him, what I would do with him, what I thought of pitching him, whether it’d be on short rest or two out of three days or two out of four days … it became more of a reality.”
Jobe is ranked as the No. 10 overall prospect on The Athletic’s latest rankings for good reason. The No. 3 overall pick in 2021 — a surprising selection at the time under former general manager Al Avila — Jobe has grown into a dynamic and powerful young pitcher. His fastball sits in the upper 90s and has only grown more effective since his first foray into pro baseball. The sweeper is his signature pitch, a lethal breaking ball programmed to generate chase. A cutter Jobe added last season gave him another weapon to use on hitters in the strike zone. His changeup boasts the potential to be a plus pitch, too.
Jobe, though, is still about to face the best hitters he has ever seen, likely in front of the biggest crowds he has ever pitched in front of. Tantalizing as Jobe’s talent is, there is risk in throwing a young player into such an environment. The Tigers hope using him out of the bullpen, presumably putting him in optimal matchups against right-handed hitters, will help him thrive.
“I don’t know the situation he’s going to inherit or the situation that’s gonna be first for him,” Hinch said. “We don’t really specifically know the day, either. Could be today, could be tomorrow .… I’m hoping to get him in for this series for a lot of reasons.”
In his Toledo debut, Jobe was tagged for four earned runs in four innings. His strike-throwing has not been as precise as it was last season, when he averaged less than one walk per nine innings. This season, his BB/9 is 4.42.
Before his final start with Toledo on Friday, the Tigers asked Jobe to make adjustments. Subtle tempo and delivery tweaks. Slightly different usage. A bit more they don’t want to divulge to opponents. The young pitcher went five innings and allowed only two earned runs.
“We’re not naive to the fact he’s still a developing prospect and he still has a lot of things to conquer,” Hinch said. “But I think for us, we would be foolish not to take that opportunity to give us the best chance with the best players that we have in our system to help us.”
Jackson Jobe was pumping 101 out of the bullpen for the @Tigers this spring. 👀 pic.twitter.com/zdtwrhwEcE
— MLB (@MLB) September 23, 2024
Now, entering the biggest challenge of his young life, Jobe faces another adjustment in coming out of the bullpen. He pitched in relief a few times in high school, he said. Otherwise, his only relief experience dates to this year’s spring training, when he pitched the ninth inning of a game against the Twins. Jobe struck out two batters in that frame. His velocity and movement dominated highlight reels for the rest of the day. He threw wipeout sliders and heaved fastballs that reached as fast as 101.8 mph.
Now pitching in relief, in the thick of a playoff hunt, Jobe said the plan is to let it rip. Could such stuff register on the radar gun again?
“We’re gonna see,” Jobe said with a grin. “We’ll see.”
(Photo: Norm Hall / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
