It’s never easy being traded by your hometown team, but for newly acquired Detroit Tigers left-hander Jake Higginbotham, the silver lining is that he was sent to a place he’s admired from a distance for some time.
Higginbotham, a 26-year-old Atlanta native who was acquired in a package for reliever Joe Jimenez that also included 22-year-old hitting prospect Justyn-Henry Malloy, drives a Ford Mustang. He was born and raised in the South, played college baseball at Clemson, and yet — thanks to a Detroit-born athletic trainer he had in Double A — is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings.
He’ll fit in just fine.
“I’ve been keeping up with the Red Wings all season,” Higginbotham told reporters at his introductory press conference Tuesday via Zoom. “I have an infatuation with Ford. I know it’s the Motor City and that’s where Mustangs are built, so I think that’ll be pretty cool to get to see that and get to experience that.”
While his love for Detroit is rooted in the city’s tradition, don’t be surprised if Detroit loves Higginbotham, who majored in biomaterial engineering at Clemson, for his forward thinking. He reinvented himself following his second year in the minor leagues in 2019. Once favoring a diet of curveballs and changeups, he now attacks hitters with a mid-90s fastball before trying to finish them with sliders.
“Going into 2020 spring training, before we got sent home, we looked closer at the analytics of everything and found out that it was gonna be better if I threw a four-seam rather than a two-seam, which I predominantly threw in 2019, and that the changeup probably wasn’t necessary, being that I was gonna be a one-inning guy from a Braves plan,” Higginbotham said.
“The slider was gonna play better because I threw hard. So the curveball was just a hair slow, so we just kind of altered some things as far as my arsenal goes, and I think it’ll probably allow me to have more success as we move forward, just seeing how the game is going.
“Everything, from a pitching standpoint, everything’s gotta be a power pitch. It’s all about velo, velo, velo — how hard can you throw the fastball? How hard can you throw your slider and execute it?”
Higginbotham spent his entire 2022 season in Double A, accumulating a 4.73 ERA and 1.500 WHIP over 51.1 innings pitched with 3.2 walks and 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings. That strikeout rate isn’t as high as he would have liked, but he’s working on it. Injuries limited his appearances in 2021, when he pitched just 11.1 innings, and he lost the 2020 season due to the minor-league season being canceled because of the pandemic.
He’s a pitcher that sees himself being used in all situations — if he recalls correctly, he pitched in every inning last season — and when you see him on the mound, you can expect, if nothing else, from the 6-foot, 190-pound lefty: Intensity.
“I’m pretty intense when I get on the mound. Some of my teammates, former teammates will tell you that it’s a little bit frightening sometimes,” Higginbotham said. “I’m kind of crazy on the mound, but yeah, I feel like that’s what I have to do to compete.
“I’m a little undersized to most people that play professional baseball, so I gotta bring an edge in another way, and that’s kind of how I bring my edge.”
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @nolanbianchi