2024 Tigers season preview: Jack Flaherty looks primed after work in the Tigers pitching lab

We’ve learned a few things about new Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Jack Flaherty this spring. The past 4-5 years he’s been a depth starter looking to recapture his earlier success, but until the Tigers signed him out of the blue, we hadn’t really looked that deeply into his peak years with the Cardinals. We also didn’t know that he was a well respected voice for players within the players’ union.

The recent wrangling over the MLBPA’s leadership and the realization that Flaherty is one of four association reps, along with Francisco Lindor, Marcus Semien, and Lance McCullers Jr., on the MLBPA’s eight player executive subcommittee led to a deeper dive into the pitcher’s background. He’s clearly someone who has the respect of other players around the league and has always taken an interest both in the union, but also in the state of and future of, the game itself.

That’s a fair bit of a trust for a pitcher who is still just 28 years old and has only one really good season in his six full seasons as a major leaguer. It’s not like he’s a superstar with a huge free agent deal and ton of cache as a player. Winning an arbitration case against the Cardinals prior to the 2021 season no doubt immersed him in the type of debates about player value and player pay that the MLBPA subcommittee is regularly involved in when trying to improve player pay and working conditions for both minor and major league players. That led him to his work on behalf of the players with the union. And as Casey Mize is the Tigers actual player representative, the club now has two players deeply involved in union matters.

Of course, that’s all well and good for the players’ union, but fans want to know if Flaherty can finally recapture some of the success he had early in his career, or whether he’s just depth, a placeholder until the next Tigers pitching prospect breaks through. So far this spring, signs are pretty positive.

Flaherty was drafted as a projectible power right-hander by the St. Louis Cardinals out of high school with the 34th overall pick in 2014. He debuted in 2017, and In his prime years of 2018-2019, Flaherty’s strong fastball-slider combination made him a force for the Cardinals, particularly in 2019 when Flaherty spun 196 ¹⁄₃ innings of work with 2.75 ERA/3.46 FIP marks that made him a 4.7 fWAR player and earned him fourth place in NL Cy Young award voting.

At that point, he was averaging about 94 mph with his fastball, racking up tons of whiffs and weak contact on both the fourseamer and a wicked slider. He struck out 29.9 percent of hitters in 2019 with basically average walk and home run marks against him. Basically a pretty prototypical power pitcher who collected a lot of strikeouts and weak contact in the air, but with a fly ball profile that occasionally led to some mild home run trouble.

Flaherty wasn’t as sharp in the short season in 2020, and then in 2021-2022 he suffered repeated shoulder issues that eventually required surgery. When he was on the mound, his velocity was down, and he lost significant vertical movement from his fourseamer that combined to tank that pitch’s value. That factor has never recovered, until this spring.

2023 started off better for him as his stuff ticked up somewhat, but he still was unable to recapture the good command and high end fastball/slider combination that had made him one of the better young pitchers in the game. His strikeouts ticked up when the Cardinals traded him to the Baltimore Orioles in July, but that deal coincided with a gnarly bout of homer-itis that didn’t abate until the Orioles moved him to the bullpen for his final few outings and brief postseason run.

Overall, home runs were well in check for Flaherty on the year, but the move to the AL East didn’t agree with him in that regard, bringing his numbers on the year to about average levels after a very solid first half with the Cardinals where his K-BB numbers were down but the home runs were well under wraps.

A season to build on

While his 2023 campaign wasn’t all he’d hoped, the most important point coming into the offseason was the fact that Flaherty had thrown 146 ¹⁄₃ innings on the year, without any significant injuries for the first time since 2019. His stuff wasn’t all the way back to peak levels, but the downward trend finally reversed and Flaherty could work on building himself up all offseason rather than trying to rehab his shoulder again.

As he is, Jack Flaherty makes for a solid pickup as a backend starter. Compared to a Michael Lorenzen or Matt Boyd last year, Flaherty is a little pricey at $14M for one year with $1M in possible incentives, with no team control in terms of additional years or options, but that likely speaks to the amount of interest he received as a good rebound possibility. The Tigers clearly think there’s more to unlock and early returns this spring agree with that assessment.

On Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rays featuring most of their regular lineup, Flaherty again showed why the Tigers are excited about this potential this spring. He threw 87 pitches and racked up 13 whiffs and 17 called strikes, with only 10 balls put in play.

His fastball hit 96 mph, and we’ve seen some 97 mph fastballs from him this spring. His fourseamer averaged 93.8 mph in this, his longest outing of the spring, up from his 93.1 mph average fastball in 2023. Likewise, the movement on his slider and knuckle curve remain good, and he’s also throwing those two breaking balls over 2 mph harder than he did last season.

Earlier in camp Flaherty was showing even better IVB numbers and velocity as the Tigers streamlined his mechanics. We’ll just have to see if the more modest improvement on display on Sunday is more the norm for him as he stretches out to 90 pitches per outing and beyond. That may be the case with the velocity, but the improved induced vertical break should be pretty sticky as he gets more comfortable with the mechanical adjustments under the tutelage of Chris Fetter and Robin Lund. Getting back to just average vertical movement with the velocity gains and improved attack angle producing better induced vertical break should spark a really good season.

So far those numbers have been up and down a bit this spring, but Flaherty has has added over three inches of induced vertical break and averaged 95+ in a few outings too, and they’ll be working to make that more consistent all year.

Adding an extra tick of velo to his fastball isn’t a radical improvement, but Flaherty also brings above average extension to the table. That’s a trait exemplified by Matt Manning and Casey Mize this spring, with the currently injured Sawyer Gipson-Long leading the way with some of the best extension in the game, let alone on the team. That’s clearly a factor the Tigers key in on in assessing who they want to work with, and Flaherty has plenty, averaging 6.8 feet of extension on his fastball last year. We’d guess based on his form this spring and the Tigers working with him and most of their starters on improving their deliveries and building better extension, that he’s probably up a bit in that regard as well.

So, all the vital signs in terms of velocity, movement, delivery, and command are in a very good place as his spring camp ends.

Outlook

Obviously as a rental Flaherty’s time with the Tigers may not last too long. Considering the price they were willing to pay on a one-year deal, it’s too bad they weren’t able to get a team option for a similar price for 2025 included. As it stands, with plenty of young starting pitchers looking to force their way into the Tigers’ rotation this summer, Flaherty may end up as trade bait in July even if the Tigers are well in the hunt for the AL Central. Perhaps the lack of team control was the price to keep Flaherty from having the kind of extensive no-trade clauses that helped tank the proposed Eduardo Rodriguez deal last summer.

Of course, the Tigers don’t have to trade him. It may be worth more to them to simply play out the year and let Flaherty walk or sign him to a longer term deal next offseason. It all depends on how healthy the staff is, and how well their collection of top pitching prospects develops this season.

We’re not going lament a good season from Flaherty just because there’s no long-term value involved. The Tigers have been almost freakishly healthy in the pitching department this spring, but we can’t be fooled by that either. The depth Flaherty provides to the rotation is going to prove pretty valuable at some point. If he eventually ends up blocking Jackson Jobe, Keider Montero, Ty Madden, or a resurgent Matt Manning or Gipson-Long by June or July, they can deal with that then and thank their lucky stars for such a run of good pitcher health.

If Flaherty can sustain the stuff he had on Sunday, he’s going to have a better season than his 2023 campaign, and the Tigers are going to be pretty happy with the deal. We just may be a little sorry to see him go at that point.

The x-factor here, as with all pitchers, is Flaherty’s health. 2023 was his first relatively healthy campaign in a few years, so this is a good time to buy in and see if he can build on that. If he’s really put the shoulder issues behind him, and the Tigers biomechanics group’s campaign to help their starters’ efficiency of movement works out, there’s still a chance that the right-hander finally puts years of doubt behind him and recaptures the prime stuff and command that had him looking like a potential future ace five years ago. For now, he’s tracking better than last year and fully capable of being a quality mid-rotation starter for the Tigers in 2024. That will do just fine even as we hope for a little more.