The Detroit Tigers farm system is in outstanding shape. That’s been well established this offseason, but it goes well beyond the top tiers of talent. The Tigers have a really excellent group of top positional prospects, the consensus best pitching prospect in baseball, and some strong up and coming pitchers like Jaden Hamm, Brant Hurter, Ty Madden, and Troy Melton.
That pitching depth in particular goes much deeper, as you’ll observe from our 15th and 17th ranked prospects, RHP Owen Hall and RHP Rayner Castillo. Both are still 20 years old or younger, and that is just the beginning of a stacked group of talented young arms throughout the organization. Next up is our 18th ranked prospect, LHP Ethan Schiefelbein.
The Tigers drafted Schiefelbein last summer with their competitive balance B selection, taking him 72nd overall out of Corona High School in California. The slot value for that pick was just under $1.1 million, while the Tigers paid well overslot at $1.8 million to convince him to forego his commitment to UCLA. The stockpile of prep players under Rob Metzler and Mark Conner’s scouting leadership continues to grow. So far that strategy has done wonders for the Tigers system.
Schiefelbein won’t turn 19 until April, right about the time he’ll make his pro debut. As with fellow top prep picks Bryce Rainer, Owen Hall, and Zach Swanson, the Tigers kept them working on the backfields and indoor sessions in Lakeland after the draft, so we didn’t get to see them in action. As a result, there isn’t much to say beyond what we knew on draft day.
During his high school career, Schiefelbein was well known in prep circles. He pitched for Team USA in several events. He close with a big senior season that saw him post a 0.27 ERA with 83 strikeouts to 11 walks in 52 innings of work. His composed, fairly polished delivery produces consistent strike throwing and a deep pitch mix for his age and experience. His selling points were a little different that the Tigers, and the league’s, usual lust for raw arm talent coming out of high school.
Seven months since the draft, you’d expect that Schiefelbein will have added some muscle and gone through plenty of work on his pitching mechanics and plenty of pitch design sessions. He doesn’t have the most projectible of builds, but his relatively slender six-foot-two, 180 pound frame certainly has potential to get much stronger. His high three-quarters arm slot produces good life, and he’s pretty mechanically sound already.
In high school, he threw a twoseam fastball, but he and the Tigers may find that the fourseamer ultimately fits better with his arm slot in time. There’s some ability to both run it and ride it at the top of the zone already. In his senior season, he was typically sitting 90-91 mph, topping out 94-95. That peak is where they’ll look to build his average fastball up to over the next few seasons.
Schiefelbein has a pretty advanced mix of secondary pitches for a high school pitcher and can spin the baseball very well. The crafty lefty tag is getting put on him because he doesn’t throw hard yet, but is always around or in the zone with a strong, deep mix of pitches. Both his knuckle curve and slider flash above average already, though the curve is much more of a trustworthy weapon at this point. The slider is a little short despite his good spin rate, and he was still feeling for it in his senior season, but there’s plenty of potential to develop that pitch. Finally Schiefelbein has a quality circle changeup with solid fade and depth and just needs to maintain his arm speed and keep good velocity separation as he starts throwing harder.
So, on draft day we had an advanced strike thrower who profiles like a future command and control lefty with the ability to develop and locate a tough set of secondary pitches. The Tigers are betting they can build him up into a power lefty with four above average to plus pitches, and that his present advanced control will translate into a lot of precision with experience as he gets stronger and refines his mechanics.
You can dream on a Cole Hamels outcome but right now the real selling point is that Schiefelbein appears to have a good deal less risk than many prep pitchers. It’s not that hard to see him adding some velo, tightening up his secondary pitches and becoming a solid backend starter. The ceiling may be considerably higher.
2025 Outlook
As is their protocol, the Tigers will manage Schiefelbein’s workload with tight reins, as with Owen Hall and Zach Swanson, pretty aggressively this season. They probably would like to see them all throw something like 80 innings. Their starts will be limited to 80 pitches for the most part, and the Tigers won’t leave them out there to hang when they’re caught in a long inning. Later in the season they’ll look to turn them loose more as they start to settle in at Low-A Lakeland.
Expect Schiefelbein to begin sometime in May in the Complex League after some extended spring training work. The most important thing this season is just to build those consistent routines and learn to handle the grind of pro season. The length of those outings isn’t so important. Early on they’ll probably be going four innings tops. Assuming the lefty has made some positive strides since draft day, he should handle that assignment well. The Tigers can then advance him to Low-A Lakeland and try to get him another eight or nine starts there from late July into September.
Ethan Schiefelbein is a somewhat atypical pick for this front office, but otherwise fits right in with their philosophy of taking a lot more prep players. They’ve tended to target big-time arm talent out of high school and then look to refine it over time. The young lefty has more polish compared to his experience level than many of their picks in the first two drafts under Scott Harris. Instead, he needs to build up his velocity and raw stuff in pro ball. If he starts to power up and commands his secondary pitches more this season he’ll be ranked much higher by the end of the season.