It did what it was intended to do, those six weeks during which Jackson Jobe and Ty Madden threw at the TigerTown complex at Lakeland, Florida.
It got them ready for 2022 — when, assuming health holds, they’ll finally pitch in games somewhere in the Tigers farm chain.
Each pitcher, drafted 1-2 by the Tigers in July, is finished with formal work in 2021. Jobe headed home late last week after his final throwing session at Lakeland, while Madden had his last Lakeland workout and the past weekend returned home to Texas.
Jobe was the third overall pick in July’s MLB Draft, straight from his senior season at Heritage Hall High at Oklahoma City. Although attempts were made last week to speak with Jobe, he is not sitting for interviews until the Tigers hold a joint media session with him later this month in Detroit.
Madden wrapped up in June his college years at the University of Texas. He was drafted 32nd overall.
“We were able to see them off the mound,” said Kenny Graham, who is the Tigers’ interim development chief. “They threw some bullpens. They felt great, looked great. Everything’s in a good spot.”
Each of the pitchers, both right-handers, will stay glued to offseason regimens the Tigers will be prescribing and monitoring.
But they likely won’t return to TigerTown until January, or February, depending upon schedules that will be determined months from now.
Jobe is 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, turned 19 on July 30, and had such power and polish the Tigers took him just behind the draft’s top two choices: Henry Davis, a catcher from the University of Louisville who went to the Pirates; and Vanderbilt ace Jack Leiter, who was grabbed by the Rangers.
The Tigers liked Jobe so much they plucked him ahead of prep shortstop Marcelo Mayer, who was slurped up by the Red Sox at four-overall.
“It’s the stuff,” Graham said when asked what had most made an impression during Jobe’s time at Lakeland. “The command he showed, where he wanted to throw it — the execution was pretty impressive for a guy that young.”
Madden, 21, is 6-3, 215, and in 2021 threw 113.2 innings of high-quality ball for the Longhorns.
“As good of a pitcher he is, he’s that good of a person,” Graham said. “He’s really been good with the other players, especially with Jackson.”
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Breaking in those other arms
The Tigers took 12 pitchers in July’s draft. Two have headed home, seven are working on individual programs much as Jobe and Madden did — and three are pitching in games as the 2021 farm season’s regular-season calendar comes to a close later this month.
The Tigers had said earlier this summer that it was unlikely any of 2021’s draft crop would work in games. But it was always a fluid situation, which is how RJ Petit, Jack Anderson, and Aaron Haase were plugged into relief work at Single-A Lakeland and on the Florida Complex League fields.
Petit, who is 6-8, 300 pounds, was a 14th-round pick from Charleston Southern. He throws right-handed and worked an inning for the Tigers East team in the FCL before moving cross-lots to the Lakeland roster where, in three games, he has thrown four innings, worth two hits, no earned runs, with one walk and two strikeouts.
Anderson, also a right-hander, was a 16th-rounder from Florida State, who is 6-3, 197.
He has thrown four innings in three stints for the Tigers East gang and hasn’t had the best of immediate fortunes: four hits, three of which have been home runs, with a pair of strikeouts.
Haase is, as they say, your basic “bulldog,” which invariably is how pitchers who are all of 5-8 and 193 pounds are described.
Haase was a 17th-round choice from Wichita State and Saturday broke in with Lakeland (one inning, no hits, one strikeout) after three games and three innings of tough love to show for his early work with the Tigers East squad. He was slapped for four hits and three walks, but six strikeouts attested to what the Tigers saw in his repertoire, which led to Saturday’s initiation at low-Single A.
The remainder of July’s draft gang — pitchers, anyway — remains on customized regimens styled to past workloads and where the Tigers see them in September of 2021 on timelines that have only just begun.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.