The AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers have lost one of their top young talents to injury. Right-hander Jackson Jobe has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a Grade 1 flexor strain, the team announced Friday afternoon. Righty reliever Dylan Smith has been summoned from Triple-A in a corresponding move.
Jobe, 22, entered 2025 as our top-ranked pitching prospect and the sixth best prospect in the game overall. His rookie season has been bumpy at times, with a 4.22 ERA and below-average strikeout (7.2 K/9) and walk (5.0 BB/9) rates in 10 starts and 49 innings. Jobe hasn’t done an especially good job of getting ground balls or limiting hard contact either.
That said, Jobe has flashed electric power stuff this year and has turned in several strong starts. Flexor strains usually aren’t short-term injuries. From 2021-24, the average flexor strain absence for a pitcher was 111 days, per the Baseball Prospectus Recovery Database, and flexor strains sometimes turn into Tommy John surgery. Not always, but sometimes.
Jobe is one of four Tigers’ starters on the major league injured list. The team’s rotation depth chart currently looks like this:
- LHP Tarik Skubal
RHP Reese Olson(out with finger inflammation)- RHP Casey Mize
- RHP Jack Flaherty
RHP Alex Cobb(out with hip inflammation)RHP Jackson Jobe(out with flexor strain)- RHP Keider Montero
RHP Sawyer Gipson-Long(out with elbow surgery)
Gipson-Long has a 2.20 ERA in 16 1/3 innings spanning five minor-league rehab starts. He is with the team in Kansas City and will throw a bullpen session Saturday, and if that goes well, he could be activated off the injured list to replace Jobe in the rotation, according to MLB.com. For now, the Tigers are remaining noncommittal about their rotation plans.
The Tigers have baseball’s best record thanks in large part to their rotation. Detroit’s starters rank fourth with a 3.22 ERA and fifth with 5.8 WAR. Yes, Jobe was the rotation’s “weak link,” for lack of a better term, but he is supremely talented, and talented young players do not get better on the injured list. The injury is a major blow to Jobe and the Tigers.
Grade 1 strains are the least severe, which does not necessarily mean Jobe will return quickly, or that he’s in no danger of the flexor strain turning into something more serious. The Tigers have built themselves a nice cushion in the AL Central and Skubal is the best pitcher in baseball. They’re in position to fill Jobe’s rotation spot from within and ride it out.
The trade market will not heat up for another few weeks. Flaherty, Mize, and Olson are a pretty strong 2-4 in whatever order behind Skubal come postseason time. If the Tigers do jump into the trade market for a starting pitcher at some point, it could be that they’ll look for a back-end depth guy rather than someone they’d start in October.
At 37-20, the Tigers have the best record in baseball, a half-game better than the 36-20 Philadelphia Phillies. Detroit is six games up in the AL Central heading into this weekend’s series with the Royals. Along with the Yankees, Detroit has the best odds in the American League (-2500 via DraftKings) of making the playoffs.
