Starter, reliever? Either way, Tigers' Matt Manning 'absolutely in the mix' for 2025

Flashbacks to Jeremy Bonderman has a new changeup that works…uh
Granted this development staff is better and I do believe Manning will have a role, here or elsewhere, with the big league club; reliever or starter tbd.

# Starter, reliever? Either way, Tigers’ Matt Manning ‘absolutely in the mix’ for 2025
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Oh yeah, did you forget about Manning?

The Tigers haven’t.

“He comes in absolutely in the mix and can factor in in any number of situations,” manager AJ Hinch said in a phone conversation Thursday morning. “Matty has learned a lot about himself and about pitching and had to grow through an up-and-down season last year. But I think for a lot of people, there’s some recency bias.

“We have to remember, he was basically on our team for a large part of the first half of the season as that spot starter and rainout guy, and he showed things that he can do well. We certainly will give him an extended look to be part of the winning this spring.”

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But consistency within starts and from start to start has been a continuing issue for Manning. The velocity on his fastball fluctuates sometimes inning to inning, batter to batter. Same with his command.

But the stuff, especially since he added a split-change to his mix, is real.

“Like with most young pitchers, they battle the consistency,” Hinch said. “Being able to repeat, like for him, it’s repeat the mechanics and the feel for his pitches. It’s just little small tweaks. There’s no overhaul needed.

“He’s a talented pitcher with a lot of ways to get hitters out and we just have to help him become more consistent to where he can attack different lineups.”

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Some interesting names here…

For whatever reason, that same development staff hasn’t been able to crack Manning.

“The battle,” Hinch said, “is not the development. The battle is the consistency.”

Late bloomers are a thing in baseball. Max Scherzer, we all remember, was sent to Triple-A Toledo in his age-25 season in 2010 and he was a good starting pitcher in 2011 and 2012. But he didn’t reach his full powers until 2013 when he won the Cy Young Award at age 28.

Corbin Burnes was 26 and in his fourth season when he broke out in 2021. Kevin Gausman didn’t figure things out until he was 30.

The Tigers have seen enough flashes from Manning to believe there could be an eventual breakthrough.

“The analogy I use,” Hinch said, “is just turn the screw a little bit to tighten it. It’s not like we need to remodel the whole thing.”

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Teams rarely toss in the towel on a guy that size early, especially ones that have flashed and didnt devote himself to pitching until he was 16.

1st Rd money at slot 9 is big, but he coulda used a couple years in college

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