Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal talks pitching development
Ace pitcher Tarik Skubal joined our “Days of Roar” podcast as spring training began to discuss development of his pitches, more. Full episode out now.
- Jackson Jobe, no longer a top prospect, is adjusting to the challenges of being a major league pitcher.
- Tigers pitchers Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize, and Reese Olson shared advice they would give their younger selves.
- Skubal emphasized the importance of patience and self-acceptance, while Flaherty highlighted trusting one’s pitches.
Detroit Tigers right-hander Jackson Jobe is learning to navigate the ups and downs of the MLB level in his rookie season. No longer a top-ranked prospect — his seven starts with the Tigers this season have dropped him off the prospect lists — the 22-year-old is a big-leaguer now, just like everyone else.
Being an MLB pitcher comes with mental, physical and emotional challenges.
Every arm that sticks battles through adversity.
It’s part of the process.
Fellow Tigers pitchers Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize and Reese Olson reflected on what they’ve learned throughout their careers — including the advice they’d give to themselves as rookies, if they could go back.
Tarik Skubal: ‘Give yourself a lot of grace’
Left-hander Tarik Skubal — the reigning American League Cy Young winner — made his MLB debut in August 2020, just over two years after he was a ninth-round draft pick out of Seattle University. The 28-year-old has learned to focus on daily improvements, but reflecting on his first few seasons, he wishes he had been more patient with himself throughout his early development.
It took him four years to find his elite changeup.
“You can’t fix everything in one day,” said Skubal, now in his sixth MLB season. “You can’t fix everything in a week, a month, two months, three months, even a season. Just continue to stack positive days. Get a little bit better each and every day.”
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He posted a 5.63 ERA in 2020 and a 4.34 ERA in 2021. He also surrendered a whopping 44 home runs in 181⅓ innings during those two seasons, compared to 33 homers in 444 innings across the four seasons since.
Back then, Skubal struggled to accept those results as part of the process, especially as a top-25 prospect in baseball.
“Expectations are (expletive),” Skubal said. “You come up as a top prospect, and you’re expected to just go out there and have success. You listen to the hype, and you don’t go out there and do it, you feel like you failed. Looking back on it, I should have never thought I failed. You learn from it.”
It wasn’t until early in the 2022 season that Skubal finally felt like he belonged in the big leagues.
That was nearly two years after his MLB debut.
And two years before he won the AL Cy Young.
“Here’s what I would tell myself: You’re going to be OK,” said Skubal, who owns a 2.54 ERA in 55 starts in 2023-25. “Even when the results are horrible, get back to work and keep stacking good days. Over time, hopefully, it’ll be in your favor — and if it’s not, then you know you gave everything you had to a game. I think I can live with that.”
Jack Flaherty: ‘Trust your stuff over the plate’
Right-hander Jack Flaherty made his MLB debut in September 2017. The 29-year-old still remembers a stretch of three late April and early May starts in the 2018 season that helped define his career, as he bounced between the Triple-A and MLB ranks.
Flaherty, who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2017-23, walked four batters April 28, 2018, against the Pittsburgh Pirates, prompting a demotion to Triple-A Memphis. He walked four more in his next start, against the Nashville Sounds. Then, during his pregame bullpen four days after that, before facing the Oklahoma City Dodgers, he couldn’t locate a single pitch, so he didn’t even finish the session.
He felt lost.
“I was like, ‘F it,'” Flaherty said. “I just had to go compete.”
That day, Flaherty struck out 13 batters — and walked none — across 6⅔ innings.
He was never demoted again.
Flaherty would give the rookie version of himself the same advice he still gives himself now, nine years into an MLB career that features a World Series championship and four sub-3.50 ERA seasons — but not yet an All-Star appearance.
“Walks are only going to hurt you,” Flaherty said. “Sometimes, you get little tentative about ball in play, especially if you get hit around a couple of times. But you have to trust your stuff over the plate. That’s where you’re going to get guys out, especially because these guys are more disciplined, so expanding all the time doesn’t work. You have to go over the plate.”
Of course, it’s easier said than done.
That was the constant message from longtime pitching coach Mike Maddux — a 15-year MLB veteran with more than two decades of coaching experience, including 2018-22 with Flaherty — to every pitcher he mentored.
“The hardest thing to do in this game is trust your stuff,” Flaherty said. “He would tell us that every spring training.”
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Casey Mize: ‘You’re here for a reason’
Right-hander Casey Mize didn’t hesitate when discussing his MLB debut in August 2020. The 28-year-old immediately named two big names: Tim Anderson and José Abreu. Those were All-Star players with the Chicago White Sox, creating a psychological barrier because he respected them.
Maybe a little too much.
“Innately, you’re just like, these guys are — I mean, you don’t want to say better than me,” Mize said, “but there’s a reason they’re really good, so I need to be my best against them. So you just try to get too perfect.”
He was reluctant to challenge elite hitters in the strike zone, especially the stars he grew up watching. Instead, he aimed for the edges. Nibbling led to too many walks and not enough strikes.
Trouble followed.
“You start missing, and then you get into 2-0 counts or 1-0 counts or 3-1 counts,” Mize said, “and then no matter how good your stuff is, in those counts, it’s difficult to pitch. It’s just attacking the zone early against guys who are veterans and have been doing it for a while. I think that’s probably the biggest thing to try to overcome.”
Mize didn’t walk anyone in his MLB debut in Chicago, but over 28⅓ innings in his first season, he posted a 9.8% walk rate and a 6.99 ERA. Since then, he has logged a 3.86 ERA with a 6.3% walk rate over 305⅓ innings in four seasons.
Early in 2021, Mize finally felt like he could compete against the best hitters in the world.
All it took was a little bit of success.
“It doesn’t take years, for the most part,” Mize said. “It happens over a little bit of time, but not too long. And that continues to grow. It’s not like it happens and then it’s done. You continue to grow.”
Reese Olson: ‘You don’t have to be too perfect’
Right-hander Reese Olson called it “a pretty standard answer,” but the advice he would give his rookie self is something he still works on every time he takes the mound.
The 25-year-old made his MLB debut in June 2023.
The learning curve remains in his third season, with 49 starts and fewer than 300 innings of experience in the big leagues. His high-whiff changeup and slider can tempt him into chasing strikeouts, which sometimes leads to too many walks.
“Trust my stuff in the zone and try not to be too perfect,” Olson said, “which is something I still struggle with doing. Try not to move my stuff too nasty. Just trust my stuff in the zone.”
Olson allowed just three runs over 10 innings in the first two games of his career, which gave him early confidence that he belonged at the highest level.
But he has had rough stretches, too.
Olson tends to struggle when he tries to be too precise — aiming for whiffs on every pitch. He finds success when he locates in the strike zone and lets the outs happen, whether it’s a strikeout or a weak grounder.
“I had to learn,” said Olson, who has never had an ERA above 3.99 in his three-year MLB career. “I had to make it a point while I was out there on the mound to tell myself to do that instead of just acting like I’m working on it throughout the week, and then once I get into the games, just revert to old habits.”
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