Detroit Tigers lesson learned in September: Starting depth isn’t ideal

Detroit Tigers fans have seen some of the team’s starting pitchers struggle in September. The results aren’t the best where the future is concerned.

Detroit Tigers starting pitchers haven’t had the best month of September.

With Justin Verlander dealt to the Houston Astros at the end of August and Michael Fulmer being sidelined for the rest of the year due to injury, a number of inexperienced starters were forced to step in.

At first, this seemed like a positive idea—at least where 2018 was concerned.

Detroit could audition the likes of Buck Farmer, Chad Bell, Myles Jaye and Artie Lewicki to see if any of the group could make an impression ahead of a potential rotation job in 2018.

After all, the Tigers will head into next season with a rotation that has plenty of question marks after Fulmer.

While there were encouraging developments from Matthew Boyd, Daniel Norris and Jordan Zimmermann in September, the other starters struggled.

Struggled mightily, actually.

Farmer’s five starts lasted a collective 19.2 innings.

While he missed plenty of bats with a 9.61 strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate and a 10.2 swinging strike percentage, the right-hander was also tagged for 5.03 walks and 1.37 home runs per nine frames.

How the rest of the young starters fared

Meanwhile, Bell made four starts.

Total, those four outings spanned just 15.1 innings.

All told the southpaw faced 80 batters, giving up 27 hits, 16 runs, nine walks and four home runs in the process.

He also hit a batter. So yeah, not a great ratio there.

Next up is Jaye, who earned a pair of starts, but only made it through 5.1 innings. He faced 35 batters and gave up 13 runs, 12 hits, four walks and two home runs.

Rounding out the list is Lewicki, who made just one start. He gave up 11 hits, five runs and a walk in five innings against Kansas City.

Obviously some of those stats are due to sky-high BABIP numbers.

Of the aforementioned group, Farmer actually had the lowest BABIP at .377.

It could also be that these players could bounce back in 2018.

Players often struggle in their first extended shot at Major League playing time only to start to figure things out the next time around at the game’s highest level.

Still, even if that is the case for some of these hurlers, it doesn’t exactly paint Detroit’s rotation depth in the best light at the moment.

The prospects

The good news is that the Detroit Tigers have plenty of exciting starting pitching prospects close to the Major Leagues

Franklin Perez, Beau Burrows, Grayson Long, Tyler Alexander, Sandy Baez, Matt Hall and Spencer Turnbull all finished the year at Double-A Erie.

Some of those hurlers should begin the year in Triple-A, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see the likes of Perez, Burrows and Long debut sometime in the second half of 2018, if not by 2019.

That’s all and well, but Detroit will need stop-gap options in the rotation to form a bridge to the prospects.

Ideally, Boyd, Zimmermann and Norris will continue to take steps forward and prove to be viable options behind Fulmer.

However, if the trio struggle, Detroit could be in trouble while the team waits for their pitching prospects.

This is all without mentioning that the Tigers really don’t have a leader in the clubhouse, as it were, for the fifth starter’s job heading into next season.

Right now, it might be Farmer purely based on his ability to miss bats. However, the fact remains that no pitcher has distanced themselves down the stretch.

It could be that the Tigers sign a veteran starter to a one-year contract to fill in. Even if that’s the case, injuries can always happen.

When those injuries do happen in the rotation, teams need starting pitching depth to rely on.

Next: As early as next season, Christin Stewart could play a significant role for the Tigers

If we’ve learned anything in September, it’s that the Detroit Tigers probably don’t have the best pitching options waiting in reserve.