Maligned Tigers pitcher could actually help Tarik Skubal get even better

The Tigers will play their first spring training game on Saturday, and Kenta Maeda will be the man on the bump for Detroit. It might be a bit of a bummer for fans who are planning to go out to Lakeland and hoping they'd get Tarik Skubal, but the Tigers have two open spots in the rotation, and Maeda is one of four pitchers who will be fighting for one.

He's on his second year of a $24 million deal, and even if he's only making $10 million in 2025, that's a lot more than anyone would want to pay a reliever — and one who doesn't even really hold a candle to Will Vest, Beau Brieske, Tyler Holton and Jason Foley. Maeda's well-documented struggles in 2024 couldn't even guarantee him a rotation spot through last year.

It's another contract that Tigers fans resent, but the Tigers' brass are still going to give him every opportunity to pitch and earn his way back.

But Maeda's more useful function at camp might be as a player-coach. After all, the guy did almost win a Cy Young in 2020 and pitched eight seasons in NPB before coming to MLB (going on nine years), and his splitter is still effective, even if it's not as devastating as it once was.

Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reported that Maeda was teaching Skubal his splitter grip, and although Skubal initially said he wouldn't be adding one to his pitch mix, he later conceded: "Maybe. If guy's can't hit one, sure. Why not?"

Kenta Maeda teaching Tarik Skubal how to throw a splitter could make Tigers' best pitcher even better

The splitter is common in Japan — Maeda, Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Shota Imanaga all throw one — and Maeda started relying on his more heavily in 2020 as the velocity on his fastball started to take a dip.

It was most effective that year, the same season when he placed second in AL Cy Young voting, inducing 38 strikeouts and just a .122 batting average against. For all of his struggles in 2024, it was still the best of any of his pitches, with a .217 opponents' average.

Skubal throws a fastball, changeup, sinker, slider and, more rarely, a knuckle curve, and the changeup is the pitch he's already started to highlight. Jack Flaherty pointed out that it's already plenty effective as Skubal's swing-and-miss pitch (it had a 46.1% whiff rate and 30.6% put away rate last year), but Skubal just shrugged and said, "Never say never."