Tigers' silence on Casey Mize suggests there's still a lot to solve with rotation

The Tigers don't seem to know what to do with Casey Mize. To be fair, they are between a rock and a hard place with him, as the former first overall pick just hasn't been able to perform to expectations (or has been hurt) through four seasons in the majors. This team is faithful to their top prospects (see: Spencer Torkelson), but at what point should they say that enough is enough?

With their signing of Alex Cobb, we have a general idea of what the Tigers rotation will look like in 2025: Tarik Skubal, Reese Olson, Cobb, Mize, maybe Keider Montero. However, they also have other potential starters to take into account like Kenta Maeda and Jackson Jobe.

At the Winter Meetings, GM Jeff Greenberg didn't make it sound like the Tigers are wed to that particular configuration, though. He specifically named Skubal, Olson, and Cobb as locks, but the Tigers also "have seven or eight additional guys on our roster." They also aren't guaranteeing Jobe a spot and seem to be done with buying free agent pitchers.

It's more than a little frustrating for fans that Detroit will give Maeda an audition at spring training next season and will overpay for Cobb but won't do anything more, and it leaves a lot of questions for what the rotation might actually look like in 2025.

Predicting the Detroit Tigers 2025 starting rotation after Alex Cobb signing, unknown Casey Mize future

It looks like we're going to have to wait for spring training to see how the Tigers are going to fill out the last two spots in the rotation, but if we had to guess prematurely, we could see it going something like this:

1. Tarik Skubal
2. Reese Olson
3. Alex Cobb
4. Casey Mize
5. Jackson Jobe

Even though the Tigers aren't promising anything to Jobe, it feels more likely than not that he'll come out of spring training as a winner. In this scenario, Kenta Maeda and Keider Montero would be the primary guys to miss out on a rotation spot. While Montero had a decent rookie season and the Tigers seem to have been quiet quitting on Mize, it feels more likely that they'd assign Montero to the bullpen than Mize.

This projected rotation is a total mixed bag. Of course, there's no reason to be concerned about Skubal, and Olson should be decent if he can stay healthy. But Cobb, Mize, and Jobe all come with a certain amount of risk. Mize hasn't been good, Cobb can't stay healthy, and Jobe is untested.

There's still hope that the Tigers sign Roki Sasaki to elevate this rotation into one that actually looks prepared to compete again (in which case Mize would definitely get the shove), but for now, we might just have to see what we get with this crew.