{"id":501090,"date":"2026-01-01T01:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T01:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/501090\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T01:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T01:19:13","slug":"tigers-young-arm-tagged-as-potential-breakout-candidate-for-2026-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/501090\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers’ young arm tagged as potential ‘breakout candidate’ for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tigers’ young arm tagged as potential ‘breakout candidate’ for 2026<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the midway point of the 2025 season, the Detroit Tigers<\/a> had a top-10 farm system. They were ranked sixth with some exciting prospects waiting to make a name for themselves at the big league level.<\/p>\n

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Troy Melton was one of these prospects waiting for his call-up. He got it on July 23 against the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> and did not look back. He struck out seven batters in five innings.<\/p>\n

Melton would go on to pitch 45.2 innings during the regular season, compiling a 3-2 record with a 2.76 ERA. He would also go on to pitch in the postseason, playing a key role during the ALDS against the Seattle Mariners<\/a>, where he pitched multiple times.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Tigers’ young prospect expected to make a huge jump this upcoming season<\/a><\/p>\n

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Tigers’ young arm tagged as potential ‘breakout candidate’ for 2026<\/p>\n

Melton pitched above expectations in 2025 and could be in store for a great 2026 season. His past performances should motivate him, knowing that he has the skills to get outs at the big league level.<\/p>\n

MLB.com’s Jason Beck<\/a> tags him as Detroit’s breakout candidate for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

“Detroit’s 2025 playoff run might not have happened without the hard-throwing Melton, who made an immediate impact as a midseason call-up to the rotation before shifting to the bullpen down the stretch. He helped the Tigers take a must-win game in Cleveland in the final week of the regular season, then rebounded from a rough postseason debut to beat the Mariners in Game 4 of the ALDS.”<\/p>\n

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Melton could parlay is gret rookie season into an even better one in 2026. Now, there is no telling where he will end up this upcoming season.<\/p>\n

He could return to his role as a starting pitcher, or he could return to the bullpen if the Tigers add another veteran starting pitcher this offseason.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tigers’ young arm tagged as potential ‘breakout candidate’ for 2026 originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2386],"tags":[6556,5,135,147,53,2583,4,64,65,594,33608,37771,32360],"class_list":{"0":"post-501090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-alds","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-detroit","12":"tag-detroit-tigers","13":"tag-detroittigers","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","16":"tag-seattle-mariners","17":"tag-tigers","18":"tag-troy-melton","19":"tag-upcoming-season","20":"tag-young-prospect"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115817215637251450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}