While the main theme of the Tiger farm system is the group of top shelf prospects leading the way, the other big story in the system is a pretty disastrous run of pitcher injuries over the last two years. They\u2019ve invested pretty heavily in prep pitching over the last three drafts, and right now they don\u2019t necessarily have much to show for it. It\u2019s going to be a major problem if the organization isn\u2019t able to produce a whole lot of major league caliber pitching in a few years. Left-hander Ethan Schiefelbein got a big bonus as their competitive balance round B (72nd overall) pick in 2024, and like the other big prep signings in 2023 and 2024, he was barely on the mound at all in 2025.<\/p>\n
The Tigers have always had a penchant for power right-handers, though that\u2019s not unusual, so Schiefelbein was a fairly anomalous selection for the organization. An advanced high school lefty with four solid offerings and good control for his age, but without the high velocity fastball that often gets prep pitchers big bonuses, was a bet more on physical projection than anything else. His mechanics and stable, easy delivery spoke to a high likelihood of developing into a plus command guy in time.<\/p>\n
At his best, the California native out of Corona High School looked like his just needed to grow into major league caliber stuff without requiring the huge development in command and pitch shapes that most pitchers, especially prep pitchers, need to make to reach the major leagues. His upside wasn\u2019t necessarily on the level of harder throwing prep picks with similar big bonuses like Owen Hall and Paul Wilson, but for a prep pitcher Schiefelbein had a distinctly high floor as well. That was augmented by the fact that he only turned 18 in April of his draft year, whereas many prep players in the draft are already 19 or close to it on draft day.<\/p>\n
Now 19 years old, Schiefelbein suffered the same fate as most of the Tigers\u2019 young pitchers in 2025. After extended spring camp, he made three short appearances in the Complex League, looking little changed from draft day, and then missed the rest of the season with an injury that was reportedly a shoulder strain that didn\u2019t require surgery, but did take the rest of the summer to rehab. In Schiefelbein\u2019s case, this isn\u2019t too concerning, at least compared to the other major injuries plaguing the Tigers\u2019 pitching ranks. Rather than pushing him back on the mound at Single-A ball late in the year, the young left-hander just spent his time building up his body and trying to add overall strength before embarking on what will hopefully be a successful full season debut in 2026.<\/p>\n
Point being, while 2023 second rounder Paul Wilson won\u2019t likely be on the mound until late this season and will turn 22 years old next December, and the Tigers other top 2024 prep picks, Owen Hall and Zach Swanson most notably, aren\u2019t going to throw a full season until they\u2019re 21 in 2027, Schiefelbein is still on track to get on the mound and pitch his way through the Complex and Single-A levels this season as a 20-year-old. The Tigers will be hoping it plays out that way as their prep pitcher heavy strategy in the draft is looking pretty rough at the moment.<\/p>\n
Schiefelbein is a pretty prototypical lefty with a balanced delivery throwing from a high three-quarters arm slot. He was well known to scouts as a high school senior after pitching for Team USA, and he was pretty much unhittable in his final year of school posting a 0.27 ERA with 83 strikeouts to just 11 walks over 52 innings of work. He used a twoseam fastball, slider, knuckle curveball, circle changeup mix as of the last time we saw him on a mound and showed the ability to locate all four pitches pretty effectively. His fastball typically sat 90-91 mph though he touched 94-95 mph on multiple occasions in high school.<\/p>\n
He looks like more of a supinator than a guy who is going to turn over nasty, horizontally breaking sinkers and changeups, so I would guess the Tigers will have him moving more to the fourseamer and perhaps try and develop a cutter as he moves through pro ball. His curve was the best secondary pitch for him as a senior, and he has good though not crazy spin rates on the breaking stuff. The slider and changeup were more crude, but he wasn\u2019t afraid to throw them in the zone, and already spotted them well for his age.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, there just isn\u2019t much more to add to his scouting report yet. Guys like Hall, Wilson, and Swanson are expected to get back on the mound this year, but only Hall is on track to start his 2026 season on time. Schiefelbein will have the stage to himself to a degree early on, and while the Tigers won\u2019t be pushing him beyond 100 innings this early in his career, he should be ready to throw a full season by now, assuming no further injury trouble emerges.<\/p>\n
Prep pitchers take time. Even Jackson Jobe, widely regarded as one of the most advanced and talented prep pitchers of the past decade, struggled through most of his first two seasons and dealt with a host of minor injuries before suddenly breaking out in a big way two years out from his draft day. Schiefelbein is going to be a longer term project, so this season we\u2019ll just be looking for more muscle on his slender 6\u20192\u201d frame, and for him to stay healthy and start refining his craft. That would be very welcome progress in his age 20 season. The upside here is something like Cole Hamels as the absolute best case scenario, but the more realistic hope is that Schiefelbein stays healthy as he builds himself up over the next few seasons, and hits his likeliest positive outcome as a solid 3-4 level starting pitcher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the main theme of the Tiger farm system is the group of top shelf prospects leading the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,38501,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-536669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroit-tigers-prospects-minor-leagues","12":"tag-detroittigers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115952065285073955","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536669","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=536669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}