LAKELAND, FL – Imagine you’re Detroit Tigers pitcher Jake Miller.
You walk into the clubhouse and can’t find your locker, only to learn it’s been moved to a different location in a row of fellow starting pitchers.
You’re an under-the-radar prospect who doesn’t believe what you’re seeing when you find your new locker.
“I thought I was getting pranked at first,” Miller said.
To your left: Casey Mize.
To your right: Jack Flaherty.
A few steps away: Tarik Skubal, Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez.
“I think it’s up to us to make him feel comfortable,” said Skubal, the reigning back-to-back American League Cy Young winner. “Talk to him, ‘Hey, you need a water? You need a banana?’ Whatever it is, make him feel comfortable.”
Miller isn’t a top-100 prospect.
But the Tigers are aware of his potential.
“We like Jake Miller quite a bit,” president of baseball operations Scott Harris said. “We think that he’s one of our better starting pitching prospects.”
The Tigers added Miller to the 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 draft in December, all while he recovered from labral repair surgery on both hips. The 24-year-old left-hander was selected in the eighth round of the 2022 draft out of Valparaiso University.
“We’re going to take it slow with him because the innings are going to be really important for him this year,” Harris said, “but we think he’s going to impact us in the big leagues. It’s just a matter of when.”
Injuries limited Miller to just six starts in 2025, including four in Double-A Erie, where he posted a 2.12 ERA with four walks and 16 strikeouts across 17 innings. He underwent double hip surgery in October, but he remains in rehab mode.
“I just started playing catch,” said Miller, who has been in TigerTown since the first week of January. “Games can’t come soon enough. I’m hoping by June that I’ll be back in there.”
When healthy, Miller pairs a swing-and-miss changeup with a 93 mph fastball and two slider variations, with his fastball reaching the upper-90s. He throws all of his pitches in the strike zone with control and command.
He has a new goal for when he returns to games.
It’s 100 mph.
“He’s pretty deceptive,” Harris said. “When you watch him pitch, you can tell that hitters are uncomfortable in the box. He’s got to keep pounding the zone. He’s got to keep using his entire mix. But we think the ceiling is pretty high for him.”
For Miller, the locker assignment made everything feel real. The path to his MLB debut is taking shape – if not in late 2026, then in early 2027 – as long as he stays healthy.
He called his dad after learning his locker situation wasn’t a prank.
“I told him who I was around,” Miller said. “He was pumped up, too.”
His new locker mates are happy to have him.
They’ve all been in his shoes before.
“When you talk to prospects, it’s important to get those guys comfortable,” said Skubal, once an under-the-radar prospect as a ninth-round pick in the 2018 draft. “I want to make those guys confident, so that way when they contribute, whenever it is, they make an impact on our team in a positive way.”
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Update on Max Clark’s broken tooth
Spring training is a time for learning.
Like learning not to drink ice-cold water with a broken tooth.
“I woke up at like 5 a.m., and I’m rolling out of bed,” outfielder Max Clark said Thursday, Feb. 19, before practice.
He had forgotten that he broke a tooth while eating after Wednesday’s workout.
“I have a water bottle with ice in it,” he said. “I forgot, and my wife [Kayli] was asleep, and I took a sip of it, lying back, and it hit. I had the worst chill convulsion of all time. I woke her up. It was brutal. I’ve never felt anything like that.”
A fruit snack did the damage.
“It felt like I bit into a rock, and then I kept chewing, and it was just like the worst pain,” he said. “I think I cracked my back molar previously, and it just finally pushed the filling out.”
Clark ate breakfast – cautiously.
“I can’t eat on that side of my mouth,” he said. “It’s tender, so I’m just chewing on my left side.”
He planned to get it fixed Thursday afternoon.
Clark got married Dec. 13 in Indianapolis.
He met his wife after a football game during their freshman year at Franklin Community High School. A few years later, the Tigers selected him with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 draft.
Entering 2026, Clark ranks as a consensus top-10 prospect in baseball.
“It was beautiful,” Clark said. “It was downtown at Union Station, which is an old train station that they turned into a ballroom. If you ever spend any time at Victory Field, the [Pittsburgh] Pirates’ Triple-A [ballpark], there’s a lock tower in left-center. It’s right there, and it was beautiful. We got like eight inches of snow on our wedding day, which was beautiful. It was an indoor wedding. Thank God, because originally she was pushing for an outdoor wedding, and I was like, ‘Not in December, not in Indiana.’ It was freezing, but it was great. And we went on a honeymoon, and then I came down here two weeks later.”
Best shape of his life? Prospect loses 35 pounds
The Tigers asked prospect Thayron Liranzo to transform his body after the 2025 season, along with rebuilding his right-handed swing, tweaking his left-handed swing and cleaning up pitch receiving.
So, he lost 35 pounds.
“I feel amazing,” Liranzo said.
“We felt like he could get a little leaner and would find some movement gains, both in the box and behind the plate,” said Harris, who acquired Liranzo from the Los Angeles Dodgers at the 2024 trade deadline. “He looks more like a center fielder than a catcher right now, which is a huge compliment to him and all the work that he put in, both in the gym and in the kitchen over the past offseason.
Liranzo, a 22-year-old switch-hitting catcher, spent the offseason at the Tigers’ complex in Lakeland – rather than returning to his home in the Dominican Republic. That choice allowed him to work closely with the trainers and dietitians throughout the offseason.
Losing weight increased his mobility as a catcher.
It should help him make the defensive improvements he needs to advance as a catcher.
“I’m a tall guy, and I’m a big guy,” said Liranzo, who stands at 6 feet, 2 inches, “so I need to move and be a little bit more athletic, just to catch the pitches and put them in the zone. To do that, I need the mobility and agility that, back in the day, I wasn’t able to get.”
In 2025, Liranzo hit .206 with 11 home runs, 47 walks and 125 strikeouts across 88 games in Double-A Erie, making 45 starts at catcher and 43 at designated hitter. His struggles dropped him off top-100 prospect lists.
He is expected to return to Double-A in 2026.
“This is a really big year for him,” Harris said.
Javier Báez, emergency catcher?
On Thursday, the Tigers tested the video board at Joker Marchant Stadium.
There are only three days until Sunday, which is the home opener of the Grapefruit League schedule against the Baltimore Orioles, with Flaherty scheduled to start for the Tigers.
The scoreboard listed Javier Báez as the leadoff hitter.
And the catcher.
Báez has played shortstop, second base, third base, center field, first base, left field and right field throughout his 12-year MLB career – but never catcher or pitcher. He continues to wait for his chance behind the plate.
Maybe, just maybe, Báez could be the emergency third catcher?
“I’ve been there a couple of times – maybe five times in my career,” Báez said. “I thought two of them were here in Detroit. Well, I thought I was the emergency catcher, but it wasn’t me. It was Z-Mac.”
Once, Báez asked manager A.J. Hinch if he was the emergency catcher.
He figured it had to be him.
“You got no chance,” Hinch responded.
The actual choice?
Utility player Zach McKinstry.
Kevin McGonigle hits home run vs. Beau Brieske. What pitch type?
Kevin McGonigle continues to make noise.
The 21-year-old shortstop – the No. 2 prospect in baseball who hasn’t played above Double-A Erie but remains in the mix to earn a spot on the Tigers’ Opening Day roster – hit a home run against right-handed reliever Beau Brieske in Thursday’s live batting practice.
It was a towering home run to right-center field.
That’s the pull side for him.
What pitch type did McGonigle crush?
“Fastball,” he said.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold. Contact Jeff Seidel at jseidel@freepress.com or follow him @seideljeff.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers observations: Why unknown prospect thought he was being pranked
Reporting by Evan Petzold and Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
