CHICAGO —The Detroit Tigers have promoted right-hander Ty Madden for his MLB debut.
Madden will start Monday night against the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field. The 24-year-old is coming off his best stretch in Triple-A Toledo, posting a 5.63 ERA with five walks and 37 strikeouts across 24 innings in four starts.
Although Madden could eventually move to the bullpen if he fails to harness his offspeed pitch in the big leagues, he will be used as a starter by the Tigers in the immediate future.
He ranks as the Tigers' No. 16 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline.
"When you look at Ty, you can miss a few things if you're not careful," manager A.J. Hinch said. "If you look at it recently, he's struck out a lot of hitters, lowered his walk and made a few adjustments through our player development that we're really excited about. He's earned this opportunity based on those adjustments."
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It's not surprising the Tigers promoted Madden despite his season-long struggles because he is eligible for the Rule 5 draft this offseason. Had he not been called up, the Tigers would have needed to add him to the 40-man roster by mid-November to protect him from being selected by another organization in early December. Instead of waiting, the Tigers took care of the 40-man decision now.
The Tigers selected Madden with the No. 32 overall pick in the 2021 draft out of Texas.
In 2024, Madden had a 6.98 ERA with 43 walks and 124 strikeouts across 96⅔ innings in 22 starts with Double-A Erie (four starts) and Triple-A Toledo (18 starts).
At the Triple-A level, Madden posted a 7.97 ERA with 40 walks (10.8% walk rate) and 102 strikeouts (27.6% strikeout rate) across 79 innings, allowing 17 home runs. His fastball was the only pitch he consistently located in the strike zone, which led to hard contact.
Madden was responsible for at least five earned runs in seven of his 18 starts with the Mud Hens, including a season-high eight earned runs in late June.
He threw 109 pitches in his last start.
"Those adjustments you made in Triple-A are why you're here," Hinch said, recounting his meeting with Madden. "The challenge will be the adjustments that we ask you to make at this level. The adjustments are going to continue for the rest of your career. Ty is determined to be a really good pitcher. In order to do that, he's got to be open to adjustments, and when he showed that, we rewarded it."
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Madden ranked eighth in strikeout rate among 95 pitchers in Triple-A with at least 70 innings, but he also ranked 70th in walk rate. The abundance of walks, which he cleaned up in his last four starts, was a product of delivery issues.
He has a tendency to spray pitches to his arm side.
He allows too many pulled fly balls.
"He was just having some trouble locating some secondary pitches, and then that overexposed his fastball," said catcher Dillon Dingler, scheduled to catch Madden in his MLB debut. "I think his miss patterns and what he was trying to do has gotten a lot better. Fastball is really good location-wise, and then he's able to drive his other pitches to the optimal locations, whether it be cutters up and in, sliders down and away, splitter down."
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Madden used six pitches throughout his 18 starts in Triple-A Toledo: four-seam fastball (43.9%), slider (34.6%), splitter (9.1%), cutter (6.5%) and curveball (5.9%).
His fastball averaged 93.8 mph.
"A lot of it with Ty is being able to use his pitches correctly," Hinch said. "The split has come along. The breaking ball has come along. The fastball is a continued work in progress. ... It's making adjustments from delivery to usage to a combination of those two."
His slider is the best pitch in his repertoire, generating a 46.8% whiff rate (including a 60.5% whiff rate in his last four starts). He only gets in trouble with his slider when he hangs it.
Madden previously threw a changeup as his offspeed pitch, but he replaced the changeup with a splitter in spring training. His new splitter produced a 43.1% whiff rate with the Mud Hens.
He needs to prove he can use the splitter effectively in the big leagues if he wants to stick as a starter.
"It's hard when you feel like a third pitch is a distant third pitch," Hinch said. "He slowly but surely incorporated that along with the slider, and getting the fastball above the barrel and below the barrel is important, and he's going to need to do the same thing."
Contact Evan Petzold atepetzold@freepress.comor follow him@EvanPetzold.
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