The Detroit Tigers have shut down two of their top pitching prospects, Matt Manning and Alex Faedo, due to right forearm strains, general manager Al Avila announced Thursday.
“As opposed to trying to push this through and seeing if we can get them out of that in the short period of time we have left, we felt it would be more prudent to shut them down for the season at this point and continue the rehab process and then starting a throwing program and getting them ready for next year,” Avila said.
Manning entered the season as the Tigers’ No. 3 prospect, with Faedo at No. 8, according to the Free Press’ rankings.
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Manning, 22, was the ninth pick of the 2016 draft. Last season in Double-A Erie, he was 11-5 with a 2.56 ERA and a 0.980 WHIP over 24 starts and 133⅔ innings.
Faedo, 24, was drafted by the Tigers 18th overall in 2017. He was 6-7 with a 3.90 ERA and a 1.118 WHIP over 22 starts and 115⅓ innings in 2019. Faedo was placed on the 10-day injured list in July and missed summer camp. Both players had been working out at Fifth Third Field in Toledo.
Avila said with a month of the season remaining, it wasn’t worth rushing either player back.
“If this were a normal year where you have six months, a full season, we could’ve certainly gone through a rehab process, getting them back to pitching in the minor leagues and at some point even promoting them to the big leagues,” he said. Based on what we have left here going into this season, looking at it in a smarter way, it’s just going to be more conservative and taking our time to start looking at next year for them.”