LAKELAND, Fla. — It’s more than a curveball.
Matt Manning, a former Detroit Tigers top prospect, is trying to pick up the broken pieces from his faulty development under the old regime. Scouts raved about his hammer curveball coming out of high school, but that pitch, along with the rest of his arsenal, has been inconsistent against top-level hitters.
Back then, the 2016 No. 9 overall pick, a lanky right-hander from northern California, was supposed to be the next big thing for the Tigers. But entering his third MLB season, there are more questions than answers about his future.
“I wish in the minor leagues they would have told me more,” Manning, now 25, said. “Just like, ‘Go out and throw 50% curveballs. We don’t care what happens, but you got to work on your curveball.’ Instead, I knew I could beat the minor leagues with my fastball, so that’s all I did.
“Once I got to Triple-A and the big leagues, I couldn’t just throw the fastball. I had to work on things. I felt like I was behind in that sense. But I’m learning and getting better. I have command of all four pitches now. It’s just getting everything back together.”
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Yes, that sounds like a complaint from an underachieving ex-prospect, but perhaps there’s more to it.
Consider right-hander Alex Faedo, a fellow former first-round pick, who has been outspoken about misinformation regarding his arm slot from the previous player development department. Faedo is back to his mechanics from his years as a star pitcher at the University of Florida, backed by the Tigers’ new wave of pitching coaches: Chris Fetter, Robin Lund and Gabe Ribas.
The Tigers changed leadership in the player development department in September 2021, replacing Dave Littlefield with Ryan Garko. Since then, the entire pitching department — from the major leagues to the lowest level of the minors — has realigned its processes.
The Tigers also changed leadership in the front office, firing general manager Al Avila this past August and replacing him with president of baseball operations Scott Harris in September. Harris previously explored new avenues in technology as an executive with the Chicago Cubs.
“The communication back then was like, ‘If you want to get to the next level, pitch well,'” Manning said. “Pitching well was having a low ERA. So I was like, ‘Why would I throw anything else until they can beat my fastball?’ I would throw that 70 times in a game.”
Before Harris’ arrival, Fetter helped Manning add a sinker to his arsenal, and Ribas helped him tweak his slider grip to get more horizontal movement.
The slider has been Manning’s biggest development in years.
A slide ahead
The fastball has been a dynamite pitch from the beginning.
As Manning has discovered over the past two seasons, one pitch (or 1½ pitches, with allowances for his improved but unproven slider) isn’t enough to be an ace-caliber starter, or even in the top half of an MLB rotation.
It’s why he has a 4.79 ERA in 30 MLB starts with 3.2 walks and 6.4 strikeouts per nine innings, and it’s partially why he has a 5.98 ERA in 13 Triple-A starts with 3.4 walks and 10.1 strikeouts per nine.
“It’s frustrating sometimes, honestly, because there’s so much stuff that I’m changing,” Manning said. “I’m trying to start from the ground up but also do the little things right by getting ahead of hitters, throwing strikes, staying in the zone and not putting myself in bad situations.”
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The newest addition to the pitching department is Lund, a longtime kinesiology professor and former Iowa pitching coach hired by the Tigers this past November as an assistant pitching coach.
He is an expert in biomechanics.
Lund joined the Tigers with three college degrees out West: a bachelor’s in education from Washington state’s Whitworth College in 1995, a master’s in exercise science from Eastern Washington in 1997 and a doctoral in exercise science from Idaho in 2002.
And Lund’s expertise jumpstarted Manning’s most recent attempt at the next step in his development. The focus, primarily based on optimizing the way his body moves, has been placed on his lower-half mechanics.
Explaining the changes is difficult, even for Manning, but he tried his best to break it down while acting out his refined delivery in front of his locker in the clubhouse. He is proud of what he is learning. (Manager A.J. Hinch does not allow assistant coaches to speak to reporters.)
“Sometimes, I have a problem jumping off the mound too soon, so when I get to the (front) foot plant, I’ll be pushy (off my back foot) and lose my lower half instead of keeping back in the drift where your butt is supposed to go down the mound to keep a coil (in my hips). I would always go down and jump off the mound, so I would lose (the coil) but have really good acceleration. I’m trying to stay back to keep the coil when I go down the mound.”
In shorter form: Manning believes the new lower-half mechanics are the key to unlocking the best release point for his curveball, once considered his best secondary pitch. A cleaner delivery should take stress off his shoulder and elbow, too.
This could be a career-changing discovery.
He is thankful for Professor Lund.
“He is the only one that’s been able to describe it so I can grasp the concepts,” Manning said, “but I’ve been working on it for the longest time. I have flashes of it when it’s perfect, and then I’ll lose it. The better I understand it, the better I can grasp onto it and hold onto it longer. … With Robin coming in, it’s different voices and now the numbers can confirm it. We know we’re on the right track.”
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‘Two clean innings’
Manning felt nervous when he stepped on the mound for his first start of spring training Wednesday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He hadn’t pitched in an actual game since Sept. 21, after making just 12 starts in the big leagues last season. A right shoulder injury sidelined him for most of the summer.
His season ended Sept. 28, when a right forearm strain forced the Tigers to scratch him from his start. He will never forget making the long pregame walk from the bullpen to the dugout at Comerica Park, only to enter the clubhouse.
“I can go out there in a bullpen and just rip it, and I don’t care where the ball goes,” Manning said. “When I get out there (in a game), sometimes you might take a step back to have the results and confidence. … I wanted to get two clean innings and get my confidence going.”
Three years ago, Manning wouldn’t dare to think that way.
He remembers his first spring training start in 2020, when he faced the best hitters from the Atlanta Braves. The first six batters were William Contreras, Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies, Freddie Freeman, Austin Riley and Adam Duvall — all past or future All-Stars. In those matchups, Manning threw his fastball as hard as possible.
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Three years later, against a decidedly less All-Star-laden Pirates squad, Manning decided to prioritize his strike throwing, lower-half mechanics and curveball. All five of his curveballs in Wednesday’s start landed in the strike zone, generating one swing-and-miss and one called strike, but his fastball averaged 90 mph, more than 3 mph less than last year’s average.
Manning wasn’t concerned.
Not even a little bit.
“My curveball feels really good,” said Manning, who didn’t change the grips of his pitches this offseason. “My slider feels really good. The shapes are completely different. My changeup was really good. I think everything is right where I want it to be. I have a month to get my body right and get everything finalized.”
Hinch wasn’t concerned, either.
“He’s working on a few things with his delivery, with his lower half,” Hinch said. “Velocity is the last thing that we’re going to worry about. We’re trying to get him to hold his legs a little bit, and then he’ll get his body moving fast enough as his starts progress. Strikes were key for him.”
A tall task
But Manning needs to tap into his athleticism at some point before the regular season starts. His 6-foot-6 stature provides him elite extension toward home plate, and he was a two-sport star — baseball and basketball — in high school.
Manning has shown his potential in spurts during his MLB career, but even in his best starts last season, he primarily relied on his fastball and slider. He always seems one adjustment away from a breakthrough because of his rare physical tools.
Right now, he is still thinking about his lower-half mechanics every time he throws the ball. It’s all part of the plan. The Tigers expect his velocity to increase as his delivery becomes natural.
“My biggest thing is to throw a full season and know, when I go out (to pitch), I’m going to be 92-95 (mph) every time,” Manning said. “I’ll have games where I’ll be up to 97 (mph) and down to 91 (mph). The more work I can do now, the more consistent I can be in the season.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.