LAKELAND, Fla. -- Jackson Jobe can see the light at the end of the tunnel as he rehabs from last summer's Tommy John surgery. And the light could be closer than it initially appeared.
”Knock on wood, things have been going about as well as they could,” Jobe said Saturday morning. “I’m just trying to keep it that way, not change a thing. The program that we have has been great.”
Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris and general manager Jeff Greenberg raised eyebrows at baseball’s Winter Meetings a few months ago when they said Jobe was on track to return to pitching during the back half of this coming season, a rehab of just over a year. Jobe confirmed the timetable and said it should be before September, allowing him to make more than a cameo appearance down the stretch for a team that’s expected to contend for an AL Central title and a playoff run.
“Obviously you want to be smart about it. … [But] I’m feeling pretty optimistic that I will be throwing some important innings this year,” Jobe said. “We have on paper one of the best teams we’ve had in a while, I guess you could say, and I think we’re only getting better, especially our offense. I think it feels like the same group, but everyone is just getting older and more experienced.
”It stinks that I’m not going to be there for the beginning, honestly. It really does. But I think we’ll be doing something special towards the end of the year that I can hopefully be a part of and really add to.”
Jobe underwent a hybrid Tommy John surgery last June. Dr. Keith Meister did a full reconstruction of Jobe’s ulnar collateral ligament, but also used an internal brace to aid in healing and strengthen the reconstruction. The hybrid procedure has become common in recent years, particularly with Dr. Meister, and the 23-year-old Jobe was an ideal candidate.
After a month rehabbing in Detroit last summer, Jobe said he did the rest of his rehab at Meister’s clinic in Dallas, where he spends a good part of his offseason. His throwing program in Lakeland has been steadily progressing. He’s now playing catch out to 105 feet, and should progress to 120 feet soon. If he stays on track, the next logical step would be to begin throwing off a mound in about six weeks.
From there, the next steps would be live batting practice against hitters, then a Minor League rehab assignment. How those go, and how Jobe feels, will help determine how long those last.
”I think it’ll just depend on how sharp I’m feeling, how quickly I can get on the field,” Jobe said. “But as it stands right now, I feel pretty normal, which is kind of weird but I guess I’ll take it.”
Jobe has a track record of coming out of rehabs strong. When a back injury delayed his 2023 debut until mid-June, he came back dominant at Single-A Lakeland, High-A West Michigan and the Arizona Fall League, vaulting him among baseball’s top prospects and setting him on a path to Detroit in 2024. In that case, he worked on pitch design while he was rehabbing and had a nastier arsenal post-injury than he did before.
“Injuries for me so far have always been a blessing in disguise,” said Jobe, who said he received good feedback from Tigers teammates and fellow Tommy John patients Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal.
Pitch design is tougher to do while rehabbing an arm injury, though Jobe said he has thought about what his pitches will look like when he returns.
”I just started throwing some changeups and some curveballs light,” Jobe said. “I have some different ideas, but I’m just going to wait and see how it feels. Whatever shapes work out of my slot that I come back to that feels good and healthy for me is the arsenal that I’m going to work with, I think. In the past, I’ve fallen into the trap of getting obsessed with a certain pitch type and manipulating my arm slot on different pitches to try to get some movements.”