Jack Flaherty had a 4.99 ERA last season. Detroit Tigers have a plan to fix him in 2024

Jack Flaherty feels like people think he's older than he is.

He broke into the league at age 21 in 2017, received Cy Young and MVP votes at age 23 in 2019, suffered a career-changing oblique injury at age 25 in 2021 and became one of the youngest free agents just 18 days after his 28th birthday.

"I got a lot of baseball in front of me," Flaherty said.

Flaherty, a former first-round draft pick who celebrated his birthday in mid-October, picked the Detroit Tigers in free agency, signing a one-year, $14 million contract. If he bounces back, he will be one of the most coveted starting pitchers because of his talent and age in next year's free-agent class.

The success rate for bounce-back candidates isn't perfect in any organization, but the Tigers were determined to acquire one from the beginning of the offseason. Flaherty picked the Tigers because he thinks the Tigers can fix him.

"It's no secret Jack is betting on himself with this contract," Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said Wednesday. "We are very supportive of him coming here and betting on himself. Now, it's on us to create the environment that can best support him and help him make the adjustments that are going to bring out the best version of him."

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Harris, manager A.J. Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter were a part of the recruiting process, along with assistant pitching coaches Robin Lund and Juan Nieves.

In Flaherty's case, the Tigers created a plan, revealed the main points of the plan and sold their plan as the best plan. He had conversations with Hinch and Fetter throughout free agency.

"You could feel the interest," Flaherty said Wednesday. "There was interest from the beginning. Once I got wind of that, and once I got to talking with A.J., I felt like those relationships were being developed without coming to an agreement or coming to terms.

"We haven't really dug into all the little details of it, but we'll hop on the phone here in the next few days and go over it around the holidays. But they've got some ideas, just in talking with them in general terms, of how we can right this ship."

Blown off course in 2021

Flaherty, a right-handed pitcher, joined the Tigers because he believes Harris, Hinch, Fetter, Lund and Nieves will show him the way back to the 2019 and 2021 versions of his performance.

His best season was 2019, when he finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting and received NL MVP votes, but he feels like his 2021 gets overlooked.

THE DEAL: Tigers sign right-hander Jack Flaherty to one-year, $14 million contract

In 2021, Flaherty gave up six runs in his first start of the season. After that, Flaherty delivered a 2.18 ERA with 18 walks and 63 strikeouts in 57⅔ innings over his next 10 starts before a left oblique injury sent him to the injured list.

The oblique issue led to shoulder injuries.

"My start in 2021 was better," Flaherty said. "I was much more in control and everything was moving in the right direction. I tear my oblique, and it's been a process since then."

Flaherty posted a 3.31 ERA with an 8.4% walk rate and a 28.8% strikeout rate in the first 87 games of his career, followed by a 4.81 ERA with a 10.6% walk rate and a 22.5% strikeout rate in 44 games since the oblique strain.

Multiple evaluators think Flaherty has some type of flaw in his delivery. Pinpointing the exact problem is a tougher topic to tackle, but Flaherty's velocity, command and pitch shapes haven't been the same over the past two seasons. Lund, an expert in biomechanics, could be the key to fixing his mechanics.

He had a 4.99 ERA with too many walks and not enough strikeouts as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals and — after the trade deadline — Baltimore Orioles in the 2023 season.

"Last year was constant adjustments," Flaherty said. "I felt like I would go through stretches where things would go right, and then they'd go back the other way."

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What the Tigers evaluated

There were some positive takeaways for Flaherty in 2023.

His four-seam fastball velocity increased from 92.9 mph in April to 93.8 mph in September, and his strike rate increased from 59% in his first 15 games to 64% in his final 14 games.

He surrendered a lot of hard contact in the second half of the season, possibly because he was throwing more pitches inside the strike zone, but he posted three walks and 20 strikeouts across 15 innings in the month of September.

"A few other things, we noticed that his curveball is an elite swing-and-miss pitch," Harris said, referencing the 40.2% whiff rate. "It misses plenty of bats inside and outside the zone. We also noticed that he started to throw it a little bit harder when he got to Baltimore, which we thought was an encouraging sign."

Unlocking the optimal fastball again is one of the needs for Flaherty to turn around his career.

His fastball averaged 14.4 inches of induced vertical break and 4.8 inches of arm-side movement in 2019, which was the best season of his career. After joining the Orioles, his fastball averaged 14.3 inches of induced vertical break and 3.3 inches of arm-side movement compared to 13.1 and 1.8 with the Cardinals before the trade.

The fastball had more ride and run — as well as less cut — with the Orioles in 2023, just like the dominant movement profile in 2019.

"We noticed that he started to recapture the fastball shape and playability that he had earlier in his career," Harris said. "That pitch started to play better in Baltimore. We think that planted a seed that we can hopefully continue to grow here in Detroit."

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Aside from the fastball, the Tigers want Flaherty to generate more whiffs and limit hard contact. The Tigers know that recapturing the slider is the best way for Flaherty to increase whiffs. Fetter, who has taught new-and-improved sliders to several Tigers pitchers over the past three years, could be the key to fixing his primary breaking ball.

The slider regressed from a 45.2% whiff rate in 2019 to a 35.4% whiff rate in 2022, then plummeted all the way down to a 26.5% whiff rate in 2023. Opponents hit .184 with a .324 slugging percentage off his slider in 2019, compared to .339 with a .558 slug in 2023.

Flaherty offered a glimpse into the plan to fix his slider shape.

It has to do with grip and release.

"Slight hand position on the way it was on the ball and on the way I was coming through it," Flaherty said. "I could see it, and I could always feel it. It had to do with the way my hand was coming through it. These are the adjustments that are going to be made over the next two-plus months."

Recruiting Flaherty

The Tigers discussed those evaluations with Flaherty during the recruitment process.

The foundation for the recruitment was fueled by the story of right-hander Michael Lorenzen. He signed a one-year, $8.5 million contract after the Tigers outlined their plan to help him improve, then he simplified his pitch mix at the request of the Tigers, made the All-Star Game for the first time in his career, was traded to a contender and pitched in the postseason.

Lorenzen and Flaherty share the same agent: Ryan Hamill of Creative Artists Agency.

"He really credited our pitching group and the environment we created as being one of the many reasons why he took that step forward," Harris said of Lorenzen in early November at the general manager meetings. "That's really important. We have to create that type of environment. We're not all the way there yet, but we took a huge step forward."

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As a result of Lorenzen's growth, the Tigers — namely Harris, Hinch and Fetter — are beginning to gain recognition across the league as an organization with the ability to develop pitchers.

But Flaherty has a higher ceiling than Lorenzen.

Investing $14 million in Flaherty is riskier than investing $8.5 million in Lorenzen, but if the Tigers actually fix Flaherty, there will be a greater benefit because of his high-upside potential.

Flaherty is open to trying new things to improve.

"There's a lot that can be made better," Flaherty said. "There's a lot of little, small things that can be tinkered with."

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Before spring training, Flaherty will meet in person multiple times with at least one member of the Tigers' pitching department. The pre-spring lessons were scheduled because the Tigers want Flaherty to be able to compete with his adjustments — rather than begin to make those adjustments — when pitchers and catchers report to Lakeland in mid-February.

It appears the Tigers won't leave any stone unturned.

That's exactly what Flaherty needs from the Tigers at this point in his career, especially if he wants to stay in the game and get paid next offseason. If he bounces back, he will be able to enter free agency again — less than 20 days after his 29th birthday — in hopes of securing a long-term contract.

For now, though, Flaherty is betting on himself and the Tigers.

"(I was) looking for a place that I had an opportunity to win in a place where you felt that the staff cared," Flaherty said. "These guys do. You can just feel it. You can see the way that they work, the way they go about their business and the information that they had already on me. This, that and, 'Hey, we got a bunch of other things to give you, but we don't want to throw it at you all at once.' It was looking for that and looking for the opportunity to win."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers have a plan to fix new pitcher Jack Flaherty