The Tigers announced Thursday that they’ve signed right-hander Jake Thompson to a minor league contract. The former top prospect was originally a second-round pick by the Tigers back in 2012 and will now return to his original organization.
Detroit traded Thompson and then-prospect Corey Knebel to the Rangers back in 2014, netting righty Joakim Soria for their bullpen in that July 23 swap. Thompson continued on an upward trajectory in the Texas minor league ranks, so much so that he was viewed as a key piece when the Rangers flipped him to the Phillies a year later in the 2015 Cole Hamels blockbuster. (Remember when teams actually made trades in July? Nostalgia!)
Things never really panned out for Thompson in Philadelphia, however. The right-hander pitched in parts of three seasons from 2016-18 but managed a pedestrian 4.87 ERA with 6.3 K/9 against 4.7 BB/9 in 116 1/3 innings. Home runs, in particular, were a struggle for Thompson during his time with the Phillies, as evidenced by a career 1.5 HR/9 mark at the big league level.
Rather than pursue a minor league pact in free agency this winter, Thompson instead opted to sign with the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization. There, he posted a 4.74 ERA with 8.6 K/9 against 3.6 BB/9 through 62 2/3 innings in the extremely hitter-friendly KBO environment. Lotte cut him loose last month, though, and he’ll now return stateside in attempt to once again pitch at the big league level.
Thompson, still just 25, certainly picked a good organization to give him that opportunity. The Tigers have lost Michael Fulmer, Matt Moore and, quite possibly, Tyson Ross for the season. There’s a chance that Matthew Boyd could be traded in the next six days, and it’s a near-certainty that closer Shane Greene will be on the move. Detroit has numerous vacancies in a patchwork rotation that has struggled all season, and the bullpen offers even more possible opportunities. Thompson hasn’t pitched since being released in late June, so the Tigers assigned him to Class-A Advanced to begin ramping back up. But it’s not unthinkable that if he performs even reasonably well in the minors, he could emerge as a possible big league option at some point in mid August or early September.
The trade market is so dead that MLBTR has to report on a guy cut by the KBO and a trade involving a AA catcher. When will the avalanche start?
Don’t worry, they made a trade for Nazem Kadri a few weeks ago.
You could just ignore the notifications if you’re going to whine about it.
July 31st about noon
His stuff regressed hard with Phillies(FB has no movement) and off speed regressed hard. He was throwing 95+ in AA. At mlb level with Phillies he was hitting 90mph
I actually like this pick up, something other than the revolving door of VerHagen, Carpenter, and Soto.
Now if we can sign Matt Harvey; we will have Jackson, Zimmerman, VerHagen, and Harvey!!! Better hope All the great young arms in the minors Alvia brags about are ready next year. Also better hope he gets some reliable bats for Boyd, Greene and Castenellos, or the decay of the Tigers will continue!!!
Sounds like a law firm, and a very mediocre one at that!
Great comment!!
One step forward…two steps back. Been that way since signing Prince…perpetually getting worse…not gonna change till 2023 at the earliest.
Can’t hack it in Korea? Come play in Detroit. My logic is undeniable.
So much for prospects always working out…..
FYI, the KBO isn’t the hitter friendly environment this year that it was in prior years. The league took some of the resilience out of their baseballs and offense is down significantly. In fact, it looks like the KBO is roughly the same as MLB in terms of offensive numbers: nine players in the 10 team KBO have OPS numbers above .900, compared to 26 players on the 30 MLB teams, and nobody in the KBO has an OPS as high as Mike Trout, Christian Yelich or Cody Bellinger.
Fill the farm! Will work innings until kids are MLB ready.
He got injured and the Lotte Giants decided they’d rather have Brock Dykxhoorn than Thompson and yet Thompson would’ve been an upgrade over some other KBO arms that haven’t been released.
Man, I remember being pumped at him being in the Cole Hamels deal. The Phillies got such a haul at the time. Three top 100 prospects in Williams, Alfaro and Thompson, plus Eickhoff. Just goes to show you that these trades rarely pan out and teams value prospects too much.
Good Luck Jake Thompson! Keep working hard, you will do just fine.