Who's got nastiest pitches in Tigers camp?

LAKELAND, Fla. -- The Tigers’ Spring Training camp this year is an interesting intersection of promising young arms, onetime prospects entering their prime and veteran pitchers working to change their games. With that mix, we’re seeing a wide array of pitches called upon to flummox hitters. Some light up the radar gun at Joker Marchant Stadium. Others buckle batters at the knees.

With that in mind, we wanted to know this: What are the three nastiest pitches in Tigers camp this year?

We asked that question of a cross-section of pitchers, catchers and hitters here, close to a dozen in all. A few pitches kept coming up in their answers, along with a few we might not have expected.

Here are the top three:

Casey Mize’s splitter
Not surprisingly, all but one player we surveyed mentioned the splitter of the Tigers’ No. 1 prospect, per MLB Pipeline (and No. 7 overall). It’s the pitch that highlighted Mize’s MLB Draft resume a couple of years ago, a far less common one now than it was a few decades ago, when former Tigers pitching coach Roger Craig taught it in the ’80s.

“His splitter is pretty nasty,” catcher Jake Rogers said. “When he throws it and he has it on, he’s hard to hit. I mean, that pitch is hard to hit in general. And not a lot of guys throw it anymore.”

“It’s different, because not everybody throws a [splitter], and he’s pretty good with it,” closer Joe Jimenez said. “And if it’s working, keep throwing it.”

Matthew Boyd’s slider
A far more familiar pitch came within one vote of Mize’s splitter. It’s the pitch that fueled Boyd’s rise to front-line starter over the last couple years after he tinkered with it while working at Driveline Baseball. The data from Statcast shows why: Opponents hit just .192 off Boyd’s slider last year with a 43.4 percent whiff rate and 118 strikeouts.

“Matty Boyd’s slider is pretty impressive. You can’t discount that,” reliever Alex Wilson said, joking about the 29-year-old lefty that “you have to remember he’s here, too, even though he’s an old guy.”

Tarik Skubal’s fastball
Skubal has been the talk of Tigers camp with some dominant performances and a power arsenal. His fastball has registered at 98 mph on the Joker Marchant Stadium radar gun twice already this spring.

“He throws 98 [mph] from the left side and it looks like he’s not trying to throw at all,” reliever Buck Farmer said. “It looks like he’s playing catch.”

But it’s not just about the velocity with MLB Pipeline’s No. 4 prospect for Detroit (No. 46 overall).

“It’s funky,” Rogers said, “and it comes at you pretty hard. It’s like two arms coming at you. It’s front side and over the top, and he gets a little more run than other guys. He’s fun to watch. I can’t wait to catch him more.”

Those three were by far the most popular answers. A few others earned honorable mentions:

Daniel Norris’ changeup
Norris was a more effective pitcher over the second half of last season, and his changeup was a big reason why. He threw it more often as the season went on, and he gained velocity on his fastball; by September, the changeup comprised just under a third of Norris’ pitches.

More than a change of pace, it was a legitimate swing-and-miss pitch for Norris by season’s end, drawing a 46.5 percent whiff rate in September compared with 35.7 percent in August and 31.6 percent in July.

“Every time, it just dives hard away,” Rogers said. “He gets a lot of swing-and-misses on it. I like calling that pitch, because it’s pretty nasty.”

“I don’t know what he did in the year I was gone. It almost looks like a splitter,” Wilson said. “It’s got better action than I would say 98 percent of the changeups you see in today’s game.”

Matt Manning’s curveball
While Manning has vaulted in the MLB Pipeline prospect rankings -- Detroit’s No. 2 and No. 24 overall -- on the strength of his fastball, his curve has become a very good secondary pitch.

“He gets a lot of looks,” Rogers said. “Especially when it can stay down and have the same line as the fastball, it’s pretty damaging. I’ll give him a little love with that.”

“I don’t know if it’s 12-6,” Jimenez said, “but I saw it in a bullpen [session] one day, and it’s crazy good.”

Spencer Turnbull’s fastball
It’s not just Turnbull’s velocity, but the movement he can create with the pitch. His sinker is harder than his four-seamer, and he can cut his fastball, too.

“Whether he’s sinking it or cutting it, it is one of the most impressive pitches in camp,” Boyd said.

Matthew Boyd’s changeup
The changeup was a nice out pitch for Boyd when he broke into the big leagues, but he’d been throwing it less often in the last couple years after his slider improved. But he dusted it off last September, comprising 10 percent of his pitches for the month compared with 6.1 percent for the season, and he has worked on it this spring. The changeup drew a 37.2 percent whiff rate last year.

“It’s come a long way from last year,” catcher Grayson Greiner said. “I’ve always liked his changeup.”

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Greiner and Rogers, both catchers, mentioned the pitch.

“It plays, man,” Rogers said. “I think it’s just one of those things where he just trusts his slider a little more. When you’re getting outs on the slider, it’s hard to go away from it.“