Detroit Tigers: What to Expect from Justyn-Henry Malloy

Justyn-Henry Malloy is Headed to the Detroit Tigers

Justyn-Henry Malloy is finally headed to the bigs. Fans have been speculating about a potential Malloy call-up for weeks (months?), and on Sunday morning whispers turned to shouts. Evan Woodbery of MLive noted Malloy wasn’t in the lineup in Toledo, while Spencer Torkelson was out of the starting lineup in Boston for the second time in three days.

Then, on Sunday evening, Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press broke the news.

The #Tigers are promoting Justyn-Henry Malloy for his MLB debut, per sources.

— Evan Petzold (@EvanPetzold) June 2, 2024

Roughly 90 minutes later Petzold also reported Torkelson was being sent down to Toledo. It’s certainly a disappointing outcome for Detroit’s top pick in the 2020 draft, though few should be surprised. Jason Beck of MLB.com later confirmed Malloy was headed to Texas to join the Tigers for their series against the Rangers.

The Tigers haven’t officially announced either move, though that’s not uncommon for them. Torkelson’s demotion makes room on the 26-man active roster for Malloy, but the club still needs to open a spot on the 40-man roster. The most likely move will be sending Kerry Carpenter to the 60-day injured list due to the stress fracture in his back.

In any event, let’s learn a little bit more about Justyn-Henry Malloy before his potential MLB debut.

Justyn-Henry Malloy’s Background

Justyn-Henry Malloy is New Jersey native who attended Saint Joseph Regional High School in Montvale, NJ, the same alma mater as former Detroit Tigers players John Flaherty and Artie Lewicki. Malloy was a strong student and a talented prep player. In 2015 he was named MVP of the Pan American Championships after helping the USA 15U National team win the gold medal.

Malloy spent his first two years of college at Vanderbilt. He played sparingly as a freshman in 2019, and then again saw little action during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Malloy transferred to Georgia Tech for his junior season and played well, batting .308 with 11 home runs, 17 doubles, and more walks than strikeouts. But his limited track record and solid-but-unspectacular stats saw him last until the 6th round of the draft, where Atlanta picked him.

He had a strong pro debut, batting .270 with five home runs and a 16% walk rate over 37 games for Low-A Augusta. Then Malloy broke out in 2022. He climbed from High-A Rome to Triple-A Gwinnett, batting .289 with 17 home runs and 97 walks in 137 games.

That December, in Scott Harris’ first trade as President of Baseball Operations, the Tigers sent Joe Jimenez to Atlanta in exchange for Malloy and left-handed pitcher Jake Higginbotham. We were able to interview him just over a month later:

The Tigers sent Malloy to Triple-A Toledo for the 2023 season, and he had an excellent year. Malloy hit .277 with 23 home runs and led all of minor-league baseball with 110 walks. That was enough to earn him a trip to the 2023 Futures Game, where he served as DH and, characteristically, drew two walks in three plate appearances.

Malloy began the 2023 season playing third base, but struggled there. He then spent most of June, July, and August playing in the outfield. Curiously, the organization then had him play third base exclusively over the final six weeks of the season. Malloy had a solid spring, where his 56 plate appearances tied for third most on the team. But The Tigers sent him back to Triple-A Toledo to begin the 2024 campaign.

It’s been strictly outfield duty for Malloy this year, and he has looked more comfortable in that role. We ranked him as the 5th best prospect in the Detroit Tigers system in our May update, and so far this year he’s batting .253 with 15 doubles, 6 homers, and 39 walks.

Justyn-Henry Malloy Scouting Report

You can read our full scouting report on Malloy, but here’s a quick overview.

His profile starts with patience. He consistently works deep counts and rarely leaves the zone, which leads to his elevated walk totals. Though he shows good bat speed, Malloy’s pure bat-to-ball skills are a little below average, leading to more in-zone whiffs than is ideal. But his patience helps him get into favorable counts and put his solid-average power to use. Malloy makes a lot of line-drive and fly-ball contact, and he can drive the ball from left field to right center.

Malloy is a well below-average runner, though he’s not a base clogger, and he shows good instincts to take extra bases when possible. He was also a well-below average defender at third base, where he struggled to make throws from odd platforms. His instincts and reads in the outfield are still developing, and his range is below average, but he should grow into being a passable defender. He has solid-average arm strength that will let him play either corner spot.

The Trouble With Justyn-Henry Malloy

Our Jerry McKennan broke down some of the main concerns with Malloy in a piece earlier this year. Malloy’s eye is excellent, with a 9.7% chase rate in 2024. For context, that’s roughly the same as Mark Canha this year. We have to adjust that down for the improved quality of MLB offerings, but Malloy should still be able to stay in the zone at a well above-average rate.

Unfortunately, the MLB track record of minor-leaguers who show Malloy’s brand of patience is surprisingly poor. And it seems likely most of those other walk-heavy hitters suffered the same sort of in-zone miss issues Malloy does.

On the plus side, he does plenty of damage on in-zone fastballs, and he has no trouble handling velocity. Since the start of 2023 Malloy is hitting .367 and slugging .683 against pitches thrown 94mph or harder. That’s a welcome change from Spencer Torkelson, who was batting just .179 with a .239 slugging percentage against such pitches in the majors this year.

The concern with Malloy is when pitchers throw him something other than a fastball:

For comparison’s sake, Javier Baez has a 32.5% whiff rate on sliders this year, and Torkelson ran a 36.6% whiff rate on changeups. And one other issue has been Malloy’s puzzling reverse-platoon splits in Triple-A:

The Verdict

Justyn-Henry Malloy is a talented prospect with a good mix of on-base skills and power. But he’s not on most top-100 prospect lists because there are enough holes in his game to question his ultimate impact. He is unlikely to provide any value as a defender or baserunner. And he probably won’t be the cure to Detroit’s woes against southpaws.

But all the Tigers really need from him is to produce better than the 71 wRC+ authored by Torkelson so far. We think there’s a solid chance of that, eventually. It all depends on how much MLB pitchers challenge Malloy in the zone, how quickly he can adjust, and how often he can punish mistakes.

We don’t expect Malloy to produce right away, but the Tigers are likely to give him plenty of chances over the next month or two. It’s probably best for fans to take a page out of Jusyyn-Henry Malloy’s book, and show a little patience.

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