The Detroit Tigers draft strategy under Scott Harris has focused on prep talent and a few value plays for college players. That has left them looking for bargain development projects with their other picks in order to save the money to go overslot on their main targets. Right-hander Preston Howey fits that mold, receiving the minimum bonus to sign as a college senior out of St. Mary’s College as the Tigers’ 14th rounder in the 2024 draft. The now 23-year-old Howey didn’t receive any particular notice
on draft day, but he emerged as a low key interesting relief prospect for the Tigers in 2025.
Howey threw a little in 2024 after the draft, and then began the 2025 season at High-A West Michigan. He worked in a relief role for most of the season before the Tigers let him stretch out and make nine starts to close out the year. He threw 62 innings total, posting a 3.19 ERA. A bout of walks over his final few starts hurt his peripheral numbers but were likely caused by the extra workload late in his first pro season. Prior to that he’d pounded the strikezone and was very rarely hit hard.
The right-hander stands just 5’10” with a compact, athletic build and gets a little above average extension to the plate. He’s shown a little increase in velocity in pro ball, as Howey was pretty comfortably sitting 94 mph later in the season and touching 95-96 mph. A relatively low release gives him decent plane to the top of the zone, and a year of work turning his above average fastball spin into better riding action out of his three-quarters arm slot helped him take better advantage of those traits. Still, it’s not explosive ride and he’ll need a little more gas to really turn the fastball into an above average weapon.
The breaking ball is a firm slider at 87 mph and while it played down a little due to its inconsistency, the best ones were above average with tight late break. His circle change is about the same speed and while it doesn’t fall off the table, its deception and late fade drew some ugly swings from Midwest League hitters. That pitch is unlikely to be a significant factor for him unless there’s a real breakthrough. As a four year college pitcher, Howey does have more experience and less obvious upside than some, but if he can find a bit more velo and break that slider off consistently he’ll rapidly become a more interesting relief prospect.
Howey already has pretty solid fastball command, and he used that to good effect in High-A. Hitters rarely hit anything hard in the air, and while he didn’t draw a ton of whiffs with his slider, those should come with better command of the pitch. While the Tigers did move him into a starting role late in the year, that was probably more out of necessity, and not his actual path to an eventual big league role. If he can build a little more velocity to sit 96-97 mph in relief and refine the slider a little more, he’ll turn himself into a quality middle relief prospect next summer as he tackles the Double-A level.
