SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Ryan McMahon, having just faced right-hander Chase Dollander for the first time, strolled over to the backstop and offered an instant critique, followed by a request.
“Nasty, man, nasty,” McMahon said. “But listen, if you tweet out a video of him striking me out, make sure and show my base hit, too.”
Dollander, the ninth overall pick in the 2023 draft out of the University of Tennessee, is the buzz of Rockies spring training. Indeed, he might be the most highly touted pitching prospect in franchise history, and the club is doing nothing to tamp down expectations.
While there are no guarantees Dollander will jump directly from Double-A to the majors and break camp as part of the starting rotation, the Rockies are leaving the door wide open for that possibility.
“He’s special, absolutely,” pitching coach Darryl Scott said. “He’s mature emotionally. He’s mature physically. The progress he’s made with his delivery since he signed with us, and what he’s done, he looks like a much more polished guy.
“He’s slowed things down — mentally. Physically, he looks under control. It wouldn’t surprise me (if he makes the team).”
On Friday, a crowd gathered around Field 3 at Salt River Fields to see the 23-year-old pitch his first live batting practice session of his first big-league camp. He threw a fastball that sat at 96 mph and touched 98, a sharp slider, a late-breaking curve and a baffling changeup. He faced Thairo Estrada, Kris Bryant, Ezequiel Tovar and McMahon.
McMahon compared Dollander’s curve to Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta, who has confounded Rockies hitters for years, and said that Dollander’s “easy cheese” fastball and smooth delivery reminded him of German Marquez, who was the Rockies’ lone All-Star in 2021. Marquez’s stuff made him the talk of camp in 2016 after the Rockies acquired him in a trade with Tampa Bay.
Bryant compared Dollander’s fastball to a healthy Jacob deGrom’s.
“He’s got the kind of talent I never had,” veteran lefty Austin Gomber said. “I know that the expectations for him are very high, and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s warranted.”
According to Baseball America, Dollander throws the “highest-performing” fastball of any of the top 100 pitching prospects.
“He also threw his heater more than anyone else on the list,” Baseball America determined. “Dollander generated the highest swinging strike rate on his fastball among (his) Top 100 peers. His 20.4% swinging strike rate is over four percentage points higher than the next highest (pitcher) on the list.”
When the Rockies drafted hard-throwing Jon Gray out of Oklahoma with the third overall pick in the 2013 draft, there were high hopes that he would evolve into a bona fide ace. Gray, whose fastball topped 100 mph in college, arrived as a fastball-slider pitcher. Although he’s utilized a curve and changeup in his 10-year career, Gray’s arsenal never became as versatile as the one Dollander has already developed.
“I’ve been so impressed by his ability to make in-game adjustments,” said Bobby Meacham, Dollander’s manager at Double-A Hartford last season. “When his slider is not clicking, he changes things up and goes with a different strategy. He has the ability to move his fastball around.
“He uses his changeup, which I think is going to be a very good pitch. So, seeing him make adjustments and not just try to overpower hitters is really encouraging for a young pitcher.”
All of that is heady praise for a young pitcher who’s never thrown a big-league pitch, but Dollander seems equipped to handle the hype and expectations.
“I don’t think anybody will put more pressure on me than I put on myself,” said Dollander, who’s scheduled to start his first Cactus League game on Monday. “I expect a lot out of myself, so I’m kind of used to it, honestly. So it doesn’t really faze me. All it comes down to controlling the controllables.”
Last year, in his first professional season, Dollander posted a combined 2.59 ERA with 169 strikeouts in 118 innings with High-A Spokane and Double-A Hartford. He averaged 12.9 strikeouts and 3.6 walks per nine innings.
He also proved he could handle a heavy workload. Over his final six starts, Dollander pitched into the sixth inning five times, throwing 95 or more pitches in four of those starts.
“The thing that has stood out for me, based on my conversations with him and our player development people, has centered around not just Chase’s stuff, but around the guy, the person,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “That character trait, that maturity, is even more pronounced now that I’ve been around him more. His confidence and his poise are genuine; it’s real.”
Dollander’s worked hard to develop that poise.
After a sensational sophomore season at Tennessee when he went 10-0 with a 2.39 ERA and 108 strikeouts, he stumbled as a junior, posting a 4.75 ERA, though he still rang up 120 strikeouts.
“I found that toward the beginning of my junior year … I kind of got lost in what people were saying about me, so it became really hard,” Dollander recalled. “I started working with a mental performance coach (Brian Cain), and as soon as that happened, everything turned around and I started pitching a lot better.”
He also started journaling, which he continues to do. He has one hand-written journal for daily life and one for baseball. After each start, Dollander writes down his thoughts in his notebook, which he divides into three categories: “Well” for his successes, “Better” for areas that need improvement, and “How,” where he charts his game plan.
He tracks his daily schedule in a Google calendar and uses a phone app called HabitShare to track “everything I do all day and keep myself accountable.” He uses Cain as his “accountability partner.”
“I’ve been working with Brian for about 2 1/2 years,” Dollander said. “He’s helped me look at things and refine things. He’s taught me, ‘Hey, this is where your confidence comes from.’ It’s not from external sources of people saying, ‘Hey, you’re really good.’
“It comes from within with me saying, ‘I did the things that I know that I can do and I did everything I could to prepare for this game.’ Then the rest of it kind of takes care of itself.”
However, Dollander insists he’s not a baseball robot. He still likes to play golf, get outside and get away from pitching.
“I have a routine, for sure, but I’ve learned that it has to be flexible,” he said. “My routine can’t be super rigid; it has to be flowing. I find time for fun. But that’s how I live my life now.
“… I like to have fun; my identity is not baseball. I can’t let baseball overwhelm me.”
That’s exactly the advice veteran left-hander Kyle Freeland, the Rockies’ first-round pick in the 2014 draft (ninth overall), will share with Dollander.
“You have to understand that you are young, and there’s a lot of pressure on you, but that’s OK,” Freeland said. “You’re a first-round pick and one of our top pitching prospects, but you’re not going to be making the team the second week of camp.
“There is no reason to try and do more than you know you can do. Because once you start getting outside of your element, that’s when things go sideways. But from what I’ve seen so far, he has a good head on his shoulders. And he’s got the talent. That’s plain to see.”
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