Ryan Feltner wouldn’t take back getting drilled in the head.
The Rockies’ right-hander suffered a skull fracture when he was hit by a line drive on May 13, 2023. The incident put him out for nearly the rest of the season, save for a couple of September starts.
“I was probably going to have a good enough year in ’23, because I felt pretty good with my stuff, but I wasn’t yet where I thought I could be,” Feltner said. “I’m still not. That injury definitely gave me time to get much closer toward where I want to get now and in the future. It was instrumental in the process for me in terms of my growth. I’m grateful, in a weird way, that it happened.”
After returning full-time last season, Feltner showed flashes of both the inexperienced pitcher the club hopes he can move past and the rotational pillar Colorado believes he can be in 2025 and beyond.
The 28-year-old had a regrettable first half, posting a 5.36 ERA in 19 starts, underscored by an ugly 6.59 June ERA. But Feltner followed that slow start by becoming Colorado’s best starter over the second half of the season with a 3.00 ERA in 11 starts. That included a sizzling September (1.78 ERA in five starts) that set the stage for a potential breakout season in 2025.
“That second half when he really kind of solidified himself,” Rockies pitching coach Darryl Scott explained, “gave him some confidence as a good major league pitcher. He’s got the ability to be a really good major league starter, and we saw that consistently over the final few months of the season.”
The pundits and predictive statistical models don’t expect much out of the Rockies this summer following consecutive 100-loss seasons. But if Feltner and the rest of the starting rotation can show improvement, in conjunction with a young positional cast, the team has the potential to turn a corner.
The Rockies had an MLB-worst 5.47 ERA last season and ranked last in starters’ wins above average (-6.3) and ERA (5.54) and were second-worst in starters’ WAR (4.0). Of Colorado’s projected starters in 2025, Feltner might be the one with the most potential to take a statistical jump in production and help the Rockies win by pitching deep into games.
The Rockies will be cautious with right-handers German Marquez and Antonio Senzatela, both of whom are returning from Tommy John surgery that kept them out most of last year. Austin Gomber will likely start the season on the injured list with a shoulder issue. Fellow southpaw Kyle Freeland, the staff veteran, posted an ERA over 5.00 each of the last two seasons.
And top prospect Chase Dollander, despite all the proclamations that the right-hander can be the team’s future ace, is sure to face a learning curve once he debuts.
So Feltner, coming off 2024’s strong finish, realizes the onus is on him. He is embracing those expectations and wants to step into a role where he’s “a leader on the team, leading by example, and hopefully helping turn this thing around in the next couple years.”
“We have a lot of promising prospects,” Feltner said. “We’re finally looking around and seeing our guys (Marquez and Senzatela) throwing well and back, and Chase has electric stuff. I’m very bullish on the way our pitching is looking, as well as our position players. Plus, we arguably have the best defense in baseball.”
Feltner’s budding confidence in his six-pitch mix is keying his ascent. He throws two variations of mid-90s fastballs (two-seam and four-seam), two types of sliders (cutter and sweeper), plus a curveball and a changeup.
Throughout his minor league career and his first few seasons in the majors, Feltner struggled to put together his complete arsenal. But that changed in the second half of last year, especially his curveball. Feltner credits Rockies catcher Jacob Stallings, whom he was paired with for the majority of his starts, for helping him gain confidence.
Stallings observed that Feltner “really learned to harness his emotions” amid his hot streak in the latter half of last season.
And while the curveball showed noticeable improvement, so did Feltner’s two fastballs. He spotted up with his four-seam, eliminating some cut on the pitch that was problematic earlier in the season as it allowed it to leak over the middle of the plate. And he became smarter about when to deploy his two-seam, which he became more conservative about using at home, where it moves less.
“He went through a stretch where hitters were something like 0 for 30 against his four-seam fastball at one point,” Stallings recalled. “He was just dominating people with the fastball. He added the sweeper, which helped him against right-handed hitters to get something going away from them that was a little slower. And all of his pitches fell in line after that and he was throwing stuff where he wanted.”
Scott says Feltner’s conviction to get outs with his breaking pitches, instead of simply trying to blow hitters away at the top of the zone, was also critical to his growth last season.
“It was like I had all these tools, and all of a sudden I was able to use them all in the correct way,” Feltner said. “Stallings was instrumental in that process in terms of how I was deploying weapons.
“That’s the goal again, is to find the ceiling like I did in the second half of last year, when everything sort of came together. I feel like I’m in a really good spot.”
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