Rockies Film Room: The newest exciting pitching prospect

The Colorado Rockies starting pitching has kept them afloat and, for a period, on top of the National League West in the early going of 2018.

Even with the recent struggles, the quintet of Kyle Freeland, Chad Bettis, Tyler Anderson, German Marquez and Jon Gray have been the life vest keeping Colorado atop the standings. They have been lauded as a young, talented group that is playing a major factor in the team’s success now and will do so for the foreseeable future. And none of them have worn an MLB uniform other than the purple pinstripes. All, except for Marquez, were drafted by the Rockies.

With Yency Almonte, Peter Lambert and Riley Pint lining themselves up to join the next wave of starters in Colorado, has the team added another Phase Two of the contention window?

When they made Ole Miss ace Ryan Rolison their first pick of the 2018 MLB First-Year Player Draft, the consensus was yes, they had their next MLB-potential pitcher in the ranks.

In a stacked draft class, what drew the Rockies to this particular arm to prolong their chances to win in the future?

Makeup and background

Rolison is 20 years old and watched the No. 4 Rebels, a team he’s led all year, lose in an upset in the regional round of the College World Series as a true sophomore.

After a successful high school campaign, he was selected in the 37th round of the 2016 draft, opting instead to go to college and instantly installed himself as an essential part of Ole Miss’s pitching core. His freshman season he posted an ERA of 3.06 in 19 games and 61.2 innings. Over that span, he struck out 64 hitters and walked 24.

In 2018, he assumed the role of Friday starter, the NCAA’s equivalent of an ace. He performed well through non-SEC play before hitting a brick wall early, with his ERA climbing into the five’s as late as May 4. He struggled with command, perhaps the byproduct of finding his stuff, as indicated by an uptick in his K/9 by two full strikeouts. But he found his groove as the season came to a close, pitching nine quality starts in his final 13. He ended with an ERA in the 3.70’s, with 120 strikeouts in less than 100 innings.

The 6-foot-2 lefty uses his listed 197 pounds (though Ole Miss’s roster lists him as 6’3″ and 205 lbs) to leverage an easy, fluid delivery and a three-quarters, almost cross-fire release to add deception to his four-pitch repertoire. His athleticism and advanced control of those pitches—especially his curve that many scouts cited as the best in the draft class—have many believing he could accelerate through the farm system quickly, with a future as a potential No. 3 starter in an MLB rotation.

The Fastball

Rolison is never going to be the Jon Gray, Noah Syndergaard or Aroldis Chapman, blow-you-away-with-a-fastball type. His will sit in the low 90’s, but he can reach back for 95 or 96 if he needs to. In professional baseball, it will need to be his No. 1 pitch, but in college he was able to use it almost as a secondary pitch, often leading with his breaking ball to get ahead in counts. Where many pitchers use a changeup to speed bats up late in counts, Rolison was using his fastball to take advantage of slowed down bats late in counts in the SEC.

Since it doesn’t have that blow-away action, he’ll often use it to bust righties inside and try to induce weak contact, very rarely straying low or over the middle with it. The result is a lot of jam shots that are routine plays for the fielder.

The fastball can become a strikeout weapon at times, for right-handers above the zone and lefties away. This fits into the overall mantra of his pitching approach to work righties in and stay away from left-handers. This allows him to sequence his offspeed to make hitters unprepared for the heater.

In both of those clips, Rolison is taking advantage of hyper-aggressive hitters with bases loaded to induce swings at pitches well outside the zone. In both of those at-bats, the majority of pitches were breaking balls. The Alabama hitter is actually very obviously sitting on something soft, and is completely unprepared for anything fast, even if it comes in sub-90 MPH like the one in the clip does.

Rolison does not have the wipeout stuff we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from top-notch prospects, but the swings he gets make it look that way. This is thanks to two things: being able to spot the fastball with great precision and taming his excellent secondary pitches to help the four-seamer play up.

He will have to adapt his approach in professional baseball, however. Hitters will be able to handle his stuff, even if they aren’t looking for it. But, if his breaking pitches develop into the weapons they can be, they will be passing on the curve and slider and looking for the weaker fastball. They will be disciplined enough to not chase away or high and give him easy outs that way.

The Breaking Ball

The pitch that made Rolison a first rounder is his curveball, which MLB Pipeline describes as “a sharp breaker with power and depth.” They may be on to something:

Not only does that curve have extreme break, but he can place it pretty much anywhere he wants to. While pitching to his arm-side, it can run out over the plate, but on his glove-side he is pinpoint. He used this to get ahead in counts just because hitters would spit on pitches that just brush the black that, even if they made contact, wouldn’t be able to do anything with. For the most part, he can spot it on either side and do it effectively, earning him free strikes, at least in college competition.

But what makes his breaking ball especially lethal is the fluidity between a slider and a curve. His offspeed will sit anywhere from 75 to 82 MPH, with variable break in both the horizontal and vertical planes. The lower the speed, the more it tends to have more slurvy, curveball-type break. But as he ramps it up, it gives up some of the vertical break, and begins to bust hitters inside more, especially righties. He doesn’t lose much horizontal break when doing so, giving a classic slider break. And, surprise, he can spot that too.

The hitter has no idea what to do with that pitch, and it puts him into an 0-2 count, leading to the strikeout we showed you before.

Simply by dotting the edges with superior movement, Rolison was getting no competition. When he lives on the edges like that, the hitters he’s faced have opted to hope for something better, even in the same at-bat. Because he has so much variability in what his breaking ball does, he can keep throwing it and even if he finds the same part of the zone, hitters will let it be because by the time they notice the discrepancy, it’s too late to try to fight it off.

Here’s a look at back-to-back pitches, with a 4 MPH spread:

There’s no doubt that there’s lethality in his offspeed combo, especially when coming from the same arm slot, as shown in the clip above. Rolison covers the low and away corner with two different breaking balls, both of which catch enough of the zone to get him the call. The second has almost as much horizontal break as the first does vertical, which is a tough ask for the hitter to adapt to even if he wanted any of it, especially in succession.

The problem arises from hitters starting to sit on offspeed pitches and waiting for the mistake, which happens from time to time. While he can locate at a high level for college, he’ll need improve to find success. Sometimes you can get away with a middle-middle curveball if the hitter isn’t looking for it, like this:

Or, if you’re throwing it the majority of the time and the hitter more or less knows it’s coming at some point and you find the middle of the plate, you could be asking the umpire for a new ball very quickly.

The breaking ball is untouchable when he’s locating, but his overdependence on it is going to get him into trouble if he finds the heart of the zone more than once a game.

The Changeup

Rolison said on television after being drafted that his changeup is the pitch he needs to work on the most. In his collegiate career, he used it sparingly mostly because he didn’t need it. If he found the zone with his breaking ball, more often than not he was successful.

But as hitters become more adept to handle his stuff, as they will the second he takes a pro mound, he will need to be able to use his fastball more effectively early, and a great cover for that is being able to pull the string at will. For now, Rolison is often getting on top of his changeup too much, forcing it into the ground and limiting its usefulness by falling out of the zone early.

Like his other pitches, his changeup has high upside, with natural fade as MLB Pipeline noted. The Pipeline also gave the pitch a 50 grade, which is league average. But having even a par change in the back of the hitter’s mind will instantly make his fastball better, which in turn makes his breaking ball better. He said that developing a better changeup will get him “to that next level,” which is elevating every single one of his pitches just by proxy.

In Conclusion

Ryan Rolison is unlike other Rockies pitching prospects. He perhaps relates the most to Tyler Anderson, whose finesse and offspeed are his bread and butter. The difference between the two, however, is Rolison should be able to miss many more bats if he meets his projections.

Rolison’s curve/slider combination has the makings of a major league pitch, but he needs at least his fastball to catch up to it, and probably his change as well. But, the large lefty has natural athleticism and has mostly harnessed the ability to pinpoint his breaking ball, which means he might have already conquered the hardest part. Scouts have been noting his polish since high school, and with good reason. Still, he needs to find trust in his fastball enough to make it his primary and let the offspeed be the jugular cut.

That said, Rolison has done most of the work already and should have an inside track on advancing through the ranks of the minors.

And the Colorado Rockies very well may have another young starter producing at the big league level in the not-too-distant future.