Thousands of pages of notes. Millions of radar gun readings. Stopwatches wearing down after decades of clicks. More airline miles than any of them care to admit. Most amateur scouts have seen too many players to count. But they remember the unicorns.
Jon Gray, Aaron Nola, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer. These are the names that come up most often when pressing evaluators who the most impressive college arm they’ve ever seen is. At least since 2010 that is. Stephen Strasburg in 2009 is a pillar that stands alone for most scouts. But 2023 may provide a pillar of its own.
Yes, a story like this preceding a player’s draft-eligible year is dangerous. Much can change. But the opinions coming out of Major League front offices right now are so loud that they’re impossible to ignore.
““It’s a freaky, scary name to throw out, but there’s some (Jacob) deGrom,””
Tennessee righthander Chase Dollander might represent the best college arm available in any draft since Strasburg. Armed with a fastball approaching triple digits, arguably the best slider in the class, and now the weaponization of a curveball and changeup, Dollander has big league stuff right now. And there’s more coming.
But we’ll get to that.
A bit of a late bloomer out of Greenbrier High School in Evans, Georgia, Dollander wasn’t always the arm he is today. His senior year, Dollander was clocked up to 93 mph on occasion, but generally sat 89-91. He flashed a promising breaking ball, but it was inconsistent both in shape and execution. That said, scouts that saw him gushed about the athleticism and what it could become.
Asked about Dollander’s high school days, one National League National Crosschecker slumped in his chair, dropping his head. His manner changed, eventually looking back at me with a bothered grin. “I wanted him,” he said. “We didn’t pull the trigger. I had a (dollar figure) on him. We could have had him. Now we have no shot.”
The then 6-foot-3-inch, 180-pound righty held very few offers and elected to enroll at Georgia Southern for his 2021 freshman campaign. Being provided proper collegiate coaching and a plan in the weight room, Dollander’s game exploded. At just 19 years old, he was sitting 93-95, touching 97 for the Eagles. He’d end up throwing 49 innings that year, punching out 64 hitters. The back of his baseball card was held back a bit by walks, 28 of them to be exact. He admitted he tried to get cute with his stuff instead of challenging opposing hitters.
But when Dollander was in the zone, he’d flash brilliance. Georgia Southern opened their 2021 campaign against the University of Tennessee. The Volunteers took the first two games of the series and were slated to pitch a talented freshman by the name of Blade Tidwell on Sunday. Tennessee Head Coach Tony Vitello felt good about their chances.
“We’re going for the sweep and they’ve got some unheralded freshman on the mound against Blade (Tidwell),” Vitello said. “We liked our chances. But this kid came out, fastball is exploding, our guys are swinging and missing all over the place. He whooped us. He had our number.’”
Dollander would go 5.2 innings, punching out eight, allowing just one run on three hits. While Tennessee squeaked out a 5-3 win after getting into the Eagles bullpen, that game would eventually end up paying major dividends for the Volunteer program.
Dollander transformed his body at Georgia Southern. Now a 200-pound horse, he entered the transfer portal and was receiving immense interest from programs all over the country. New NCAA rules allowed him to transfer and become eligible immediately for 2022. It came down to Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas Tech. Vitello said his program was late to the party and, by a stroke of luck, ended up a finalist for the talented righty.
“I don’t think we get him if he doesn’t know exactly what our program is like,” Vitello said. “That game against Georgia Southern was heated. Drew (Gilbert) is out there chirping at their bullpen all game. Our dugout is giving it to (Dollander) every inning. It was a war. He knew what we were all about after that game.”
Indeed, Dollander respected the brash, battle-hardened Tennessee program. He liked what he saw that day and it was enough to get him to commit to Rocky Top.
The transition into the SEC was effortless. Dollander arrived in the fall of 2021 sitting 93-96. By the time his winter weight room efforts had taken effect, he was touching higher than that. His slider was 84-86, touching 88 mph. It was crisp and sharp with late diving bite. The curveball wasn’t polished, but when he threw it, Dollander was inducing more sweep and depth on that pitch as well. His whole arsenal was coming into form.
He’d finish 2022 with 79 innings pitched, punching 108 tickets, walking just 13 batters. He posted a 2.39 ERA and a 0.797 WHIP. Among D1 pitchers who threw at least 50 innings, only Dollander had a strikeout percentage north of 35 percent and a walk percentage under 4.5 percent.
He was an ace by every measure.
“I was surrounded by the best competitors in the game,” Dollander said. “It was the coaches that were going to get the best out of me. Instead of being skittish, I was coming right after you… They told me to attack hitters and change my mentality. So that’s exactly what I did.”
Dollander added that Tennessee, and specifically a Frank Anderson-led pitching staff, brings a mentality to the mound. There’s an undercurrent of intimidation, wearing the opposition down with physical and mental warfare. Dollander said it gives the Volunteers a competitive edge.
“You want to go to war with these guys,” Dollander said. “We’re going to war… and a war can be pretty brutal.”
This fall, Dollander has come out sitting 95-98 and many expect he’ll be able to hold that into the 2023 season, including himself. His athleticism and the trajectory of his stuff supports that notion. Triple digit gas is coming, and the tertiary weapons, the curveball and changeup, they’re coming too.
“98 to 100 (mph), that’s what my goal is,” Dollander said. “I can do that, and to be honest with you, I will.”
His head coach agrees.
“The stuff hasn’t peaked,” Vitello said. “The body hasn’t peaked. The off-speed stuff hasn’t peaked. I think he’s going to keep climbing, but his character and work ethic will be what carries him.”
Dollander has hardly had to use anything but his fastball-slider combo to this point in his college career. He threw the curveball just six percent of the time in 2022 and you can count the number of changeups he threw on one hand. Both of those pitches have been a massive point of emphasis in his development this summer, and both have flashed during fall ball.
Scouts have been on-hand to take things in. And the reports are loud.
“It’s a freaky, scary name to throw out, but there’s some (Jacob) deGrom,” one American League evaluator said. “It’s so early, but he’s 1.1 for me, and that’s from someone who hates taking pitching early.”
A rival executive echoed those words.
“It’s something between Cole and Strasburg at this same stage, I think, ahead of (2010) Cole,” one National League Scouting Director said. “The way he moves, the athlete, the trajectory, the track record. They don’t move like that with that stuff, polish, pitch-ability and strike-throwing ability.”
Another NL cross-checker agreed.
“Cole, Gray, Bauer, yeah, it’s that bucket, you got it,” he said. “Elite stuff. Power body. Power stuff, power slider. He looks like that guy we’re watching right now.”
We were watching Nola carve through the Braves in the NLDS.
After speaking with several scouting directors, cross-checkers and analysts, virtually every single one of them agreed Dollander is one of the best college pitchers they’ve seen in the last 15 years. Cole, Strasburg and Dollander. That seems to be the shortlist. Time will tell if those lofty comparisons hold water, but this is where we are.
For scouts and front office executives, the draft lottery throws a new wrinkle into the Dollander sweepstakes. In a normal, traditional year, the Nationals and Athletics would know they’re picking No. 1 and No. 2. Both teams would be doing their homework on Dollander with the expectation he may be in the cards come July. That still could be true, but teams won’t know where they’re drafting until the lottery is held in early December. Because of that, something like one-third of the league still believes there’s at least an outside shot Dollander could wear their colors next summer.
It's hard to imagine what another step might look like in Dollander’s development. Not yet 21 years old, he already sits in rarified air.