From passes to pitches: Rockies draft Brecht

This story was excerpted from Thomas Harding’s Rockies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

DENVER – The Rockies drafted a fresh arm and a clear mind in University of Iowa right-hander Brody Brecht, the 38th overall pick (Competitive Balance Round A) on Sunday night.

• A look at Colorado's first-round pick, Georgia slugger Charlie Condon

Brecht, 21, saw his baseball career take off in 2024 after deciding to end his participation with the Hawkeyes' football program as a wide receiver. His eye-popping pitch is a fastball that has cleared 100 mph, but his downward-breaking slider is his best pitch. There is plenty of development to come, but Brecht will undergo it with size (6-foot-4, 235 pounds) and an athletic approach.

“It’s just about trusting my abilities, be an athlete – not trying to form myself into somebody I’m not,” Brecht said. “Just let my athleticism show and do my thing.”

Pitchers in this era often have been broken down and tinkered with to exacting degrees. No one knows if the series of miniscule tweaks contributes to injuries.

But playing so much football in high school and college – Brecht still calls football his “first love” – meant there was not as much time for such training as with most pitchers.

“He has some football in his background and he really wasn’t truly on the circuit [of showcase events for scouts], throwing a whole bunch of pitches and going to that extreme fatigue level at a young age,” said Rockies senior director of scouting operations Marc Gustafson. “He’s a first-round pick and we got him at No. 38. Holy cow, what a gift for us.”

The Rockies may have hit upon Brecht as a pitcher who hasn’t had the athlete coached out of him. That was the philosophy of Brecht’s baseball coaching chain – from Ankeny (Iowa) High School coach Bob Balvanz to his pitching coaches with the Hawkeyes, Robin Lund and Sean McGrath. Changes have been limited to cleaning up his arm path coming out of high school and minor tweaks since.

“The slider, I started throwing it my junior year of high school and it really took off for me my senior year,” Brecht said. “We got to college and really didn’t mess with it a whole lot, just tweaking the grip here and there to get a little more depth. But it’s trusting it, not trying to change. It’s been my go-to pitch.

“The fastball, I got a couple more inches of ride [meaning the natural drop was less, which creates a rising illusion for the batter] the last five weeks of the year, by flipping the horseshoe [fingers went from outside the seams to inside]. I started throwing a splitter at the beginning of the year, and by the middle of the year, it was a legit third pitch for me.”

In 15 starts, Brecht (4-3, 3.33 ERA) struck out 128 against 49 walks in 78 1/3 innings. He fanned nine or more in six of his final eight appearances. Colorado's vice president and assistant general manager of scouting Danny Montgomery said Brecht conveyed from meetings that he is ready to learn greater pitching nuance, to combine with physical gifts.

“A guy that’s big and physical like that, he should be a tight end in the NFL right now, but everything’s going to translate to our league,” Montgomery said.

Brecht also is trying to develop a sweeper – a slider with extreme horizontal movement. Whatever he has, he vows not to be afraid to throw it at higher elevations.

“Altitude, weather, that’s not something I can control,” he said. “I’m just excited to get to pitch. I don't care if we're fishing in Colorado, L.A., Florida, wherever we're at, my job is to go out there and execute the pitch.”