The Rockies provided a brutal injury update on Friday night. Manager Warren Schaeffer tells Kevin Henry of the Denver Gazette that Chase the Dollar he is expected to need surgery to repair the UCL damage in his elbow. The Rox haven’t finalized those plans yet, as Schaeffer revealed the righty have one more pre-workout appointment in the coming days.
Dollander has been out since mid-May with an elbow. They transferred him to the 60-day IL this afternoon when they promoted him Sean Sullivan. Schaeffer said that although the team initially hoped that Dollander could avoid surgery, the injury has not healed as expected.
It’s about as bad a development as the Rockies can get. Dollander is arguably the best player in the organization. The ninth overall pick in the 2023 draft, he has the highest ceiling of any pitcher on the club. Dollander struggled at Coors Field as a rookie. He seemed to pick things up in year two, working to a 3.89 ERA while striking out a quarter of the opposition in 44 innings.
The Rockies used Dollarder after the first game earlier in the season. They had moved him to a traditional substitute role just before the injury. Dollander had a few clunkers — most notably a six-run outing against Atlanta on May 2 — but he was clearly the best starting pitcher in Colorado. His four-seam fastball and sinker were both 98-99 mph down as he got strikeouts in 12% of his offerings.
It was too small a sample to know if Dollander had really arrived as a quality arm. He’s the only Colorado pitcher with anything close to that kind of ceiling. Assuming he has surgery, he will be out for the rest of the season and a good portion of next year. The internal brace procedure usually comes with a recovery timeline of 12-14 months. If he needs a full Tommy John rebuild, there’s a chance he’ll miss the entire ’27 season.
The Rockies are trending toward a fourth straight 100-loss season. It is unlikely that they will compete again next year. The development of young players like Dollander is the focus of the Colorado fanbase as they sit near the nadir of their rebuild.
Dollander is under team control for the next six seasons, barring changes to the seniority plan in the next collective bargaining agreement. He will collect MLB salary and service time while on the injured list. Colorado will need to place him on the 40-man roster this offseason but can return him to the 60-day IL when Spring Training begins next year.
The Rox arguably have the worst cycle in MLB for the second year in a row. Kyle Freeland, Tomoyuki Sugano, Michael Lorenzen again Jose Quintana all will hit free agency. Ryan Feltner he will return if he has given the arbitration contract. Tanner Gordon, McCade Brown, Gabriel Hughes and Sullivan are also among those on the 40-man roster. They are all profiled as background or depth types of organization. They will need to completely overhaul the rotation next winter while trying to find any kind of controlled pitching on their way to the deadline.
