Following the trail blazed by 2020 Braves first-rounder Jared Shuster, Sullivan has gone from Tabor Academy (Marion, Mass.) to Wake Forest, though he did spend his first college season at Northwestern. He might have been no more than a midweek starter for the Demon Deacons had Teddy McGraw not been lost to elbow surgery, yet he has ranked among the NCAA Division I leaders in K/BB ratio and whiff rate despite relying almost solely on a fastball that parks around 90 mph. In a Draft bereft of left-handed starters in the college ranks, he was making a bid to go as high as the second round before he sat out his final two regular-season starts with triceps inflammation. He did return for the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and the NCAA playoffs.
Sullivan's fastball usually ranges from 88-92 mph and peaks at 95, and hitters know it's coming because he throws it nearly three-quarters of the time. But they still can't touch it because he uses his 6-foot-4 frame to deliver it from a low release height and wide angle that produce tremendous carry up in the strike zone. It has below-average velocity yet plays as a plus pitch and is the reason he ranked among the NCAA Division I leaders in strikeout rate (14.3 per nine innings, second), WHIP (0.92, fourth) and opponent average (.175, fifth).
The rest of Sullivan's repertoire consists of a fringy upper-70s slider and an average low-80s changeup with a bit of fade. He doesn't have textbook mechanics but pounds the strike zone and is difficult to steal against. J.P. Sears gave off a similar vibe while pitching in the area at The Citadel in 2017, and he has gone from 11th-rounder to big league starter.
Sullivan began his college career at Northwestern then moved on to Wake Forest, where he got a chance to move into the weekend rotation as a Draft-eligible sophomore. Since the Rockies took him in the second round of the 2023 Draft, the left-hander has defied typical expectations, reaching Double-A and pitching well despite stuff considered light by any measure.
Sullivan never had a big fastball, but it took another hit in 2025 as he was coming back from hip labrum surgery. The Rockies had held him back until early May to let him build back up, but he never quite got there. Somewhat amazingly, he found success in Double-A with a fastball that averaged around 86-87 mph and scraped 90 mph, using a combination of deception, angle and up-slope movement to the pitch to get outs. His upper-70s changeup is probably his best offering and while his mid-to-upper 70s slider can be slurvy, he manipulates the velocity and shape of it and it missed a fair amount of bats last year.
While the left-hander is never going to light up radar guns, there is hope that Sullivan can still find a few more ticks of velocity. For one thing, he had a normal offseason throwing program, rather than rehabbing his hip. For another, with the new pitching group in the fold, Sullivan might be able to get back to being more rotational like he was in college, and averaged 91-92 mph with his heater, as opposed to focusing on a deep hinge on his back side and getting a little stuck in his delivery.
Can a starting pitcher succeed these days with a fastball that barely breaks 90 mph? The Rockies are hoping to find out soon enough after taking Sullivan in the second round of the 2023 Draft following his solid turn moving into Wake Forest’s weekend rotation that spring. His smoke-and-mirrors show worked very well during his first full season of pro ball, both with High-A Spokane and Double-A Hartford, as he led all Minor League pitchers with an 8.33 K/BB rate and topped the Rockies in a host of pitching categories.
Sullivan uses a lower slot to come at hitters with a kind of upshoot fastball, getting huge carry up in the zone. Even though it only averaged around 88 mph in 2024, the lefty threw it a lot and got decent swing-and-miss on the pitch thanks to that life and his outstanding command of the pitch. There could be a little more velocity in the tank now that he’s had a hip labrum issue fixed, so he might be able to get to 93-94 mph more moving forward. His upper-70s changeup is his best pitch, one that has terrific movement and misses bats in and out of the zone. His sweeping slider can be effective, but he doesn’t locate it as well as his other two offerings.
The Rockies will be sure to bring Sullivan along slowly and manage his workload as he’s coming back from the hip issue, but he’s already defied expectations thanks to confidence in his pitch usage, his unusual mechanics and his extreme strike-throwing ways. He’ll be at the upper levels continuing to show that his unusual profile just might work in a big league rotation.
For years, the Rockies would tend to draft pitchers who fit a certain mold, usually power guys with a sinker-slider combination. Sullivan, a left-hander who started his career at Northwestern and then transferred to Wake Forest, certainly does not belong in that bucket. Moved into the weekend rotation in 2023 when Teddy McGraw got hurt for the Demon Deacons, Sullivan showed that his combination of deception and feel for pitching could work just fine, helping him to land in the second round with the Rockies.
Sullivan is an outlier in a number of ways, not just for being the antithesis of how the Rockies have drafted pitching. Even though his fastball averaged just a tick over 90 mph last year (though he could touch 95 mph), he threw it 75 percent of the time with Wake. Because of his lower slot and wide angle that leads to huge carry up in the zone, it doesn’t get hit even when hitters know it’s coming (36 percent miss rate on the pitch in 2023). Right now, Sullivan’s best secondary offering is his changeup, which can also miss bats and is an easy average pitch. He has a tendency to change the slot on his slider, hurting its consistency, but the Rockies think it could improve as he works on pitch design with pro instruction.
Sullivan does an excellent job of filling up the strike zone despite his unusual mechanics, and he tunnels his mix well to make him even harder to hit. It remains to be seen if this will work in Colorado, but he’s the kind of pitcher you don’t try to change. Seeing how his stuff plays in his first full season of pro ball will be an interesting storyline in the Rockies' system.
Following the trail blazed by 2020 Braves first-rounder Jared Shuster, Sullivan went from Tabor Academy (Marion, Mass.) to Wake Forest, though he did spend his first college season at Northwestern. He might have been no more than a midweek starter for the Demon Deacons had Teddy McGraw not been lost to elbow surgery, yet he ranked among the NCAA Division I leaders in K/BB ratio and whiff rate despite relying almost solely on a fastball that parks around 90 mph. While he missed his final two regular-season starts with triceps inflammation, he did return for postseason play. Aided by a lack of left-handed college starters, Sullivan went in the second round, where the Rockies gave him a slightly below-slot bonus of $1.7 million.
Sullivan's fastball usually ranges from 88-92 mph and peaks at 95, and hitters know it's coming because he throws it nearly three-quarters of the time. But they still can't touch it because he uses his 6-foot-4 frame to deliver it from a low release height and wide angle that produce tremendous carry up in the strike zone. It has below-average velocity yet plays as a plus pitch and is the reason he ranked among the NCAA Division I leaders in strikeout rate (14.3 per nine innings, second), WHIP (0.92, fourth) and opponent average (.175, fifth).
The rest of Sullivan's repertoire consists of a fringy upper-70s slider and an average low-80s changeup with a bit of fade. He doesn't have textbook mechanics but pounds the strike zone and is difficult to steal against. He reminded some scouts in the area of J.P. Sears, who pitched at The Citadel in 2017, and has gone from 11th-rounder to big league starter.
How this works:
This section shows two different ways to evaluate pitch movement.
On the left, “Total Movement” shows the real-world movement of a pitch, including the forces of gravity, which affects every pitch thrown.
Since gravity requires time, and slower pitches aren't 'better' just because they have more time to move, a pitch's movement is compared to other pitches of the same pitch type, within +/- 2 MPH and +/- 0.5 feet of extension/release.
On the right, Induced Movement (or IVB) is reported without gravity, and attempts to isolate movement created by the pitcher's ability to spin and manipulate the ball.
These run values are leveraged, meaning the base/out situation at the time of the event does impact the run value (thus introducing context outside the batter's own contribution).
! Note: Shifts are through the 2022 season, Shaded starting from the 2023 season, Shift:
three or more infielders are on the same side of second base, Shade: positioned outside of
their typical responsible slices of the field. Learn more about
how positioning is defined here
