The right-hander was chosen 38th overall in the 2024 draft
6. Brody Brecht (661 points, 28 ballots)
Brecht could have been an early draft pick coming out of high school in 2021, but he wanted to play college football as a receiver at Iowa. When that didn’t work out as hoped (due in part to concussions), Brecht concentrated on baseball full-time starting as a sophomore. The 6’4”, 22-year-old right-hander then showed enough promise on the mound to earn an over-slot (by $250k) $2.7 million bonus from the Rockies as the 38th-overall pick of the 2024 draft. What kind of promise? How about a high-80s slider that most scouts consider to be plus-plus and a fastball that touches triple digits? The rub of course is below average control of the fastball in particular.
In his sophomore year, Brecht struck out 109 batters (nearly a third of those he faced) but walked 61 (7.1 BB/9). Though there was some improvement in his draft year (5.6 BB/9 rate), it’s a major reason the Rockies were able to get Brecht with pick 38 rather than the top 10. Speaking of that draft year: Brecht again struck out a bunch of hitters — 128 in 78 1⁄3 innings pitched, which is 37% of batters faced and a 14.7 K/9 rate — while compiling a respectable 3.33 ERA.
Brecht hasn’t thrown any professional innings yet, so for now Rockies fans will only have videos like the one below from February 2023 to dream on:
Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs ranked Brecht 3rd in the system as a 45+ FV player last month after ranking him 13th overall among draft prospects, complete with an 80 future grade on the slider (70 present) and a 60 future fastball grade:
Walks have been an enormous problem for Brecht. He had more walks than inning pitched as a freshman, and 135 walks in 178 career innings for the Hawkeyes. He also had among the best stuff in the 2024 draft class, and has a rare combination of physicality and athleticism.
Brecht will sit 96 (he was 95-98 during instructs) and has touched 101. He has a relatively short stride down the mound for someone as big and athletic as he is, and his generic three-quarters slot has a negative impact on his fastball’s shape and movement. It plays well below an average pitch even though it has plus-plus velocity. Whatever can be done to help Brecht command his fastball or improve its movement will ideally be implemented without altering his slider, which is an 80-grade SOB that evokes Dinelson Lamet‘s upper-80s power breaker. Brecht also has a goofy low-90s changeup with big tail and fade. His secondary pitches diverge in such a way that makes it hard to stay on both of them at the same time.
Built like a marble statue at 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, Brecht hasn’t been focused on baseball for very long and also hasn’t yet been in a developmental environment that can max him out, though that might still be true because Colorado’s developmental track record for arms isn’t great. The gap between where he is as a pitcher right now and what he could be is very large. There is precedent for teams solving issues like Brecht’s (Carlos Rodón’s command was a mess, too, though maybe not this bad), and he has enormous upside if someone can. Those right tail outcomes are absolutely baked into his FV grade, as is Brecht’s risk. At worst, Brecht looks like a potential late-inning reliever who works off of his secondary pitches more than his fastball. He could be a three-pitch mid-rotation stalwart if he and Colorado can find better control.
Jeffrey Paternostro of Baseball Prospectus ranked Brecht 9th in their recent system ranking with a 50 OFP grade:
Brecht can show you absolutely dominant stuff at times: triple-digit heat, a plus-plus slider, a developing split for a platoon neutralizing option. Yeah, even that description sounds a little relieverish—although the delivery is fine for a starter even in a more traditionalist framework of starting pitching mechanics —but you don’t have to squint hard to see a top-of-the-rotation arm…at times. At other times the fastball isn’t close to the zone, the slider is being shaped too much arm-side (or isn’t close to the zone) and the split is just too firm. Brecht walked almost six per nine in the Big Ten year, and that was a career best mark. I’m probably the high person on staff when it comes to Brecht, because he doesn’t need that much more command to make this work in the middle of a rotation or the ninth innings. You’d like to tweak the fastball shape some too, but 98 mph is 98 mph, and when he is locating it up, it’s effective. The Rockies have even gotten some pitching development gains lately, so this is a better landing spot for Brecht than it might have been 5-10 years ago (Coors Field aside), but the club also probably see him through the lens of scouting from that time period, which means they might just see a future ace. I can squint as hard as I want and not see that right now though.
Brecht is just a grade (or two) of command away from being a really good pitching prospect. Throw in another grade of fastball shape and he’d be one of the top ones in the draft class. But there’s more of those types or arms nowadays than there used to be, and a vanishingly small percentage of them ever get either of them.
Keith Law of the Athletic ranked Brecht 16th among 2024 draft prospects and earlier this month placed him 9th in the system:
Brecht was Colorado’s second pick in the 2024 draft (the No. 38 pick), a great selection given how good his pure stuff is, even if he’s still raw as a pitcher. Brecht played baseball and football at Iowa, only giving up the sport with the concussions after his sophomore year so he could concentrate on pitching, but he’s still a work in progress on the mound. He runs it up to 99-100 as a starter, sitting 97ish with ease, and his slider is plus. Of course, there’s a “but” coming — he doesn’t repeat his arm action and as a result he has always had high walk totals, including 14.2 percent in his draft year for the Hawkeyes. He did improve down the stretch in that area; in five of his last six starts, he went seven-plus innings and walked only two or three per start, which is big progress. He also needs to develop a third pitch, trying a split-change near the end of the season. He’s like a high school pitcher in a giant, 22-year-old body, and you can dream on a No. 2 starter outcome, a high-leverage reliever, or — well, this isn’t a good dream — a guy who never makes it because he can’t stop walking batters.
Brecht was ranked 21st overall in the 2024 draft by MLB.com and they ranked him 6th in the system as a 50 FV player during the 2024 season with plus-plus (70) grades on both the fastball and slider (and a 50 grade on the splitter for good measure):
When he’s on, Brecht’s fastball and slider are comparable to those of Paul Skenes, the No. 1 pick in last year’s Draft. He can sit at 96-99 mph and touch 101 with his heater, which has explosive running action and superior shape to Skenes’ fastball, though Brecht doesn’t locate his nearly as well. All that said, his best pitch is a slider that parks at 87-89 mph and peaks at 91 with plenty of horizontal and vertical action.
Iowa has had Brecht use more sliders than fastballs, which hasn’t helped him improve his well-below-average command of the latter pitch. He also doesn’t have a lot of feel for his sparsely used splitter, which averages 93 mph with promising tumble at its best. He finished third in D-I with 61 walks in 77 innings last spring, had similar control issues this year, may never have average command and comes with considerable reliever risk. But he’s also an exceptional athlete and baseball has his full attention, so he could take off with pro instruction.
Now that Jaden Hill is a reliever full-time, Brecht is only really competing with Chase Dollander as the highest-ceiling pitcher in the system. In fact, I don’t think Dollander has any weapon that approaches Brecht’s slider. Of course, Dollander has much better present command and is accordingly ranked on national top 50 lists, but Brecht has that kind of ability if Colorado can find the right recipe for his fastball especially.
It’s an exciting profile to be sure, though of course the risk is high that Brecht busts to some degree. I ranked him sixth on my list as a 45+ FV player as a raw starting pitcher with upside and a late inning reliever fallback. He could start this year in either Low-A or High-A, depending on how the Rockies think his profile has evolved by the end of spring. An arm like this is worth a little extra time to bake, so I’d estimate a 3-4 year timeline for Brecht to the big leagues (if he’s a starter).