DENVER -- For all the self-evaluation, coaching advice and advanced study of how to use his considerable pitch mix that has helped right-handed prospect Jack Mahoney put himself on the cusp of a Major League debut, his biggest development may be simply remembering how much he enjoys his work.
Mahoney said a conversation with Colt Olson., Ph.D., a mental skills coordinator in the Rockies organization, served as a reminder.
“Maybe I was losing track of what’s important,” Mahoney said. “He just reminded me, ‘Dude, sometimes you gotta look up, look down.
“‘Man, this grass is really green. This mound is perfect today. You’ve got to choose to be grateful because it’s really hard to be upset about something when you’re also feeling super grateful.’”
Everywhere Mahoney, 24, looks is rosy right now. He posted a 1.99 ERA in 13 starts at Double-A Hartford and had a strong debut for Triple-A Albuquerque on Wednesday night – five innings, two runs on six hits with six strikeouts at home against Sugar Land.
Of starting pitchers who could make their debut with the Rockies during the season’s final two months, right-handed No. 19 prospect Mason Adams, who was pitching in Triple-A with the White Sox before being acquired Monday for outfielder Brenton Doyle, and Mahoney -- a third-round pick out of the University of South Carolina in the 2023 MLB Draft, are at the top of the list.
But the early part of the season, when Hartford won a first-half Eastern League division title, solidified Mahoney’s attitude of enjoying where he is at the moment.
“With that group in Hartford, that was some of the most fun baseball I’ve ever played,” he said. “There were some really great leaders in that clubhouse. Everybody gets together and has a good time together. We were just out there having fun, playing for each other -- especially when we made that playoff push. We were pulling for each other and in the same direction. Sometimes you don’t get that in pro ball.”
Mahoney felt he was better than last year’s performance at Hartford (3-10, 5.93 ERA in 24 starts). The Rockies thought enough of him that they sent him to the Arizona Fall League, where he had a 5.74 ERA in five games (three starts). The conversations with Dan Meyer, the current organization pitching coordinator and last year’s pitching coach at Hartford, and Chris Forbes, the Rockies’ player development director, gave direction.
Two starts into the season at Hartford, a right shoulder impingement that cost Mahoney six starts offered a chance to further his education at the club’s performance lab in Scottsdale, Ariz., with coordinator of performance sciences Emilio Martinez and pitching and rehab coordinator Owen Cuffe.
“Those two guys are really smart people -- I got to bounce ideas off them and talk a ton about getting into that mindset of how can we be as creative as possible with the arsenal that I’ve worked pretty hard on,” Mahoney said. “We made adjustments to the curveball, and just were trying to get all my pitch shapes into the strike zone to give me leverage.”
Mahoney possesses a four-seam fastball in the 96-97 mph range, a changeup, and a cutter and curve that he used as strikeout pitches in his Albuquerque debut.
The adjustments in the performance lab helped Mahoney’s production align with his talent.
“We worked on a few pitch designs, made a move on the rubber and looked at the arsenal, how he was attacking hitters,” Forbes said. “The big thing was there wasn’t a lot of swing and miss for a guy throwing 96-97. After he came back, he was the best pitcher in the Eastern League.”
What makes it all work is a mind more geared toward problem-solving than perfection.
“The pitcher’s mound is a really cool spot to be,” Mahoney said. “I’m looking at that, as opposed to putting restraints on myself trying to be perfect -- there were a lot of times last year where I thought if I wasn’t perfect, the world was ending.
“But no. I’m trying to be as creative as possible and trying to make the game as enjoyable as possible for my teammates by trying to fill up the zone for those guys.”