Fidel Ulloa has spent the Arizona Fall League showing why the Rockies are excited about what’s coming next.
The 23-year-old right-hander, a seventh-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 MLB Draft, has been sharp for the Salt River Rafters and earned a spot on the Rockies’ side for the AFL Fall Stars Game on Sunday at 6 p.m. MT (8 p.m. ET), with MLB Network carrying the broadcast.
What’s making Ulloa stand out isn’t just the results. It’s the way he’s expanding his game. During the Minor League season at Double-A Hartford, he added a changeup, but it didn’t become a pitch he trusted in games until the final month.
“It’s about surrendering the result - the outcome of the at-bat - and just feeling comfortable with where you’re releasing it, and trusting that the pitch is going to move the way you want,” Ulloa said before starting his Arizona Fall League assignment with the Salt River Rafters.
That trust has shown up quickly. Ulloa said he got a strikeout the first or second time he used the pitch in a game, against Somerset, the Yankees’ Eastern League affiliate.
“I was fortunate enough to get a strikeout the first or second time I threw it - it was against Somerset [the Yankees’ Eastern League affiliate],” Ulloa said. “I had a few similar pitches that I was trying to work with.
Finally, I threw my changeup in a game and got what I wanted out of it. It was kind of a surreal feeling.”
Since then, he’s kept rolling. Through eight outings with the Rafters, Ulloa has thrown 8 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing four hits and three walks while striking out 11. On Wednesday, he came on with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh against Scottsdale and punched out Brewers No. 26 prospect Eric Bitoni on a changeup.
That’s the kind of look the Rockies wanted to see from him. Dan Meyer, the club’s roving pitching coordinator, pointed to the work Ulloa did in Hartford and the quality of the slider already in his mix.
“He had a good year in Hartford - a really good, above-average slider,” Rockies roving pitching coordinator Dan Meyer said. “It’s interesting to see what he can do against these really good hitters.”
Ulloa’s Hartford numbers backed that up. He went 6-3 with a 3.72 ERA and seven saves there, and across 88 Minor League games he is 13-7 with 15 saves, 136 strikeouts and 56 walks in 113 2/3 innings.
Jerry Sullivan, who coached Ulloa at Hartford and is with him again in the Fall League, said the right-hander has mostly been a two-pitch arm, with the changeup now giving him another weapon.
“Fidel was primarily a two-pitch guy,” said Jerry Sullivan, his pitching coach with Hartford and with the Rafters in the Fall League. “He’s developing a changeup and you’ll see a lot of that this fall. He’s an extremely good competitor who is on a command program.
“We want him to be able to attack in the zone, because all the numbers are in his favor when he’s in the zone. He’s had a tendency to be too fine, but that’s the competitor in him.
With the changeup as his third pitch, that loosens the feeling that he has to be perfect on a specific pitch. We want him to pitch with the freedom to attack the zone.”
Ulloa’s path to this point has been built on adjustment. A hard-throwing pitcher and occasional infielder at Lodi High School in California, he spent two years at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton learning how to pitch, not just throw. That stretch also helped him add pitches beyond the fastball.
From there, a coach connection opened the door to LSU, which Ulloa described as “one of my dream schools.”
The early days there were a challenge. He said the competition and the talent around him initially weighed on him.
“At first, I let it consume me,” he said. “I felt like I wasn’t a part of it - coming from a small town, being a junior college guy, then LSU had all these ranked transfers from big schools.
“I was coming back from a little bit of injury in the fall and didn’t pitch a ton. But in the spring, I came back feeling good, feeling fresh and healthy.
I got to face some of our best hitters - Tommy White [who debuted in ‘26 with the Athletics], Hayden Travinski and Paxton Clay - and had pretty good results against them. That gave me confidence.”
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