Jackson Jobe and Chase Dollander's futures are brighter than they showed in pitching duel

The future of Major League Baseball is very bright given the young talent all across the league. On May 7, baseball fans were treated to a pitching matchup that had all the makings of a future All-Star pitching duel.

Jackson Jobe and Chase Dollander are two names you should get familiar with if you aren't already. Before recently graduating as a prospect, Jobe was the top prospect in the Detroit Tigers farm system, as well as the fourth overall ranked prospect by MLB Pipeline.

Dollander, on the other hand, recently made his Major League debut and is currently standing as the Colorado Rockies' top prospect and 21st overall ranked prospect in all of baseball. At just 22 and 23 years old, respectively, these two electric right-handed pitchers might be find themselves atop Cy Young rankings rather than prospect rankings in a few years.

Jackson Jobe, Chase Dollander have more potential than they've shown in MLB

Although both entered the big leagues with quite the pedigree as pitchers, it hasn't been the start either player has hoped for. Fortunately for both Jobe and Dollander, there hasn't been a huge amount of pressure on either of them to perform at a high level, with the expectation rather being that they are going to require some time to develop.

Jobe joined the Tigers out of the high school ranks in 2021 and Dollander joined the Rockies out of college in 2023, so Jobe has had more time in the minors to develop, while Dollander has spent less entered professional baseball closer to being big league ready. Both pitchers have a great skill set, but are definitely going to need more time to adjust to the big league workload as well as to big league hitters and approaches.

Jobe came into Wednesday's game having found more success than Dollander to this point, and had a pretty clear advantage over Dollander coming into the game considering the Rockies lineup is much weaker than the revamped Tigers lineup.

Prior to the matchup, Jobe had thrown 24 innings across five starts to the tune of a 3.38 ERA, but was also carrying a pretty mediocre 4.96 FIP, 1.33 WHIP, and a concerning 3.9 K-BB%. His best outing to this point in 2025 was a six inning scoreless outing against the Twins on April 12th.

Although he hasn't nearly displayed the same level of dominance he did in the minors, Jobe has shown some flashes of excellence, large in part due to his elite slider that has returned some of the best results in baseball among breaking balls, and an improving changeup that has also found a lot of success.

As for Dollander, his results heading into the match-up have been very poor. He had thrown 25 innings across five starts with a 6.48 ERA, 6.44 FIP, 1.52 WHIP, and a 13.4 K-BB%. Although it hasn't been pretty to this point, Dollander had to be feeling good about himself considering he was coming off of his best start yet on April 30th, in which he delivered five and two-thirds innings against the Braves while allowing just one run.

The story for Dollander has been nearly similar to Jobe's — his go-to secondary (curveball) has been his best offering, but the high-velocity fastball is in need of a lot more polish.

Jobe, Dollander struggle in Tigers-Rockies matchup

As for their clash against each other on May 7, the fastball for Dollander was working early. He was locating it well through the top of the zone and got a few whiffs on it. The slight on Dollander's fastball is its mediocre shape, so although he's in the 94th percentile for fastball velocity, he has to be able to locate it well to get the best results.

He actually managed to retire the first six batters he faced before the wheels started coming off in the third inning. He was losing the ability to drop the fastball in the zone for called strikes and whiffs, and also got beat on two poorly located changeups. He ended up allowing three runs in the third before being pulled in the fourth following two more runners crossing home plate as a result of walking the bases loaded.

Jobe faced similar issues, as his fastball location was all over the place from the jump. The good news for Jobe is that his fastball is arguably a step above Dollander's considering he can run it up to the same velocity and it's elite shape.

Despite his struggles with the four-seamer, Jobe's slider has been elite this year and he has been able to use it with conviction, throwing it in any count and getting a lot of great results from it. The Rockies had other plans however. Jobe gave up two home runs on the evening, one to Ryan McMahon and one to Michael Toglia, both of which came via the slider.

The slider was actually working throughout most of the outing, but sometimes you get beat on your only two misses against big league hitters, which was the case for Jobe. He only walked one compared to Dollander's four, but also gave up eight hits, which hardly ever bodes well for a pitching line if you give up two home runs somewhere in there.

Neither pitcher managed to get out of the fourth inning. Both pitchers left with six earned runs and a lot to work on. It's pretty obvious that both of these pitchers' skill sets are very raw and need plenty of time to develop as big league starters.

The stuff is there for both Jobe and Dollander, but the name of the game moving forward is simple: command. With elite stuff, you can get away with poor command in the lower levels of professional baseball, but big league hitters are simply not going to let it slide, whether it's through drawing a walk or crushing a mistake.

Based on both pitchers' starts to their major league careers, it's safe to say that it's going to take time before they develop into who they are projected to be. With that being said, their potential is obvious, and one game in Coors Field shouldn't sway your opinion on them. You should still be a long way from hitting the panic button on either player.

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