Somewhere between two emergency call-ups to Triple-A, a disaster day in Albuquerque, and a six-week stint on the injured list, Stu Flesland III put together one of the best seasons of any pitcher in the Colorado Rockies’ minor league system.
The 25-year-old left-hander enters the season’s final stretch with a 3.03 ERA across three levels, a 6-2 record, and an Eastern League Pitcher of the Week award to show for his second half at Double-A Hartford. None of that was the expectation. Flesland was Colorado’s
11th-round pick in 2023 out of Washington, for a modest $150,000 signing bonus — the profile of organizational pitching depth, not a prospect anyone circled for a breakout. Three years later, he’s forcing the issue.
The scenic route to Hartford
Flesland’s 2026 didn’t move in a straight line. He opened the year back at High-A Spokane, the level where he’d logged a full season in 2025, and was mostly excellent in a short look — a 3.63 ERA over 17.1 innings, with a career-high strikeout rate (9.87 K/9) but also his highest walk rate in that stretch (3.63 BB/9). From there, he was Colorado’s answer when Triple-A Albuquerque came up short on arms — summoned twice in the span of about three weeks, making one appearance both times. He went back to Spokane after the first call-up. The second, on May 15, was a disaster on its own — one inning, nine runs, four walks — and this time, rather than sending him back to Spokane again, the Rockies reassigned him straight to Hartford.
He didn’t miss a beat there: 3.1 innings, one run, in his Double-A debut on May 19, then five more relief outings into mid-June, working almost exclusively out of the bullpen (a 5.40 ERA over 11.2 innings in June, with a save mixed in). He then missed time after a June 16 outing. Flesland came back on July 3 as a starter and hasn’t left the rotation since: a 1.53 ERA in July, a 1.29 ERA in August, and a combined 61 strikeouts against 24 walks in 73.2 Double-A innings on the year.
What the numbers say — and what they don’t
The headline ERA is real, but it’s not the whole story, and it’s worth separating what’s earned and what’s been aided by good fortune.
The gain that looks sustainable isn’t the strikeout-to-walk profile — his walk rate is actually up from a year ago, from 6.5% at High-A in 2025 to 8.4% at Double-A this year (basically back to his 2024 level, and his K-BB (13.0% is a step down from last year’s 15.0%. What has genuinely changed is the shape of the contact he’s allowing: his ground-ball rate is a career high of 51.1%, real growth from the 45-46% he ran in each of the previous two full seasons. That’s a different pitcher than the one who finished 2025 in the Northwest League — more of a ground-ball arm, less of a swing-and-miss one — even if it’s not a cleaner strikeout-to-walk pitcher.
The gains that need a caveat: His 1.95 ERA at Hartford is dramatically better than his FIP (3.84) or xFIP (4.44) at the same level — the résumé of a pitcher who’s been helped by a .242 BABIP and an 80.6% strand rate, both of which are well outside what most pitchers sustain over a full season. An ERA- of 41 next to an xFIP of -94 is about as wide a gap as exists in this system, and it’s the single number most likely to normalize as time goes on.
The stuff itself is hard to fully evaluate from the data available: Statcast pitch-tracking only exists from his brief Triple-A cameo — 86 total pitches — showing a four-pitch mix of four-seam (33.7%, 91.0 mph), sinker (8.1%, 91.4 mph), slider (39.5%, 78.9 mph), and changeup (18.6%, 86.1 mph), with a slider-heavy approach.
It’s too small of a sample size to treat as a full scouting report on his repertoire, but the shape — a below-average-velocity fastball paired with a slider he throws almost 40% of the time — is at least consistent with a pitcher who misses more bats than his fastball alone would suggest.
The role question
The full-season starter/reliever split tells its own story about where Colorado sees him right now, or at least where he’s pitched best: as a starter in 2026, Flesland has a 1.63 ERA and a 0.87 WHIP across 55.1 innings; in relief, a 4.99 ERA and a 1.61 WHIP over 39.2 innings. Some of that is the sample of a rough Triple-A look, but the gap is large enough, and the second-half rotation results strong enough, that the case for stretching him out as a starter or long reliever looks better than the case for a middle-bullpen arm future — at least based on what he’s shown since Hartford put him in the rotation in July.
At 25, Flesland doesn’t have the prospect pedigree that usually accompanies this kind of run — an 11th-round college arm three years off the draft is not a name most outside the organization are tracking. But a full-season strikeout-to-walk rate north of 12%, a career-high ground-ball rate, and back-to-back sub-2.00 ERA months are the kind of stretch that at least earns a longer look.
Weekly Pebble Report: August 25th-31st
Triple-A: Albuquerque Isotopes (3-3, 65-67 Overall)
Albuquerque split six at Round Rock (Texas Rangers) in a series between clubs that arrived with similar records. The Isotopes won three in a row in the middle — including an 11-3 game Thursday in which they trailed 3-1 through seven innings and then scored five in the eighth and five in the ninth — and reached exactly .500 at 65-65 before dropping the last two. Vimael Machín drove in a team-high seven runs, Sterlin Thompson (PuRP No. 16) drew nine walks, and Tyler Freeman homered. Six different Albuquerque pitchers finished the series without allowing an earned run.
⬆️ Stock Up: Condon rediscovers his swing
Charlie Condon (PuRP No. 2) hit .350 across all six games, going 7-for-20 with two doubles, four RBIs, and a club-leading six runs scored. The more telling number is the strikeouts: three in 20 at-bats. He reached base 12 times in all, adding four walks and a hit-by-pitch. It was the sort of week the organization has been waiting for since his cold stretch began.
⬇️ Stock Down: Cande gets hit hard
Jarrod Cande gave up nine hits and seven runs while recording eight outs across two appearances. The second was the damaging one: he entered Sunday’s finale and allowed five hits in two-thirds of an inning, including a three-run homer that turned a 4-1 deficit into a rout. He also walked three in Tuesday’s opener, a game Albuquerque lost on a walk-off. In a series where the bullpen was otherwise excellent, Cande’s two outings accounted for a disproportionate share of the damage.
Upcoming
The Isotopes return to Albuquerque for six games against the Tacoma Rainers (Seattle Mariners)
Double-A: Hartford Yard Goats (4-2, 61-64 Overall)
Hartford won four of six at New Hampshire (Toronto Blue Jays). The running game was the defining feature — Hartford stole 20 bases across the series, seven of them in Sunday’s finale alone — and the pitching was steady enough that only two starters allowed more than two earned runs. Dyan Jorge drove in six, and Roynier Hernandez, in his first week with the club, added five.
⬆️ Stock Up: Humphrey won’t stop hitting
Jacob Humphrey went 11-for-21 (.524) with multi-hit games in four of his five starts, adding a double, three stolen bases, and three runs scored. Two weeks into his time at Double-A, he is hitting .438 overall. The one caveat is that the production came almost entirely at the top of the order rather than driving runs in — he finished with two RBIs — but as a table-setter he has been close to unmissable, reaching base 14 times in five games.
⬇️ Stock Down: Hill Goes Quiet Against a Familiar Foe
GJ Hill hit .125 across five games, managing two hits in 16 at-bats with no RBI and six strikeouts. What makes it striking is the opponent: Hill hit .412 with two home runs and seven RBIs against these same Fisher Cats a month ago, a performance that earned him a spot in this column. He drew four walks, but a middle-of-the-order bat going a full series without driving in a run is a problem for a club that scored more than six runs only twice.
Upcoming
The Yard Goats will host the Reading Fightin’ Phils (Philadelphia Phillies) for a six-game series.
High-A: Spokane Indians (2-4, 56-69 Overall)
Spokane dropped four of six at Vancouver (Toronto Blue Jays), and one of the losses will sting for a while: a 15-14 defeat in 10 innings Friday in which the Indians trailed 8-0 after two innings, led 14-13 in the tenth, and lost on a balk with two outs. The two clubs combined for 29 runs and 33 hits. Tommy Hopfe hit .391 across all six games, Alan Espinal added three doubles, and Bryson Van Sickle threw seven innings of two-run ball. Kelvin Hidalgo struggled badly at the plate, striking out 11 times in 20 at-bats.
⬆️ Stock Up: May Gives Spokane a Clean Start
Aiden May made one start and made it count, throwing five innings without an earned run in Wednesday’s 5-3 win — the only run against him came unearned. He scattered four hits and walked two. It was a single outing rather than a body of work, and he struck out only one, but on a staff where six different arms allowed at least four runs in an appearance this series, a starter turning in five clean innings was worth something.
⬇️ Stock Down: Brito’s Bat Disappears
Roldy Brito (PuRP No. 3) went 3-for-22 (.136) with eight strikeouts across five games, driving in one run. It’s a stark reversal from the hot bat we’ve seen for much of the latter stages of August. He remained a threat on the bases with two more steals, and he’s still hitting .278 on the season, but that contact that’s made him so effective went missing entirely against Vancouver.
Upcoming
The Indians will return home for a six-game series with the Everett AquaSox (Seattle Mariners)
Low-A: Fresno Grizzlies (3-3, 68-58 Overall)
Fresno split six at Inland Empire (Los Angeles Angels) in a series where the offense mostly disappeared, and the Grizzlies won anyway. They scored 27 runs across the six games, and eight of those came in a single win. A couple of the victories arrived late: an eight-run night that survived a ninth-inning grand slam and a four-run eighth to break a tie. Cort MacDonald had seven hits, Wilder Dalis (PuRP No. 10) added six, and Ethan Cole threw four scoreless innings with six strikeouts.
⬆️ Stock Up: Natili Provides the Power
Jack Natili (PuRP No. 20) hit .333 over four games with two home runs and three RBIs, going deep in both Friday and Sunday’s games. In a series where the Grizzlies managed more than five runs only twice, Natili accounted for a meaningful share of what damage there was. He has settled into the full-season baseball quickly.
⬇️ Stock Down: Andujar Can’t Get Started
Ashly Andujar went 3-for-21 (.143) across five games without driving in a run, striking out six times from the top of the order. For a series in which Fresno scored 27 runs total and needed late rallies to win two of them, getting nothing from the leadoff spot made the math harder every night. He did double and draw a walk, but he scored just twice in five games and reached base only four times all week.
Upcoming
Fresno will close out the regular season by facing off against the San Jose Giants (San Francisco Giants) for six games.
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