Eli Whitney | May 21, 2026
Jaden Hill grew up in Ashdown, Arkansas – population just over 4,000, situated in the southwestern corner of the state near the Texas border. It is the kind of place where sports are communal, where cousins and uncles and fathers fill in as coaches across every season, where the boundaries between basketball, football, and baseball blur depending on the time of year. Hill spent his childhood rotating through it all with a cluster of cousins his same age, their fathers – all brothers – coaching whatever was in season.
The Brother Who Showed the Way
“A bunch of my cousins and I all grew up the same age, like six or seven of us,” he said. “Whatever the sport was at the time, whatever the season, we were out there playing it.”
The one who pointed the way was his older brother, Kentrell, nine years his senior, who spent time in the San Francisco Giants organization. Hill grew up watching him, emulating him, wanting to be him. But he also absorbed a lesson early that would shape how he approached the game.
“I learned from him at an early age that for him it became a job,” Hill said, “and so that’s something that I understood, but I also didn’t want to fall into the trap. I wanted it to be fun. I still wanted to enjoy it, but also take it seriously at a young age, and know how far I can take it. “
From Ashdown to LSU
He went 7-0 as a senior at Ashdown High School, earned an invitation to the Under Armour All-American game at Wrigley Field, and chose Louisiana State University – initially recruited for both baseball and football before a broken collarbone made the decision for him. At LSU, the arm was everything scouts hoped for. A fastball that touched 98, a promising changeup, the frame and athleticism of someone who was going to keep getting better. By the time his junior season arrived, Baseball America was calling him a potential top-five pick. Some teams had him going in the top of the first round.
Then, in April 2021, he felt something in his elbow. Tommy John surgery. The season was over. The top-five ceiling evaporated overnight.
“For me at the time, I didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Hill said. “I didn’t know what to expect with that injury.”
The $1.69 Million Bet
The Colorado Rockies, undeterred, selected him 44th overall in that summer’s draft and signed him for his full slot value of 1.69 million – a statement of organizational faith in a player who didn’t throw a professional pitch until July of the following year.
“Getting drafted gave me that relief,” Hill said, “and getting drafted by this organization, knowing that they had faith in me and my abilities to heal – I was able to grow, learn. And now, all these little bumps I go through throughout my career make it easier. I know what it feels like to go through failure. I know what it feels like for things not to go your way. It just makes me stronger and better.”
The comeback was slow and careful. He made seven starts in the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League in 2022, then three more for Low-A Fresno. In 2023, he reached High-A Spokane – the level where things were supposed to start clicking. They didn’t. He walked too many. He allowed too many hits. He couldn’t string clean innings together. For a player who had spent his entire athletic life being told how good he was, it was a reckoning.
“That was tough,” he said, “especially after being sidelined for those two years, being excited to come back, and then having those high expectations of being a high draft pick. People were eager to see me pitch, and the year went completely opposite.” He also got hurt again that season. “It was a look in the mirror moment. Hey man – you’re good, you’ve been through worse. Take a step back and trust the work and the process.”
A New Role, A New Jaden
The Rockies made a decision after that season that would change the trajectory of his career. They sent him to the Arizona Fall League with a new assignment: reliever. No more five-inning starters’ routines. No more game planning against lineups he’d see three times. Just come in, attack, and get people out. The first time he did it, something was released.
“Mentally it was tougher,” he said of the transition. “Physically, it was perfect. I felt better, my arm felt great, and I recovered better than I ever did as a starter. And I actually really loved it.” He paused. “I was a big routine-oriented guy – a lot of workouts, a lot of game planning, a lot of stuff that I didn’t realize was honestly weighing me down. Being able to take that stress off me mentally and just go in there and pitch – it took a load off me that lets me enjoy the game a little more.”
The next chapter unfolded in pieces. He spent 2025 going back and forth between Triple-A Albuquerque and the big league club, appearing in 28 major league games and posting a 3.38 ERA. The back-and-forth was its own kind of challenge – not knowing when the phone would ring, not knowing which level he’d be pitching at week to week.
“You feel like you should be here on the big league club,” he said. “Everyone does. But you start to realize you just take care of what you can take care of. You can control what you can control. Day in and day out, wherever I was, my job was to produce.”
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, his life changed in ways that had nothing to do with baseball. He got engaged. And then, while he was rehabbing a hamstring tear in Triple-A, his son was born.
The Best Job
“I was a little mentally frustrated, not being here, not knowing where we were going to be as he was being born,” he said. “I didn’t have anywhere to live when he was being born. We didn’t know where we were going to be. But it really puts this into reality – the things that we make a big deal out of aren’t as big as we think they are.” He smiled when he talked about his son. “He couldn’t care less if I go out there and strike out the side or give up five home runs back-to-back. He doesn’t care. So it’s up to me to leave everything here in the locker room, digest it, throw it out, go home, be dad – and then that allows me to come in the next day with a fresher mind.”
This spring, for the first time in his professional life, Hill made the Opening Day roster. He wore number zero. He came into Coors Field on day one of the regular season with a goal he had set for himself over winter – to be available any time, in any situation, against left-handers and right-handers alike.
Whatever You Need
“I felt like in the past I was limiting myself,” he said. “I wasn’t able to get lefties out, go longer innings, or go short. Whatever was needed. So my goal this offseason and in Spring Training was to be available no matter what the situation was.
Through the first 50 games of 2026, he has delivered on that promise. He has pitched in high-leverage spots, inherited runners, worked multiple innings, and stranded threats that would have unraveled lesser bullpens. Manager Warren Schaeffer has spoken about him in increasingly glowing terms.
“After what he’s been through,” he said recently, “it’s been one heck of a journey.”
That is an understatement. From Ashdown to Wrigley Field to Tommy John to Spokane to the Arizona Fall League to a baby being born while he rehabbed a hamstring in the minors – Jaden Hill’s path to a stable role in a major league bullpen has been anything but linear. But the lessons embedded in that path are exactly what make him effective now. The failure in Spokane taught him to look in the mirror. The injury before the draft taught him to look in the mirror. The injury before the draft taught him that things don’t always go your way. The transition to relief taught him that letting go of control can be its own form of mastery. And his son, who turns one year old soon, has taught him that the game is exactly that – a game.
Everything else waits at home.
“I’m thankful that he gets to be a part of this journey with my wife and me,” Hill said. “It’s work, it’s fun, it’s a game. And at home – that’s where you want to be.”
Written by Eli Whitney.
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