Tommy McCollum, 26, reached Triple-A for the first time in his professional career in 2025 after making 37 relief appearances with Double-A Reading. He has now spent all or part of the past three seasons at Double-A with some success that was interrupted by a down season in 2024. McCollum has good size at 6’5″ and 260 pounds and throws from a fairly high release point with good extension and downhill plane, giving his pitches extra perceived velocity and deception.

Pitch repertoire

He works primarily with a four-seam/sinker tandem that sits in the low-to-mid 90s and has reached the mid-to-high 90s in bursts. He also throws a glove-side cutter in the mid-to-high 80s, a slider/cutter range pitch in the low-to-mid 80s, a curveball in the high 70s, and a high‑80s splitter that functions as his primary swing-and-miss offering. Statcast and team tracking from his minor league work show four-seam fastball usage dominating his pitch counts in 2022 while the splitter and slider are the main chase/miss pitches, with measurable spin and vertical break profiles that make the splitter especially effective when his release point is repeated. Pitch-tracking tallies show McCollum’s preference for using the four-seam fastball. In 2025, McCollum used his fastball 45% of the time and his change-up 33% of the time. His cutter took up 23% of his pitch repertoire with the slider and curve being options meant primarily to keep hitters off pace.

Amateur background and signing

McCollum played collegiately at Wingate University near Charoltte, NC before entering professional baseball. All 30 teams passed on him in the 2021 MLB Draft and was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies as an undrafted free agent in July 2021, entering the organization as a projectable, power‑armed righty with starter size who projected into relief in the pros.

Minor-league performance and sabermetric notes

McCollum posted a clear spike in production during his 2022 minor-league season before an injury curtailed that campaign, showing strong swing‑and‑miss ability and a favorable strikeout profile when his splitter was working. Subsequent seasons have been more uneven as he’s battled command and consistency issues at higher levels. Sabermetrically, evaluators highlight a high strikeout ceiling – above‑average K‑rates in his best outings – paired with an elevated walk rate and occasional home‑run/run‑limiting shortcomings when his fastball command slipped. Those traits create a profile with upside in high‑leverage relief if command stabilizes but also volatility shown by swings in ERA and peripheral metrics between levels. Against left-handed hitters he was particularly effective in the low minors, and his pitch design – deceptive splitter plus downhill fastball – projects well for late‑inning mismatches if he can keep walks in check and repeat release mechanics.

Injuries and transactions

McCollum’s professional timeline includes stints on injured and development lists, including a stint on the 60‑day injured list in mid‑2022. McCollum has been up and down the organizational ladder with roster shuffles between Clearwater, Jersey Shore, Reading, and Lehigh Valley. The ups and downs are consistent with a pitcher who has shown both high reward and some reliability concerns as he advanced. The Phillies have treated him as a relief candidate to push toward consideration for the 40‑man roster to protect him from exposure to the Rule 5 Draft.

Scouting take and projection

Scouting synthesis: the player’s two clearest assets are size/extension and a legitimately above‑average splitter that produces swings and misses and keeps left-handed hitters off-balance that he can mix with a fastball that can sit in the mid‑90s at peak effort. The main limitations are command/consistency and a lack of a true, reliable secondary breaking pitch besides the splitter when the slider or cutter fail to land consistently. Short term, McCollum grades as a high‑variance middle‑to‑late‑inning relief piece with upside as a situational multi‑inning weapon. Long term he profiles as a bullpen arm who could settle into a multi‑inning or matchup role in the majors if he tightens his command, increases cutter/slider control to complement the splitter, and avoids further injury setbacks.