Every player that has ever laced up a pair of cleats eventually has to come to the conclusion that someday, at some point, their career has to come to an end. For Cole Duensing, a Right-Handed pitcher in the Dodgers organization, that day has almost come on a couple of different occasions, already. 

Duensing is just 24 but has experienced just about every situation, circumstance, and curveball that the game of baseball can present. He’s had every chance, and probably every reason, to simply hang up his cleats and start his next chapter in life. 

But that’s just not Cole Duensing. It’s just not how he works.

At every turn, at every crossroad, he has refused to quit and continued to believe in himself, and now, as he enters 2023, he has as much promise as ever. 

KC

Duensing grew up in Kansas City and had a career you would expect for someone who is just a couple short steps away from the Major Leagues. He All-Stated twice while at Blue Valley Northwest High School got to pitch in his team’s biggest games, and became one of the best prospects in the Region. 

His talent popped, his measurables fit, and he proved to be a “gamer” time and time again. 

Like the time he got to pitch at Kaufman Stadium, the home of the Royals, against his Arch Rival Blue Valley North and threw a complete game shutout. Or just every time he took the ball for his team’s biggest games, Duensing proved to have big talent and an extremely competitive nature.

When asked about his experience at BVNW, and the game at Kaufman Stadium, here’s what he had to say.

“I got to pitch the first Conference game every week and the game at Kaufman Stadium happened to fall on my day to pitch. It was really cool! One of my best friends to this day hit a home run in that game and it was really cool because all of our friends came to the game. All of the North fans were on one side and all our fans were on the other and it was really cool because the rivalry is so big.”

With a Cole Duensing smile, he continued.

“That day I thought, since the game was at Kaufman, that everyone would get experience. But, we wanted to win with it being a rivalry game, so I got to throw the whole game and we won 8-0. 2 years later when my brother was a Senior he threw a complete game at Kaufman Stadium too, so we think that is really cool. It’s kind of our claim to fame looking back on it.”

Lots of Offers

Duensing had positioned himself as a big-time prospect and originally committed to play for Brad Hill at K-State. Hill had revived the Wildcat program and recently led the Little Applers to a Big 12 title in baseball in 2013. He also had the same core values of hard work as Coach Lange did at BVNW, so Manhattan was the place to be for the young KC native. 

That is, until he got drafted. 

Having thrown in such big games and having shown his big stuff, Duensing was well known by the local area scouts and eventually got drafted in the 6th Round of the 2016 Draft. The offer the Angels made was too good to turn down, so, although Duensing was looking forward to playing with several of his childhood friends at K-State, he decided to turn pro instead. Here’s what he had to say about that situation. 

“Coach Lange built his teams based on hard work and accountability and the K-State situation was really cool because Coach Hill believed in all those same things. I liked the fact that he worked his pitchers hard and believed in accountability because I think being a “gamer” is very underrated when you evaluate guys. I had 3 of my Summer ball teammates that were committed to K-State too, so I thought it was going to be an absolute blast to go to K-State.”

Duensing to the Angels

Although Duensing was excited to go to K-State, being drafted in the 6th Round was an offer that he just simply couldn’t turn down. So, he got his professional career started in 2016 and was with the Angels until 2021.

That’s when his story took a left turn and a pretty sharp one.

Duensing was released by the Angels in August of 2021 and signed with the Kansas City Monarchs who are an independent organization in KC. The sting of being released by an affiliated organization is tough enough, but then he got released by the Monarchs of the Independent League as well.

As you can only imagine, the young KC native was left to wonder if he had a future in baseball. 

But, as we know now, he did, he does, and so, instead of hanging ’em up, he kept lacing ’em up and got to work. It was a situation that made him realize that he needed to get better, but not one that removed his hope. 

Duensing had built some equity with the local area scouts because they remembered him from his days at BVNW. So, he got to throw B.P. to KC area professionals in front of several local area scouts, but despite throwing better than he probably ever had, no one seemed to want to make room for him.  This was probably the closest he ever felt to giving in and moving on because he didn’t know what else to do. He had put in the work, and he had shown scouts how well he was throwing, but no one was offering. 

With just weeks left until Spring Training, things looked bleak and left Duensing questioning his future in the game.

It would have been easy to see the most recent setbacks as the final straw, but, again, that’s just not Cole Duensing, that’s not who he is. 

Duensing instead got creative and recorded one of his pitching workouts, then put the video on Twitter. He then also posted the Rapsodo data that had been recorded during his bullpen.

Latest bullpen Rapsodo data. pic.twitter.com/thI5QuVXBv

— Cole Duensing (@ColeDuensing_24) February 2, 2022

Duensing’s tweet got noticed and got him an invite to workout for the Royals at their Spring Training complex in Arizona. Duensing grew up in KC, and when he threw great at that workout, he was sure that was it and that they would offer.

But, they didn’t

Again he was left to wonder if the end of the road had arrived, but that’s when he was offered the chance to work out in front of scouts again, but this time all the way down in Florida. Although this was super exciting news, the invite certainly came with no guarantees, and he had been living in a world full of people that had been turning him away recently. So, to fly to Florida, and spend even more money there, all with blind hope, was a pretty large leap of faith. 

But, in typical Duensing fashion, and with his typical confidence, he made his way to Florida, and, wow, is he glad he did.

Duensing threw as well as he had ever thrown during his 2 P.M. workout and left knowing he was going to have options.

And he did.

Multiple organizations approached him showing interest, and after several conversations, he eventually settled on the Dodgers and signed a 2-year deal.

Here is his first-hand account of how it all happened.

Duensing’s First-Hand Account

“There were a lot of moving parts between my tweets and signing with the Dodgers. Basically, I knew I needed to get a lot better when I got released, so I went and played for the Monarchs, an Independent team for the last 3 weeks of the season. But I only got to pitch twice for them and then they released me. So I got released by the Angels, then 2 months later got released from the Indy ball team.”

With an exhausted smile, and one that showed how incredible what happens next actually was, Duensing continued.

“It was a shock and it gave me another reality check as if  I needed another one and I knew that I clearly had holes that I had to fill. I really didn’t take any time off because I knew, to get signed again, I was going to have to go to a bunch of workouts.”

With some Cole Duensing humor, he added

“So, I wasn’t getting ready for Spring Training, I was getting ready for Thanksgiving. I had to be ready way before everyone else did. Once I got going, the ball started coming out of my hand really well, and I was asking teams to come to watch me throw, and I would throw live B.P. to professional baseball players in the area, and scouts came out, but no one ever offered.”

“I got to the point where I was contemplating stopping and getting a real job because I didn’t know what else to do. I threw for the Royals one day and they liked what they saw and invited me to Arizona, and when I threw I thought it was it. But it wasn’t, because they didn’t offer again.”

“I kinda thought that was the last straw because Spring Training was in 3 weeks. Then I got invited to Florida, and I wasn’t even sure if I should go, but I gathered up some money and flew down there. It felt like my last hoorah, and it was a miracle I even got there because I left in a hail storm, then the Dallas Airport got shut down, but, I finally made it. When I got there I slept on a buddy’s air mattress, got up early the next day, and went to the facility.”

“I ended up throwing the best live B.P. of my life and after that workout, I just knew that I was going to get to play baseball last year. I loved what Rob Hill had to say with the Dodgers and I couldn’t have written a better script for the last 18 months.”

There have been a lot of great stories of perseverance in the Minor Leagues over the years, but this one, the story of Cole Duensing, is about as good as it gets.

Feature Cut

Duensing features a 4-seam fastball that sits 91-94, a good changeup, and is in the process of continuing to refine his slider and cutter to distinguish the two. He has learned to throw his cutter for strikes and to use his slider to get swing and miss. This video shows his changeup, his slider, his 4-seam both up and down in the zone, and the confidence with which he carries himself.

Comparison

I enjoy comparisons because I think it can take large amounts of information and turn it into one very simple visual display.

So, here we go!

From a mechanical perspective, the guy I compare him to is Goose Gossage. As you’ll see in the picture below, their mechanics are almost identical, and honestly, Duensing also has a lot of confident mannerisms as well. 

Wrapping Up

Cole signed a 2-year deal with the Dodgers and so he has the comfort of knowing that he has all next year to establish himself. One thing that he noted is that he is very excited about where his stuff is at and feels as if it has reached a point to where all he has to do to get outs is to just be himself. 

In other words, he’s had so much pressure on him to perform in front of scouts just to find a job, it’s easy to feel like you have to overthrow to impress the Rapsodo machine. But, now he’s in a position where all he has to do is get outs, something he feels like he can do while staying within himself and not trying to do too much. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about his story as much as I did getting to tell it, and I hope you are as excited to follow Duensing this next season as I am. It’s gonna be a big year for him and Dodgers Daily will be rooting for him all along the way. 

In closing, I would like to give a big thanks to Cole for joining Dodgers Daily and giving me the chance to tell at least a part of his story. It was a pleasure getting to speak with this young man and I am thankful for his time and even more excited about his future.