Rafael Dolis’ Impact on the Blue Jays ‘Family’

After a long path back to the big leagues, Rafael Dolis is leaving a positive impact on the Blue Jays’ bullpen

Rafael Dolis didn’t play in a Major League Baseball game for 2,981 days — over eight years. 

He pitched in the minors for three organizations and, in 2016, moved to Japan where he became one of the best closers in the league. He racked up 96 saves in the NPB, leading the league in 2017, and posted a 3.1 ERA across four seasons. 

After returning to the MLB on a $1 million deal in 2020, Dolis made an immediate impact in the Toronto Blue Jays bullpen. He finished the year as the team’s closer and had his contract renewed for 2021. He feels comfortable, like he’s surrounded by friends, he said, and now he’s trying to help the team in whatever way possible.

“I’ve been with four teams before,” Dolis said. “But what I see here, everybody is like family.”

Dolis is a three pitch pitcher — sinker, slider, splitter. His split is his feel pitch, it has late drop and is a large reason opposing players swing and miss often and almost never barrel up one of his pitches. Though he has run into trouble walking batters at points in his career, over a season into his MLB return, teams still haven’t figured him out.

Opposing managers will pinch hit lefties against Dolis when he comes into the game, not knowing he likes pitching to lefties more. He has the confidence to throw his two-seamer inside and can finish them off with his split. On good days and bad days, Dolis sometimes watches back his pitches and realizes just how nasty they are.

But this confident, dominating Dolis wasn’t always there. When he was in low-A in the Cubs organization he was good, Dolis said, everybody saw it. But he didn’t know how good he was or how to maximize his routine, until big leaguer Ángel Guzmán joined the squad on a rehab stint.

“When I was 24, 25, I had nothing in my head,” Dolis said. “I’d just go to the game.”

Guzman, now a coach in Colombia, was the positive impact on Dolis that the Blue Jay reliever now wants to be for his team. Guzman told him to remember everything he’d done for him, and to be that veteran when he got to the big leagues. Dolis pitched parts of three seasons for the Cubs, but he never earned a guaranteed role, and never became that veteran.

Almost a decade later, when Anthony Castro joined Toronto off waivers, Dolis quickly became the vet he could lean on. Dolis saw himself in the 26-year-old, knowing he could become a good pitcher. Castro says he’s grown close to Dolis during his brief months in the Toronto organization, and has leaned on him for advice about coming out of the bullpen.

“[Dolis] has been telling me a lot about how to get ready faster so I can recover quicker every day,” Castro said. “He’s also been telling me a couple funny stories that happened to him in Japan.”

Dolis has only pitched parts of five seasons in the big leagues and hasn’t yet reached 100 career MLB innings, but he’s the second-oldest player on Toronto’s active roster. Now, he’s that veteran Guzman told him to be. The Dominican has had a long path back to the Major Leagues — he pitched professionally for over 10 teams in four countries — but it’s a path that has given him the experience and wisdom to impart on this young team, his Blue Jays family.