Zac Veen’s sobriety leaves room for hope for Rockies career, life after baseball

Players often arrive at spring training and declare they are in the best shape of their lives. Zac Veen arrived in Scottsdale in a shape that might have saved his life.

Veen is bigger, dramatically so, telling friend Thomas Harding of MLB.com that he weighs 245 pounds, roughly 45 more than he finished last season. Such gains draw suspicions in a sport haunted by performance-enhancing drugs. But Veen, a former Rockies top prospect, offered a plausible explanation.

He said he is no longer abusing marijuana and alcohol for the first time since 2021.

“I had a pretty big substance abuse problem for a few years. But I’m completely clean and sober. There were times last year where it was out of hand,” Veen admitted. “Looking back, a lot of my meals were smoke – and things that shouldn’t have been. I was smoking weed every day. If I couldn’t find any weed, I was drinking every single day. … Coming home in the offseason, I had to look in the mirror and make some adjustments. And I definitely got closer to God, and it made me want to be the best version of myself in every aspect.”

Veen, the ninth overall pick in the 2020 draft, finally reached the big leagues last April, and crash landed. He managed four hits in 34 at-bats with 14 strikeouts. He could not lay off a high inside fastball, struggled with routes in the outfield and ruined one one of his best moments by celebrating a double at Coors Field by pretending to take a bong hit.

I talked with Veen in May a few weeks after the Rockies shipped him back to Triple-A. The experience humbled him. He knew he had to change beyond replacing his purple and blond hair with a crewcut. He needed to develop power, but not until, it turns out, he gained control of his life.

An offseason spent in Florida with friends, former coaches and faith helped put him in a different place.

“I love his new look,” assistant hitting coach Jordan Pacheco texted The Post on Friday. “And where he is at mentally.”

Veen provides a cautionary tale of what can go wrong in idle time without discipline and direction.

In some ways, his journey, now that he has gone public, sounds similar to that of Josh Hamilton. Hamilton became an addict after an injury, leaving him out of baseball for three years because of drug suspensions.

Sobriety helped him reach five all-star games before injuries and relapses forced him to retire. Last May, interim bench coach Clint Hurdle invited Hamilton to speak to the Rockies hitters about his experience.

Hamilton was a generational talent, the first overall pick in 1999. Veen has only shown promise, alternating flashes of stardom with maddening displays of immaturity.