The Rockies are planning to activate right-hander Antonio Senzatela from the 60-day IL for his season debut on Monday in opposition to the Diamondbacks, as famous by Manny Randhawa of MLB.com. The Rockies’ 40-man roster at present stands at 39, that means a corresponding 40-man transfer will solely be essential to activate Senzatela if the emptiness is stuffed earlier than his return.
The 29-year-old righty is poised to go well with up for his eighth season within the massive leagues, all of which have been spent within the Rockies group. Senzatela was restricted to only two begins in 2023 resulting from an elbow sprain earlier than finally present process Tommy John surgical procedure final July. Previous to that, the righty had emerged as one of many membership’s higher pitchers since a breakout 2020 season the place he posted a 3.44 ERA in 12 begins. In 59 begins from 2020 to 2022, Senzatela pitched to a stable 4.38 ERA that’s truly 10% higher than league common by ERA+, a stat that adjusts for park components to account for the inflated offensive surroundings at Coors Discipline.
What’s extra, the righty truly sported a good stronger 3.96 FIP over that very same timeframe. Whereas he struck out simply 14.4% of batters confronted over these three seasons, Senzatela’s skill to restrict walks to a clip of simply 5.3% and hold the ball on the bottom (50.6% grounder price) to restrict residence runs allowed him to put up stable peripherals that gave the Rockies sufficient confidence to increase him following the 2021 season on a five-year deal value $50.5MM that features a membership choice for the 2027 season. Sadly, the contract hasn’t precisely gone nicely thus far as Senzatela’s 2022 season was minimize quick by an ACL tear, and his final two campaigns have been kind of worn out by Tommy John surgical procedure and the next rehab course of.
Regardless of the right-hander now being set to make lower than 25 begins over the primary three years of the contract, nevertheless, it’s not laborious to think about him being a precious piece for the Rockies headed into 2025. In any case, Senzatela’s grounder-heavy sport performs fairly nicely at elevation and it’s not laborious to think about a rotation that pairs him with some mixture of German Marquez, Cal Quantrill, Kyle Freeland, Ryan Feltner, and Austin Gomber discovering some degree of success, at the least by the requirements of a Rockies franchise that has struggled to search out constant pitching outcomes even in its best years. With a uncommon rotation surplus in Colorado and different younger arms like prospect Carson Palmquist at present on the Triple-A degree, it’s even potential to think about the Rockies having sufficient arms obtainable for his or her 2025 rotation that they may hearken to commerce affords involving a pitcher like Quantrill or Gomber, as they reportedly did previous to this summer time’s commerce deadline.
Because the Rockies head in the direction of the end line of what might be their second consecutive 100-loss marketing campaign, dealing an arm from the rotation may permit them to deal with different areas of the roster and complement the membership’s core items like Ryan McMahon, Brenton Doyle, and Ezequiel Tovar on the positional aspect. For now, although, Senzatela and the Rockies determine to give attention to getting the right-hander some begins on the massive league degree down the stretch as he appears to be like to shake off the rust and head into his first wholesome offseason since he signed the aforementioned extension.