Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen.

Mike Soroka, RHP, Atlanta (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: 9  Top 100: 93
Line: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 2 H, 7 K

Notes
Soroka is the most polished strike-thrower of Atlanta’s young arms and has mature competitive poise. Much was made of his aggressive assignment to Double-A, but this was a promising start.

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In 2015, Chris Rusin made 22 starts for the Colorado Rockies in what was a lost season for the ballclub. They finished in last place for the third time in four seasons, and their attendance dropped to its lowest mark in eight seasons. The club possessed a promising cache of prospects. Regardless, one couldn’t be blamed for feeling pessimistic about the Rockies’ future.

Fast forward to today, and Rusin is still with the team. Instead of working in a starting capacity, though, he’s been moved to the bullpen. And rather than occupying a large role in Colorado’s rotation, he’s not even a sure thing to serve as the club’s sixth or seventh starter.

This isn’t a product of Rusin’s failings, however. He was actually pretty good last year, recording an 83 xFIP- and 76 ERA- in 84 innings of starting and relief work. Rather, the change in Rusin’s role is emblematic of a new development in the organizaion — namely, that the Rockies suddenly have a great deal of pitching depth, both in the rotation and the bullpen.

Let’s start with the most recent starting pitcher to make his major-league debut for the Rockies, Antonio Senzatela. After showing well in 2015 in his first trip through the California League, Senzatela had a very trying 2016 season. First, he missed time due to a shoulder injury. Then, his mother died from cancer back home in his native Venezuela. At the time, the Rockies used his shoulder injury as cover to let him go home and spend time with his family, which isn’t only an understandable but commendable move by the organization. But for those tasked with determining how Senzatela would stack up as a prospect heading into this season, it certainly created uncertainty, as any season-ending shoulder injury normally would. He’s still not very projectable, but he might have snuck on to the back end of Rockies’ team lists had people known why he really missed the latter portion of the season.

Fast forward to 2017, and Senzatela’s major-league debut was certainly promising. Despite hitting Keon Broxton in the face (Broxton fortunately seems to have come away from the HBP unharmed), he was otherwise brilliant on the day, striking out six batters through five scoreless innings. The result was a Game Score of 66 — and a Game Score v2 of 66 — which is pretty good for a Rockies pitcher making his major-league debut. Take a look:

Now, some of this is damning with faint praise. The Rockies haven’t had a ton of good starting pitchers, and even fewer who turned in good debuts. But it’s better than the alternative, which would have been getting rocked. Senzatela’s outing is tied for third in terms of Game Score, and by itself in sixth place according to Game Score V 2.0. Not too shabby.

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It’s opening day, and things can be weird, so let’s quickly check some Brewers and Rockies readings. Junior Guerra‘s fastball today averaged a little over 92. Last year, it averaged a little over 93. Tommy Milone‘s fastball today averaged a little over 88. Last year, it averaged a little under 88. Nothing crazy yet. Scott Oberg‘s average fastball matched up well with last year’s mark. Jon Gray’s average fastball seems up a few hairs from last year. There’s adrenaline in the first game of the season. I think we’re okay to proceed.

Let’s proceed!

That’s a slider. If I could just-

But could-

There’s no w-

Jon Gray threw a very good slider last season. According to the run values we have on the leaderboards, out of all starting pitchers, Gray’s slider ranked 14th-best, at 13.9 runs above average. He was in between Carlos Rodon and CC Sabathia. Here are the fastest average sliders thrown by starters:

Hey look, it’s Gray! Gray is no stranger to having velocity. He pumps his fastball into the mid-90s with regularity. The slider, last year, was something. On Monday, according to Gameday, it averaged 90.9 miles per hour. That’s right where 2016 Syndergaard sat. Granted, Syndergaard also pitched Monday, and this time his slider averaged 91.6. No pitcher should make a habit of trying to chase Noah Syndergaard, because that’s a competition you’re going to lose, but Gray was just flinging Syndergaard-esque breaking balls in between heaters, and this would take some getting used to. Unsurprisingly, going up against the Brewers, Gray was completely dominant.

And then things came off the rails in the fifth and Gray wound up with an 11.25 ERA. Surprise! It’s baseball! This is what you missed about baseball. Or what you didn’t miss at all, even just a little bit.

Just today we kicked off our annual Positional Power Rankings series, which means that, before too long, we’ll get a couple of posts about individual bullpens, looking at every single group. I’ll even be responsible for writing one of those posts, meaning maybe it works to our disadvantage to put this post up now, focusing on one bullpen in particular. But I’ve had a note here for a while, and I’m not one to let a topic go uncovered. The Rockies bullpen is of particular interest, especially at a time when the larger narrative around the team has responded negatively to recent news.

Let’s rewind. Yes, the last week or two have not been kind to the Rockies organization. The outlook for the season ahead has certainly gotten worse. Yet going back to last season, you know which team’s bullpen had — easily — the league’s worst WPA? That would be the Rockies, who made even the Reds feel proud of themselves. Although the Rockies finished at 75-87, their BaseRuns record was a more decent 80-82. With a stronger bullpen, last year’s Rockies would’ve been an average team. Their bullpen this year has the potential to be unusually dominant.

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A team can’t make their season in March, but they can lose their season before it begins. Last week was an awful week for the Rockies.

At the moment, the Rockies and the baseball world aren’t concerned about when Chad Bettis will pitch again. They just want him to be healthy, after the 27-year-old starting pitcher learned last week that his testicular cancer had unexpectedly spread. Bettis was declared cancer free back in January.

From Nick Groke’s story in the Denver Post:

His prognosis for a healthy recovery is good, in the 90 percent range, he said. Bettis will start chemotherapy treatment in Arizona sometime soon. And he and his wife Kristina are expecting their first child later this month.

But Bettis’s return to baseball this season is in doubt. “Optimistically? This year,” Bettis said. He was given a broad timeline of potential outcomes.

“You never know how these things will unfold. From our standpoint, we’ll have to make some adjustments,” Colorado manager Bud Black said. “We feel good about what will happen. He will keep his chin up and his chest out and press forward.”

There’s no certain timetable for Bettis’s return, but he’s likely to miss a significant amount of time.

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Adam Ottavino is a cerebral pitcher. You probably already know that, especially if you’re a regular reader of FanGraphs. Eno Sarris and I have both talked to, and written about, the Rockies reliever multiple times in recent seasons. From spin rates to spin axis to release points, he digs deep into data in search of any and all advantages he can find.

Last week, I approached Ottavino at Colorado’s spring-training facility — the scenic-and-pristine Salt River Fields at Talking Stick — to get a pitcher’s view of how launch-angle studies could end up impacting the game. His answer, studious as always, segued into the optimization of his own offerings.

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Adam Ottavino: “It’s going to be a natural, evolutionary process. People are going to change what they’re doing at the plate and, as pitchers, we’re going to have to change in response to that. They’re trying to get on plane and create fly balls, staying through it really well. I think we’re seeing more guys now with the ability to lift lower pitches. In years past, the swing wasn’t really designed to do that. They were trying to hit the ball on the ground, hard, and run.

“I think we’re going to continue to see pitchers elevating. We’re going to continue to see pitches designed to turn those fly balls into weak fly balls. But I think until it’s fully embraced — the uppercut swing, and all that — until it’s prevalent throughout all of baseball, it’s hard to imagine we’ll see a major trend on the pitching side in response to that.

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On Tuesday, I published KATOH’s 2017 top-100 list. Naturally, a lot of good players missed the cut. But one omission seemed particularly egregious, relative to the industry consensus. KATOH’s disdain for this player has elicited a few comments in recent months.

From this week’s top-100:

From our Rockies list in November:

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The Reds had the worst bullpen in baseball last year, right? They finished last in WAR, coming in at an unfathomable -3.6. And they finished last in RA9-WAR, coming in at a similarly unfathomable -3.1. By those measurements, last year’s Reds bullpen was historically awful. And yet! And yet, according to WPA, the Reds bullpen was only second-worst. I know that WPA is not the best evaluative tool, but in terms of what actually happened, given all the context and everything, the Reds bullpen had a WPA of -4.2. The Rockies bullpen had a WPA of -5.8.

Last year’s Rockies bullpen was one of the components that sunk the team. It hardly gave the Rockies a chance to contend, and it’s no coincidence the front office went out and signed Greg Holland. Holland, if he’s healthy, should make the situation an awful lot better. But he won’t be tasked with trying to do it alone. Adam Ottavino is also a part of the group, and while he missed most of 2015 and half of 2016 due to Tommy John surgery, he’s pitched some, and he’s probably been overlooked.

Because of his recent numbers, I can’t wait to see what Carter Capps does this year, post-surgery. Ottavino belongs in a similar boat. He’s already pitched a little bit post-surgery, but I doubt many were paying attention. You think this year’s Rockies will be more competitive. Ottavino could be a big part of that. Look what happens when you combine his 2015 and 2016 samples, and then compare that to his previous record.

Very clearly, we’re not dealing with much. In 2015, Ottavino pitched in 10 games before he had surgery. Last year he came back and made 34 appearances after the calendar flipped to July. Combined, it’s a sample of just 142 plate appearances. But relative to what Ottavino used to be, this newer version has been far better in terms of strikeouts and grounders. He’s ranked in the top 3% of all pitchers in adjusted ERA, FIP, and xFIP, and it probably has something to do with a two-seamer he’s more aggressively folded in.

Since every such post needs a visual:

Ottavino’s putaway pitch remains his slider. It’s still a good slider! But more recently, he’s used two fastballs instead of one, and he’s worked different sides of the plate. Although he’s spent less time within the strike zone, he’s also generated fewer swings within the strike zone, which is a good outcome. Ottavino has been more difficult to read and predict, and the small-sample results have been outstanding.

We could still probably stand to see more, and strong lefty bats remain a vulnerability. Because of the way that he throws, Ottavino is forever likely to run a substantial platoon split. Yet when he’s been able to pitch of late, he’s done almost everything right. Strikeouts and grounders while limiting walks. As with any team, the Rockies could be in for some bad luck. With some good luck, however, their bullpen could present a dominant top two. From there, who’s to say what they could achieve?

Charlie Blackmon and Chris Denorfia share a similar philosophy when it comes to swing paths and launch angles. Each eschews chopping wood and champions the value of hitting the ball in the air, not on the ground. But while the Colorado Rockies’ outfielders are kindred spirits when it comes to process, their approaches to the science aren’t alike. One is more studious in his pursuit. The other is satisfied to simply be aware of the concept.

Blackmon and Denorfia shared their thoughts on the subject earlier this week.

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Charlie Blackmon: “I try not to get super technical. I do understand that I want to match the angle of my bat with the angle that the pitch is coming in. I think that’s the best way to transfer the most energy into the ball. In saying that, I can feel what’s good and what’s bad. I can feel when I’m hitting the ball hard and when I’m just spinning the ball — I’m swinging at too much of a downward angle and just clipping it — as opposed to squaring it up and getting a lot of my energy transferred to the ball, with a better bat path.

“I haven’t seen a lot of the data, to be honest. I’d be interested in seeing it. But I think that no matter what the data says, I don’t think you can know what the launch angle is, and then backwards engineer a good swing. I think that would be hard.

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Eno took some time on Wednesday to talk about last season’s unluckiest changeup. Today, we’re going to talk about a changeup that wasn’t unlucky so much as it was woefully misplaced. It was a first-pitch changeup that was as middle-middle as one can be.

That’s where the title comes in. Let’s roll the film.

You may remember this dinger from a recent article here about Giancarlo Stanton. Statcast says it was the longest blast of the year, at a staggering 504.35 feet. It’s pretty easy to understand how this happened.

Three variables are at work:

1. Giancarlo Stanton is more machine than man, a T-800 who warped back in time and stole a baseball bat from an innocent bystander instead of boots and a leather jacket.
2. Coors Field is the Cape Canaveral of baseball.
3. Chad Bettis missed his spot with a changeup pretty badly.

I don’t need explain the first point very much. You know all about Giancarlo Stanton and what he’s capable of doing. You’ve seen him lay waste to baseballs. His muscles are made of steel rebar. He’s been doing this for years, and if we’re lucky, he’ll do it for a while longer.

I also don’t need to explain point No. 2 very much. Coors is in Denver, and the 20th row of seats in the upper deck at Coors is exactly a mile above sea level. That means the air is thin, which means the ball flies further. This is good for guys like Stanton and bad for anybody who stands on the pitcher’s mound. Unfortunately, that includes Bettis.

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