The righty’s three games were simply setups for next season’s success
Welcome to the 2024 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2024. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.
★ ★ ★
No. 27, Antonio Senzatela, 0.0 rWAR
Okay here’s the thing: at the end of the day, just being able to see Antonio Senzatela on the mound again is the biggest victory of all.
This is of course due to “Senza” suffering two serious injuries over the last two seasons – a torn ACL in 2022 and a torn UCL last year. These setbacks have caused the right-hander to miss significant time, as he’s appeared in just five games in the last two years.
Now, though, the Venezuelan native is back and healthy, ready to be a contributing part of Colorado’s rotation. His brief reappearance this past season was the first step in getting back to major league form after so much time away.
Being that he only appeared in three games, we’re going to take Senzatela’s small sample size with a speck of salt, savvy? Even with a very limited frame of reference, we can get an idea of what he’ll be entering 2025 with.
For example, his game plan appears to be the same as ever – fastball first and foremost.
“Senza’s” heater is his bread and butter, easily his most utilized pitch in his career. The last few seasons saw him try to mix things up a bit more, but he appeared to revert back to his original strategy in 2024. That fastball was thrown almost 60% of the time, with his slider and changeup usage lagging far behind.
This is fine if that pitch is effective, but his four-seamer wasn’t exactly unhittable as opposing hitters recorded a .385 batting average against. His slider didn’t fare much better, and with those being his two most-utilized weapons by a good margin, it’ll be up to Colorado’s coaching staff to turn these two pitches back into productive tools.
Again, small sample size. Senzatela and the Rockies were likely far more concerned with getting him reps and allowing him to regain the feel of pitching in MLB, rather than looking for any kind of genuine results. Even so, his three starts seemed to mirror the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears – one hot, one cold, and one that was pretty okay.
(I know the last one is supposed to “perfect”, but does anyone really like porridge that much? Sound off if you’re a porridge truther).
Senzatela will enter 2025 penciled in for a rotation spot, and he’ll have every opportunity to return to his 2020 form. He’s 29 and still set to be a member of the Rockies roster for at least the next two seasons. However, Colorado has a fair few starting pitching prospects working their way toward MLB, and with the Rockies continuing to suffer through the many issues of their long-embattled bullpen, there’s a conversation to be had about his skillset being more suited to a relief role.
Is that likely? Not really, but it’s an option that the team may want to consider.
As for the immediate future, we’ll see what a fully-healed “Senza” can do next season. The time away from the game may have helped to hone his repertoire, or it may take him some time to ramp back up to form. Either way, he’ll have plenty of time to work out the kinks as he once again takes his place among Colorado’s pitching unit.
For now, he’s finally back. We’ll take that as a win.