Tuesday Rockpile: “I want the game falling on my shoulders”: Zach Agnos is stepping into the spotlight

Colorado Rockies news and links for Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Last week, Mario Delgado Genzor wrote about Luis Peralta and some encouraging trends he’s noticed in the Colorado Rockies younger arms. Although he didn’t mention Zach Agnos (No. 35 PuRP), the Hartford Yard Goats closer certainly fits into the promise of the current Rockies farm arm barn. (Back in August, Evan Lang called attention to Agnos’ outstanding 2024.)

This year, Agnos started in High-A Spokane and finished his time there with a stunning 0.73 ERA in addition to 10.5 K/9 and 0.36 HR.9 in 24 ²⁄₃ IP. In June, he was promoted to Double-A Hartford, where he’s had to make some adjustments but continues to be an exceptional closer. Currently he’s sporting a 1.95 ERA, a 10.73 K/9 and 0.65 HR/9 in 27 ²⁄₃ IP.

Impressive, right?

Believe it or not, the Haymarket, Virginia native and former East Caroline Pirate came up as a shortstop. His transition to pitching came late, but he’s never looked back.

Moving from the infield to the bullpen

It was not a shift Agnos saw coming.

“If you would have asked me about my freshman year in college if there’s a chance I was going to be a pitcher in professional baseball, I would have told you, ‘Heck no.’ I would have said there’s no chance,” Agnos said last week from Akron, Ohio.

That’s not so say that he hadn’t pitched before. He did in high school.

Agnos continued by doing some occasional pitching for the Pirates, and eventually, he wanted to see what was possible on the mound, becoming more assertive during his junior season in the Cape Cod League in 2021. (Prior to that, he only had five appearances on the mound.)

“I wasn’t hitting fantastic, but I was bugging my manager about letting me throw an inning,” he said. “I was throwing the ball decently hard and had a good changeup and a good slider.” With the permission of his ECU coach, Agnos began focusing on his pitching.

Photo by Nicholas Faulkner/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Still, the development took time, and he really didn’t emerge as a pitcher until the second half of the Pirates’ season. He would play short for most of the game, do a quick warmup with the third baseman, and take the mound.

“I just kind of got flipped the ball at times, and just came in and just competed,” Agnos said.

“I didn’t care about my velo or anything. And I think that was what made the transfer to being a pitcher only.”

During Agnos time on the Cape, scouts started noticing his 93-95 mph fastball, and when they visited ECU, they suggested pitching, not the infield, was the shortstop’s future.

Danny Montgomery, the Rockies’ Vice President of Scouting, saw Agnos at the Team USA Trials and was intrigued. They drafted him — as a pitcher — in the 10th round of the 2022 draft.

Learning to close

It wasn’t just that he’d gone from the dirt to the bullpen. Agnos quickly assumed one of the most nerve-wracking jobs in baseball: closer.

It didn’t seem like a big deal.

“I just go up there with that same mentality,” Agnos said. “I just get up on the mound and throw like I’m coming in from shortstop or third base or second. Wherever I was, I just get up there and, you know, say, ‘Screw it. Whatever I have that day, that’s what I’m going to compete with.’”

He doesn’t treat the moment like anything special. Plus, he likes the competition, the feeling of having a game rest on his shoulders.

But he also doesn’t deny the moment.

“It’s honestly exciting. You can’t ignore the fact when you’re going in, and it’s the last inning, and if you save the game, you get to go dab up your catcher, get a big hug, and everybody’s going a little bit nuts. You can’t deny that.”

The advantages of being a former position player

Agnos’ arm is for real — and the fact that he’s spent fewer innings as a pitcher is a benefit — but he sees his hitting experience as giving him an advantage. First, it provides him with a mental edge.

“Everything that I throw. I hated seeing as a hitter,” Agnos said. “I hated seeing a cutter. I hated seeing sweeping sweepers, big sliders, and I hated seeing a changeups. I could hit a fastball okay, but the changeup, the cutter, and the slider I hated.”

Second, it’s contributed to his skills because he’s been there.

“Just being able to read the guy’s swings when they have a reaction, I kind of get an idea of what goes through their head and whether they liked it, whether they didn’t like it, whether they didn’t even pick up the spin, or something like that. So I think that’s the biggest thing.”

To keep that part of his game sharp, he regularly confers with Yard Goats hitting coach Zach Osborne about the strategies of opposing batters.

“I think in order to truly understand the game, you’ve got to play baseball on both sides of the ball, offensive, defensive and obviously pitching.”

The arsenal

Agnos has four pitches: fastball, cutter, changeup, and slider. But control has become his calling card.

For that, he credits his coaches, Sean Camp, Jason Dietrich, and Austin Knight. Camp, his high school coach, Agnos says, taught him mechanics and how to throw strikes.

Of his slider, Agnos said, “That’s probably the pitch I struggled most with before my sophomore year in college. It was good, but inconsistent.”

A Matt Brash video on Pitching Ninja changed that.

“I saw how he gripped it, and it’s a similar grip to his,” Agnos said, “but I’m going to be honest: I just started throwing it, and I started getting swings and misses on it, and we made some minor adjustments to it now to get more consistent shape.”

Photo by Zach Agnos

It’s a key part of his arsenal.

“I think with the slider, what helps it so much is the cutter because the cutter is kind of a bridge pitch between my fastball and the slider.”

He understands, though, that the art of pitching is ongoing.

“The arsenal has been fun, but you’ve always got to tweak it,” he said. “You always got to make it a little better. So we’re always working on it.”

The playoffs

All of that brings us to the Hartford Yard Goats and their bid for an Eastern Conference championship.

For Agnos, the playoffs are exciting.

“The playoffs, to me, is one of my goals every year, whatever level I’m at,” Agnos said, “just going out there, playing some extra games, and you get to extend the season with your friends.”

He realizes these relationships are tenuous.

“The unfortunate truth in this game is that you’re probably not going to play with a couple of these guys, at least after the year is done, so, just really taking that extra time and soaking it up with them.”

Look for the Goats to start their first playoff on September 19 with Agnos, hopefully, throwing that final inning that brings a championship to Hartford.

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This week on the internet

These are terrific.

I’m off to the Post Office tomorrow to get mine.

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Have the Rockies Found Some Solutions With Late-Season Rookies? | Just Baseball

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Okay, pairing Brenton Doyle with Shohei Ohtani is just not fair. But for the record, Doyle has two cute dogs.

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