Esmil Rogers can throw a baseball pretty, pretty, pretty hard. Like the majority of flame-throwers that touch 96 and average 94mph, the only real problem is control. Against the Pirates in Pittsburgh, that’s not going to be a huge problem, but once Rogers faces a Major League Baseball team there may be a few issues. ZING!
Rogers actually located fairly well this afternoon. He threw about 70% of his fastballs and change-ups for strikes but his breaking stuff was a 50-50 proposition:
He missed quite a bit early in the count but also got a couple really nice swinging strikes on his dirty slider. Rogers does have great stuff that’s really played up by his fastball velocity but on the road in Pittsburgh isn’t enough for me to fully commit to the kid. In 7.1 IP, Rogers notched 7 strike-outs, gave up 4 hits, 1 BB and 1 ER before Matt Beslie came in to finish off his 8th inning.
Rogers groundball tendencies don’t minimize the risk of Colorado and Coors, but they definitely mitigate it a little bit. In 2010, Rogers only allowed 26.7% Fly-Balls, and continued that today getting 11 groundballs to 6 flyballs from the Pirates.
His release point looked tight, his pitches broke well and he didn’t get into trouble until his velocity trailed off in the 8th inning:
If you’re going to take a gamble on Rogers (and on Rogers keeping his gig in the rotation when everyone gets healthy,) I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing this:
Rockies Upcoming Schedule: 2010 wOBA Rank out of 16 National League Teams.
Mets(13th), Cubs(10th), Giants(9th), Marlins(8th), Cubs(10th), Pirates(15th), Diamondbacks(6th), Mets(13th), Padres(14th) and the Giants(9th) again before they face the Phillies(4th) and Brewers(2nd).
Quite frankly, I’m starting to think that most Rockies pitchers might be a good play over the next couple of months…
