Rockies Year In Review: Christian Bergman

The next installment in our 2015 player review series is Christian Bergman.

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I’m pretty high on Christian Bergman. I think he’s been an extremely reliable, workhorse type pitcher who probably belongs in long relief, but who should be allowed to spot start more than he has. In fact, early this summer I projected that he would be in the rotation by August. That is technically an incorrect prediction, but just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have. Even Nick Groke started to wonder about Bergman’s lack of rotation opportunities as the season came to an end. But as Walt Weiss says in that Post article, Bergman is so good in his long relief role, which is something the Rockies so desperately need, that it was tough to consider moving him.

Looking more closely at Bergman’s 2015 performance, a few things stand out. The main one is that Bergman does not profile as a pitcher who should have a lot of success with the Rockies. He doesn’t miss a lot of bats (his 4.87 K/9 is nearly the worst on the team). He also doesn’t walk a lot of guys (1.98 BB/9), meaning there is a lot of contact happening. When that contact happens, almost 40% of the time it’s of the flyball variety.

If you showed me those numbers on a guy the Rockies were considering, I’d be saying something along the lines of, Holy crap, turn back, no no, do not enter, bad!!!! And yet: Bergman owns a 4.23 FIP and less than 10% of those flyballs go over the fence, numbers that put him in the middle of the pack. Bergman allowed only .2 more home runs per 9 than our favorite starter, Jorge De La Rosa.

Another thing about Bergman is that he allows a lot of line drives, but he also limits opposite field hits. This is great for a shift-happy team like the Rockies. And Bergman has a lot of negative pitch values (a stat that lets us know how hitters perform against particular pitches), but he balances those well. A chart that shows team stats for pitch value indicates that more than half of Rockies pitchers have at least one pitch that produces significantly negative results (defined as less than -2.00). This is partly an issue of sample size, of course, but it’s worth noting that Bergman has zero pitches like that.

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It’s not a huge attention-grabber, but it’s a small thing that shows that he does not subtract a lot of value from the team when he pitches. Yes, we would all like to have more pitchers like Adam Ottavino, whose pitches all produce positive value, but if guys like him are going to keep getting injured, give me Bergman over Yohan Flande or Jorge Rondon. Please and thank you.

Overall Grade: B-

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