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Rockies Year In Review: Gonzalez Germen

By Michelle Stalnaker

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The next installment in our 2015 player review series is Gonzalez Germen.

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I well remember Gonzalez Germen’s first start for the Rockies back in July because this was my reaction to it:

On the other side of that start and the rest of Germen’s appearances for the club, I still would far rather see Jon Gray on the mound than Germen. But despite that, Germen did not end up being the worst thing that happened to the 2015 Rockies, and I feel like he exceeded expectations simply because of that.

With less than 100 major-league innings under his belt, Germen was snagged off waivers from the Cubs and initially assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque. He was called up for the aforementioned start in lieu of Jon Gray, who would have to wait nearly four more weeks for his debut. He pitched three scoreless innings before being lifted for a long reliever. It was the very definition of a spot start, but we would do well to remember that Germen outpitched the Braves’ Shelby Miller, who gave up a run in that same amount of time.

Of course, that was a fluke, as Miller went on to finish the season with a 3.02 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 205 innings. He also lost 17 games, but that’s just because the Braves were awful and also, #pitcherwins. Germen finished with a not-too-shabby 3.86 ERA, though his much-worse 5.12 FIP lets us know that Nolan Arenado had something to do with that ERA.

All told, Germen pitched 32.2 innings, all in relief following that spot start. He blew a couple of saves but also managed to earn one when he was called upon to pitch the 16th inning of a marathon against the Dodgers. He walked a LOT of batters (5.8 per 9) and didn’t really strike out that many (6.9 per 9), good for a ratio worse than just about everybody’s other than some names that make me sad (Eddie Butler, Tyler Matzek, Rex Brothers). This contributed to his 1.653 WHIP, also not good. He also gave up slightly more than a home run per 9, which is not Kyle Kendrick bad, but it’s not great either.

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Ultimately, Germen became one of many meh options out of the pen for the Rockies in 2015. His stats were better than they should have been because he had some good luck. He was outrighted shortly after the season ended, so the experiment has ended almost as soon as it began.

Overall Grade: C-

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