Four Colorado Rockies pitchers out of options and under pressure

Antonio Senzatela

Pick which side of the coin you want to look at from last season with Senzatela.

The good side? Senzatela made 25 starts and racked up 11 wins. With the injury bug hitting the Rockies rotation hard last season, the 25-year-old right-hander was consistent.

The bad side? That consistency wasn’t something the Rockies wanted to see on the mound. A career-high 6.71 ERA and career-low ERA+ of 77 in addition to a WHIP of 1.749 and 11.6 hits surrendered per nine innings were all marks that led to 2019 not being a great season in the Senzatela storyline.

He also dropped from 6.9 strikeouts per nine innings in 2018 to 5.5 strikeouts per nine innings in 2019. He wasn’t fooling hitters at all last year and that’s certainly a concern heading into 2020.

Let’s stick with the “dropped” theme for a moment. Senzatela reportedly dropped 15 pounds this offseason (something manager Bud Black said he needed to do) so he will enter spring training in good shape. Can he become a solid option for the back end of the rotation? The Rockies need him to do that, and we predict he starts the season as part of the rotation.

Prediction: Senzatela and Gonzalez fill out the rotation (along with Kyle Freeland, Jon Gray, and German Marquez) while Hoffman and Almonte are part of the bullpen.