Winter Meetings notes: Rockies’ Black ready to work with young pitchers, catchers
By Sam Dykstra/MiLB.com
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Bud Black is back managing, but he may have taken one of the toughest gigs in the game as skipper of the Colorado Rockies. It’s also one he believes has potential.
The first obstacle for any skipper in Denver is the high-altitude environment, and while that may be a boon for hitting, it has the opposite effect on pitching. Unsurprisingly, the Rockies pitching staff finished 27th with a collective 4.91 ERA last season.
Because of the conditions, it can be tough for Colorado to seek out quality free-agent starters who don’t want to see their ERAs artificially inflated. Instead, the Rockies have to hope they can develop the young, controllable arms that could take them back to the postseason for the first since 2009.
In that way, the Rockies might be as well-suited as they’ve been in recent memory.
Jon Gray, the third overall pick in the 2013 Draft, looks poised to become the staff ace after putting up a 4.61 ERA, and 3.60 FIP with 185 strikeouts in 168 innings at the age of 25 last season. Tyler Chatwood (3.87 ERA in 158 innings) and Tyler Anderson (3.54 ERA in 114 1/3 innings) are two other Draft picks from this decade entering their age-27 seasons in 2017. Add in 27-year-old Chad Bettis as the penciled-in fourth starter and №. 2 prospect Jeff Hoffman, and №. 5 prospect German Marquez expected to compete for the fifth spot in the spring, and there’s a chance Colorado has the arms it needs already in place. Black’s goal will be to help them develop the mentality for a high-altitude environment. It also helps that some of them have already faced such a situation at Triple-A Albuquerque.
“Develop is a nice word,” said Black, a 15-year Major League hurler with the Royals, Giants, Indians, Mariners and Blue Jays. “Some of these pitchers coming through the system now, they were drafted as Rockies. They were born as Rockies. They were developed as Rockies. From over the last month, what I can read, there is a mind-set that has been taught and talked about through development. That’s a good thing. With that, I think we’ll hopefully see, as the organization moves forward, the results.”
The key, according to Black, with these young hurlers will be control, no matter the environment, and he’s already expressed that to the pitchers he’s talked to over the phone or met in Arizona since being named the Colorado skipper on Nov. 7.
“That is the trick to be able to have that skill to, in altitude, have that pitch end up where you want to,” he said. “Even when you go to San Diego or Atlanta or Detroit, it might have that little better action in those places. It’s a little trick. It’s tough. But we have to do our best to help our pitchers achieve that. The mental side, the altitude and understanding that.”
Going hand in hand with pitchers, of course, are catchers, and with 32-year-old Nick Hundley departing for free agency, that leaves the Rockies on the young side at that position as well. Tony Wolters (24 years old), Tom Murphy (25) and Dustin Garneau (29) are the three backstops remaining on Colorado’s 40-man roster.
Murphy stands out as the only one of the bunch still considered a prospect — he sits at №. 10 on MLB.com’s ranking of the system — and is coming off a breakout offensive season. He hit .327/.361/.647 with 19 homers in 80 games at Albuquerque and was solid after the jump to the Majors with a .273/.347/.659 line with five homers in 21 games at the highest level. Still, it’s likely the younger but more experienced Wolters has the advantage heading into spring with Garneau looking from the outside in.
Black added that he’s not worried about the group’s collective youth entering his first season.
“The Giants won a World Series with Buster Posey as a young catcher,” Black said. “Yes, we can, there’s no doubt in my mind. Will there be a learning curve? Absolutely. From this group of catchers we’re talking about, there will be some other guys in Spring Training, and we could bring in another guy. But there’s no doubt, the expectation we’re going to place on our catchers is high. That’s just what I’d expect out of anybody. I’m big on the pitcher-catcher relationship. … Talking to our guys, they’re high on Murphy and Wolters for their makeup and their aptitude, what they believe in as far as what they need to do to help our pitchers. And they’re young. There’s no doubt about that. But [bench coach Mike Redmond] and I and the pitching coaches, we will do everything we can to get them where they need to be.”
Though the Rockies have been mentioned as potential suitors for slugging free agents like Mark Trumbo, it’s likely that the Rockies will still have a young face in 2017, led by perennial All-Star Nolan Arenado and up-and-comer David Dahl, while other top prospects like Brendan Rodgers, Riley Pint and Raimel Tapia lay in waiting. Following the success of rebuilds on the north side of Chicago and in Houston, Black believes he’s walking into a similar rebuilding situation.
“You can only have 25 guys on the roster,” he said. “Would we like certain players around the league? Absolutely. Sometimes, you just can’t get them. Sometimes, you feel good about the players you have. You just have to trust them. Even though they’re young, you got to trust them. We’ve all seen teams around the league trust young players and have them come through. That’s where we are.”
