Antonio Senzatela, Colorado Rockies
The 2019 season has basically been an all-around disappointment for the Colorado Rockies. They were hoping for their third consecutive trip to the playoffs, but stand at 60-83 entering Sunday, which is comfortably in the National League West basement.
It would’ve been easy to have Kyle Freeland take this spot, but Senzatela has gone from being a source of rotation depth to not much at all. Among starters with at least 100 innings pitched, Senzatela’s 7.19 ERA is the highest. And it’s not particularly close — the next closest hurler owns a 6.30 ERA (that’s Glenn Sparkman, who we’ll get to in a minute).
When you look at certain aspects of the righty’s batted-ball profile, you’d be under the impression that his year included a fair amount of success. After all, his ground-ball rate improved from 46.3% to 53.8%, while his fly-ball rate went down drastically, from 32.6% to 23.2%. That was all great, but the other parts of his profile haven’t looked so rosy.
Senzatela’s line-drive rate has risen to 23.0% and his infield-fly rate has worsened from 12.9% to 4.7%, making that drop in fly balls not look as impressive. This has all been accompanied with a 37.4% hard-hit rate allowed, which is on track to get worse for the second straight year. Controlling the zone is important for someone who doesn’t rack up strikeouts, and the 24-year-old just hasn’t done that.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
