The Colorado Rockies needed one thing: A Right-handed reliever to counter lefty Jake McGee before Greg Holland clamps down the ninth. On Wednesday, the Rockies got their guy and boy is he a good one.
Two-time All-Star Pat Neshek, who was having a career year on a bad Phillies club, will now don Rockies purple.
Neshek has appeared in the postseason in four different years. In 466 career regular season relief appearances, the righty has a 2.76 ERA with 125 walks to 423 strikeouts. He also carries a 2.61 ERA in his 10.1 innings of postseason work.
This season he has a 1.12 ERA in 40.1 innings while striking out over 10 per nine and walking just one per nine. As a pitcher who limits contact and avoids getting himself in trouble with walks, he is perfection for Coors Field.
The 36-year-old has one of baseball’s weirdest deliveries — rocking down to submarine then coming straight upward, just to throw sidearm — which has led to an absurdly successful career. Right-handed batters have slashed .186/.241/.303 against him over 1,067 plate appearances but his arsenal is conducive to getting lefties too. Southpaws have slashed .232/.304/.418 in 625 plate appearances.
Neshek’s arsenal is as follows:
– Worm-killing sinker that looks like a rising fastball at times
– Nasty slider with unpredictable break
– A mind-blowing velocity drop change-up
One of the reasons Neshek stands out is because of this pitch mix. As the video shows above, he throws his 91 mph sinker about 50 percent of the time (a career-high), an 84 mph 48 percent of the time and a 68 mph change-up three percent of the time (a career-low, in 2014, his second-best season, he threw it 13 percent of the time.)
Neshek might be familiar to Rockies fans as he is a put together version of Adam Ottavino with more consistency. While Ottavino is better known for his sliders, each poses a great sinker/slider combo. Where Ottavino has more velocity to go along with his absurd arm angle, Neshek keeps the ball hidden even longer to go with his crazy release point.
The crazy part about the Rockies acquiring the second best NL reliever by ERA is that it didn’t even cost them that much. Sure, Neshek is a free agent at year’s end, but in the fickle world that is relief pitching, he has been solid for four straight seasons.
The top prospect the Rockies gave up was INF Jose Gomez, who grades out as Colorado’s 21st prospect according to MLB Pipeline. He, like the other two prospects given up, J.D. Hammer and Alejandro Requena have spent the season in A-ball. Hammer has been Asheville’s closer and solid but none of these three pieces are ones the Rockies couldn’t do without.
Hats off to Jeff Bridich on his first-ever move as a buyer at the trade deadline.
It’s not hard to imagine the following scenario playing out as the main reason why they got Neshek:
The Rockies are in a one game showdown in the NL Wildcard against Arizona, a scenario that was likely since May and still is. The D-Backs starting lineup has one lefty and that’s two-hitter David Peralta.
Righty Jon Gray throws five strong innings and gives up two or three runs.
Neshek, a righty, has the eighth; Holland, a righty, the ninth.
The Rockies have lefties Jake McGee, Mike Dunn, Chris Rusin to play match-ups and righties Ottavino, Scott Oberg and possibly Jeff Hoffman or German Marquez to find just six outs between Gray and Neshek.
It’s hard not to like Colorado’s chances in that ballgame. By the way, an MLB executive with another club handed is the one who proposed that scenario to me about two weeks ago. He liked Colorado’s chances in that ballgame too.
And that’s why the Rockies got three outs closer to playing, and maybe even beating, the Dodgers in the NLDS.
