The Rockies announced they passed José Mujica through outright waivers this afternoon. Colorado hadn’t previously announced that Mujica had been designated for assignment, so the move creates a vacancy on the 40-man roster.
Colorado signed Mujica to a major league contract over the 2019-20 offseason. The right-hander had spent seven seasons in the Rays’ organization but never made it to the majors and elected minor league free agency. Mujica has been on the Rockies’ 40-man roster over the two years since, but he’s barely pitched in the big leagues. He made his MLB debut last season, allowing seven runs (six earned) over 4 2/3 innings.
Mujica has spent the entirety of this season with Triple-A Albuquerque, where he’s had a difficult season. The 25-year-old has an 8.68 ERA over 74 2/3 innings with the Isotopes. Mujica has been tagged for twenty home runs in that extremely hitter-friendly environment, and he’s punched out a below-average 19% of opposing hitters.
Because Mujica has previously been outrighted in his career, he has the right to elect free agency. The team didn’t indicate whether he planned to do so. If he accepts the assignment, Mujica will qualify for minor league free agency this winter if not selected back onto the 40-man roster before the end of the season.
NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
What the heck do they see in him???
The dude was very solid in the Rays organization before he got hurt. I was bummed out when they left him off the 40 man roster.
1 down…5 or 6 more useless relievers to go. I would love to see a big time bullpen housecleaning this offseason. BUT the problem is that the guys they replace them with will probably be just as bad.
I think the best think they could do is stretch out starters to 7-8 innings per game. Coors Field is not a park where using multiple relievers in a game is a good strategy. Using multiple relievers is a decent idea in theory, but you always have to count on someone not having a bad day. A reliever having a bad day at Coors usually gives up 3-5 runs. Fewer pitchers means fewer chances at having one with a bad day.
I’ve always thought that the Rockies should run an unorthodox bullpen with nearly all multi-inning guys, for that exact reason: Fewer chances for someone to blow up.
The problem with multi-inning relievers is that once you take away their “throw it as hard as you can for 10 pitches” system that dominates modern MLB bullpens, and tell them to give you 40-45 pitches a night, you’ll likely get a guy that really isn’t good enough to be a starter in the league.
Unless you go totally against the grain and go with more soft tossers to fill the pen. You could still keep a couple of the modern fireballers, but the majority should be sinkerballers and pitch to contact guys. Doing something completely off the wall like that would fit in perfectly with this franchise’s history.
The last of the Mujicas?
Slow clap. I knew there was a good pun there but I just couldn’t think of it.
As a resident of Colorado, and a fan of the organization since its inception, I’ve always felt the best experiment the Rockies could do is implement a true six (6) man starting rotation.
I believe the Rockies could benefit from limiting their starters to 27 starts, adding in an extra day off, increasing their pitch counts to a 105 pitches, and 7 innings per start.
By limiting the number of starts and providing an extra day of rest, the starters would be able to be lengthened out and the Rockies would than be able to better manage their bullpen with two (2) long relievers, two (2) middle relievers, one (1) setup man, and one (1) closer.
This gives Colorado everything they would need to build a consistent winner with a stable bullpen.
It’d also allow the Rockies to carry a traditional roster with position players to stock their roster correctly.