Drafted by the Rockies out of UC Irvine in the 24th round in 2010, righty Christian Bergman won California League Pitcher of the Year honors in 2012. By June 2014, he was on the mound at Coors Field starting against the Braves. He provided the Rockies six strong innings in his debut, punching out the likes of Justin Upton and Jason Heyward among others. Bergman was able to give the Rockies five-plus innings in all but one of his ten starts for Colorado as a rookie, including five times at Coors.
Bergman displayed excellent control throughout his five-year MLB career, walking only 5.2% of batters. After making 10 starts as a rookie in 2014, Bergman spent most of his career working in relief for the Rockies and Mariners, making the occasional spot start. He finest start may have been a May 2017 outing against the Athletics, in which he took a no-hitter into the fifth inning, pitched into the eighth, and finished with nine punchouts and no runs allowed. Two starts later, he put up seven scoreless against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. In his career, Bergman struck out such hitters as Mike Trout, Joe Mauer, and Paul Goldschmidt – three times apiece. In 2018 against his former team at Coors as a member of the Mariners, Bergman smacked a single into center field for his lone career RBI.
After retiring from baseball, Christian started his own company that owns and operates multifamily real estate in Phoenix. After reading our chat with a former teammate of his, Tyler Danish, Christian reached out to see about chatting with MLBTR readers himself. We were happy to host him, and he had a lot of interesting, honest things to say. Click here to read the transcript, and follow Christian on Instagram here!
Another really good chat. This has been one of the only ‘silver linings’ of the lockout
That was a fantastic chat. Really appreciated the detail, depth, and honesty of his responses. And also, thanks for answering my question!
I agree – great chat. I was the ‘Bob’ who asked about cheating. Got a couple answered, so thank you!
Amazing chat. “80 grade.”
Rockies fan who loves draft and development so I followed him through the minors and then in the majors.
Great to hear him answer questions and know he is doing well.
MLB has to do better treating players right, minors and majors.