The Rockies will place Austin Gomber on the 15-day injured list, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com (Twitter link). The left-hander was scratched from his start over the weekend because of back discomfort. He hasn’t pitched since August 28.
Colorado has yet to announce the move, which’ll presumably be backdated by the maximum allotted three days. It isn’t clear if Gomber will be able to return within the final three weeks of the season. He has made 27 starts on the year, ranking second on the team with 139 innings pitched. Gomber owns a 5.50 ERA with a well below-average 14.4% strikeout rate overall, though he showed a bit of progress in the second half. After carrying a 6.40 ERA into the All-Star Break, he has allowed 3.86 earned runs per nine across 49 frames.
It’s certainly not overwhelming production, but Gomber has likely done enough down the stretch to put himself on track for a season-opening spot in next year’s rotation. Only Kyle Freeland looks assured of a rotation job going into the winter, leaving Colorado with plenty of work to do on that front in the offseason.
There’s not much more certainty in the bullpen, which entered play Wednesday ranked 29th with a 5.27 ERA. Among the players the Rox are counting on for key relief roles next season is Tyler Kinley. The right-hander returned from a flexor surgery in August. He briefly landed back on the IL last month and has been limited to eight innings over 10 appearances this year.
Nevertheless, the Rockies are installing Kinley as their closer for the stretch run, as Harding writes. One of the more experienced arms in a young relief group, he turned in 24 innings of 0.75 ERA ball before the injury a season ago. The Rox signed Kinley to a $6.25MM guarantee last offseason, keeping him under contract through at least the 2025 campaign.
The roster isn’t the only thing in flux for the organization going into the winter. The club’s in-market broadcasting is uncertain beyond this season. Kyle Newman of the Denver Post reports that AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain has notified its employees it’ll be shuttering operations at year’s end. The club’s local broadcasting picture for 2024 is to be determined.
Newman writes that it’s possible the Rockies land on Altitude Sports and Entertainment, which is responsible for carrying Nuggets and Avalanche games in the area. MLB could also take over the broadcasts and stream them on the MLB.TV platform in-market for an additional fee, as it has done for the Padres since San Diego’s RSN contract with Diamond Sports Group collapsed in May.
Story fails to mention an important fact about the possible TV deal, which is Altitude’s not being available on the major local cable provider due to a financial dispute that has lasted for years. So a deal with Altitude could consign them to much lower viewership.
Gomber laid up with an owie. We’ll surprise surprise surprise
I’m expecting the same news re: AT&T Sportsnet in Houston. I’m not so sure MLB.TV would be such a bad deal. Pay for your games for 6 months and then cancel until the spring. Better than paying for a package of crappy stations you don’t want all year long just to follow your home team.
Warner Bros. Discovery is in talks to sell the Houston RSN to the Astros and Rockets. Plans are to complete the sale before NBA season starts in late October.
I wonder if the Rockies could make more money from their bassist broadcast after AT&T goes away like the Padres have since DSG went into bankruptcy?
I’d be interested to know just how much the padres have made. I know they were able to expand their market by an additional 1.3-1.4m more potential viewers. I know they sold a decent amount but haven’t seen anything that show how much they have actually made.
I think the Rockies could do very well if they put out a good product. I live in colorado and it’s pretty amazing how many people have gone to their games over the years when they have been so bad. It’s a fun park to go to and I’ve never had any issues with fans being irritating.
From what has been released to the general public, the Padres have sold approximately 285,000 MLB.TV single team subscriptions at 19.99 per month. That s $5.697 million per month. MLB said that at first they would be paying the teams 80% of that revenue so the team would receive around $4.558 million per month. I am not sure that will continue in the future, as it sounded to me like MLB was going to give them that much to make sure they didn’t lose revenue all.
They are also being seen on all the cable/satellite/streaming companies they were seen on prior to DSG filing for bankruptcy. Cox, Spectrum, FUBO, AT&T U-verse, DIRECTV, etc… They also have Spectrum in Hawaii, an area I didn’t even realize that they controlled. They negotiated carriage rates separately with each of those TV providers and have not released the actual figures, but their CEO has said that they have not seen a drop in revenue from those sources.
Their deal with DSG that started in 2012 and ran through 2032 had them earning an average of $60 million per year with the annual revenue from the deal starting lower and ramping up each year. If the separate TV deals with each provider equals the average amount, then they have increased their revenue substantially.
i have no idea about the Rockies broadcast area or potential for TV providers picking up their broadcast. MLB is handling the technical end of the broadcast for the Padres, so I would guess that would be the same for the Rockies.
Coors Field is a fun place to see a game and there is a ton to do in downtown Denver while you are there. Love going to games there when I am in town.
Would be interesting to see the final outcome from all of this. I agree there has long been anything reported from the padres that they are losing money with this tv switch.
The risk in this deal is they have to continue to draw fans to subscribe. So I expect them to continue to spend and bring in stars because stars and winning draw a big audience.
How many more subscribers with they add I’d say they signed Ohtani. Got to think quite a few.
The other thing to watch here is how many of those subscribers went month to month and cancelled vs buying the year subscription.
If they signed Ohtani, they might add as many international subscribers as they have added local ones. lol.
I don’t think that is going to happen. I think Preller will definitely bid on Ohtani, but I think the Padres have a better shot at Yamamoto and Jung Hoo Lee. Combined those two will cost less than Ohtani. Padres might be able to extend Kim and sign those two for less.
Unless the Rox have an all-star team percolating on the farm, it’s gonna be a long, long time before they’ll be playing meaningful baseball games in September, much less October.
Worst run franchise in the NL, and it’s a toss up between them and the Angels for worst run franchise in all of MLB.
Neither are close to as bad as the A’s since Fisher took control.
But if you consider that Fisher has PLANNED all this so he could move to Las Vegas (and make more moola),, then Rockies and Angels do fit the bill for “Worst Run Franchises.”
The A’s will make less “moola” in Las Vegas.
Smaller ballpark. Smaller market. 25% of the TV money.
The only reason Fisher wants to move to Las Vegas is to keep receiving revenue sharing from the other teams. He even said so.
In Oakland he would have been in a large market with no excuse to keep receiving revenue sharing. His TV deal is already at $45 million and it goes up every season through the end of the contract. A new 34k seat ballpark at HT would have been packed every night for at least the first few years. Think about it, the A’s have drawn 54k to the Coliseum in recent years. To the Coliseum!!! That is 24k more than will be possible in Las Vegas.
Then take into account the 2-3 seasons the A’s will be forced to play in a minor league park before the ballpark is opened in Las Vegas if they can even get the move approved.
ALL of that may be a moot point since there is a lawsuit in Nevada that would block most of the money the state legislature committed to the ballpark project. It says that what the Governor forced through is unconstitutional.
The A’s are so unsure of the situation in Las Vegas that Kaval refused to sell their 50% share in the Coliseum site to AASEG this week. That would have made them a tidy profit.
As of today the A’s will play in the Coliseum one more season and then they will be nomads with no permanent home unless Fisher pulls his head out or sells.
The A’s are by far the worst organization in baseball and its not even close.
All of them are terrible. The A’s have some pretty low lows.. but out of those three clubs (A’s, Angels and Rockies) only Oakland has been able to muster up a winning season (3x) and a playoff appearance (2x) in the last 5 years.. despite being in a bad market and having a terrible ballpark situation.
All are poorly run teams though and I am not optimistic about the A’s rebuild.
I didn’t know people actually watched Rockies games on the TV. Probably like watching paint dry. Wake me up when they’re a competitive franchise again…
They’ll be competitive in 2025.
If they can develop some starting pitching. Future does look pretty bright for position players.
There may be a lot of these local TV deals that may go south in the offseason. Teams may spend less if they can’t count on that income.
“MLB could also take over the broadcasts and stream them on the MLB.TV platform in-market for an additional fee,” This would be the ideal for those of us in Colorado, although I’m not a Rockies fan but get blacked out for Giants/Rockies games.