Colorado Rockies pitcher Antonio Senzatela agrees to $ 50.5 million five-year extension

Right-hander Antonio Senzatela and the Colorado Rockies agree to a five-year, $ 50.5 million contract extension, sources told ESPN, linking the right-handed control artist to the organization until At least 2026.

The deal includes a $ 14 million club option for 2027 and gives the Rockies four potential free agent seasons. The cost is significant: $ 7.25 million for each of the next two seasons and $ 12 million each for the 2024-2026 seasons.

Senzatela, 26, is a modern baseball anomaly: a pitcher who doesn’t hit lots of batters. His strikeout rate this season of 6.0 batters per nine innings ranks him 117th out of 120 pitchers who have pitched at least 100 innings this season. Senzatela makes up for it with a walk rate of 1.73 for nine innings, which ranks fifth out of 120, and a ground ball rate of 51.6% – a rare figure among pitchers with so few steps.

Traditional figures do not present Senzatela in such a positive light. He was 4-10 this season with a 4.42 ERA in 156 2/3 innings in 28 starts. Senzatela, who the Rockies pulled out of Venezuela for $ 250,000 in 2011, pitched 579 2/3 innings in the major leagues with a 4.84 ERA. His ERA career is actually nearly a quarter of a race better at home – in the high elevation of Coors Field – than on the road, a trend that has continued this season.

Senzatela is a weight-slider thrower who throws the two combined throws 87% of the time. The fastball, heavy, averaging 95 mph, is the kind of terrain Colorado, long wary of its stadium’s thin air, has tried to develop among its pitchers. Teams have moved away from pitchers who don’t record reckless strikeouts – and even rarer are those who reward such a player with a big dollar extension.

Rockies officials publicly praised Senzatela for embracing the technology and trying to improve its use by using it, and all they had to do was ask for an extension with Senzatela’s agent Rafa Nieves of Republik Sports.

Colorado, who locked ace German Marquez two years ago in a similar deal, risk the potential loss of star shortstop Trevor Story and right-hander Jon Gray in free agency this winter. Marquez and Senzatela are now the team’s only commitments beyond the 2022 season. The Rockies finished the season 74-87 and in fourth place in the NHL.

The deal comes as Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association continue to discuss the parameters of a new collective agreement that players say will increase team spending. Rockies owner Dick Monfort is the chairman of the MLB’s labor policy committee, which is negotiating the terms of the new base deal with the union.