SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- After spending the last four years having to look past pain and struggles to find the bright side, Rockies right-handed pitcher Antonio Senzatela could be truly looking at a new dawn.
In 2022 when he sustained a ligament tear in his left knee, which begat throwing motion changes that led to Tommy John right elbow surgery in 2023, which begat a rough 2025 (4-15, 6.65 ERA in 30 games, 23 starts) that saw him lose his spot in the starting rotation.
“It was really hard,” Senzatela said of his role in the Rockies’ messy 43-119 finish in ‘25. “But sometimes I just take it in a good way. It was the first time in four years that I was fully healthy, and I appreciate it.”
But Senzatela, 31, believes good times are coming his way, and his participation for his home country of Venezuela -- “It’s the country I was born in -- it’s the country I pray for,” he said -- in the World Baseball Classic is only a start.
Just as importantly, the Rockies believe they can help him make it happen.
The plan is to move Senzatela away from relying so heavily on his fastball, and have him develop new grips and pitches. Results were good enough in informal sessions facing hitters that the Rockies will grant Senzatela the opportunity to win back his rotation spot.
Senzatela was good enough as a starter to earn a five-year, $50.5 million contract – one that is headed into its final year at $14 million, but with a $14 million club option for 2027.
“I’ll just try to do my job in Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic,” said Senzatela, who missed the 2023 Classic while recovering from the knee injury. “The Rockies will make the decision, but I think I still have good games as a starter.”
Unlike last year -- when the club gave starts to anyone it could find, yet still removed Senzatela from the rotation – the Rockies don’t necessarily have to use Senzatela at the start of games.
This offseason, the club has signed veterans Michael Lorenzen and Tomoyuki Sugano, and Jose Quintana’s one-year agreement should go official before Thursday’s first pitcher-catcher workout at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Also among the starters are lefty Kyle Freeland, who like Senzatela, is at the end of a five-year contract with a club option for ‘27, and righty Ryan Feltner, healthy after missing much of last year with back and right shoulder issues.
But even though the club announced at the end of last season that Senzatela would be a reliever, manager Warren Schaeffer felt Senzatela had a future as a starter.
New pitching leadership -- from director of pitching Matt Daniels, to pitching coach Alon Leichman, assistant pitching coach Gabe Ribas and bullpen coach Matt Buschmann -- all had ideas for reviving Senzatela.
“To be candid, when I was interviewing pitching coaches, it was a big question for me,” Schaeffer said. “I would ask about ‘Senza’ and what can be done. All of them, to a T, thought there was low-hanging fruit, in terms that this guy can be really, really good.”
Can Senzatela go from a symbol of how things used to be to how they’re going to be around here?
Senzatela established himself in the four-seam heavy rotations of teams that went to the postseason in 2017 and 2018. In those seasons, Senzatela used four-seamers 72.1 and 64.1 percent of the time. At a time when the sport was going away from heavy fastball usage, the Rockies leaned four-seam heaters.
It worked, until it didn’t.
Senzatela’s four-seam usage has never dipped below 54.5 percent. But effectiveness has crashed. Same went for the staff as a whole.
According to Baseball Savant, the Rockies ranked second in four-seamer usage rate (41.2%) but had by far the lowest 4-seamer run value (-167), with the Nationals next-lowest (-55). The Rockies’ run value on four-seamers was the lowest that a team has recorded in a season since the pitch-tracking era dawned in 2008.
As for Senzatela himself, the strategy of establishing and pounding his fastball backfired, to the tune of ugly first-inning numbers – 11.03 ERA and a 1.056 OPS against.
But during recent informal sessions facing Rockies hitters at the complex, Senzatela has opened eyes with his two-seam sinking fastball, a pitch he hasn’t used more than 5.8 percent of the time over a full season.
The club’s signings of Lorenzen, Sugano and Quintana foreshadow that new pitching leadership values diverse pitch mixes. Senzatela is right with that program.
“After last season, I was determined to change around some things, add a couple things to my repertoire,” Senzatela said. “I found some good coaches at Push Performance [a training facility in Meza, Ariz.], and the coaches here are helping me.
“I’m happy with where I am and how I feel.”