Trevor Rogers looking to build off breakout season near the top of the Marlins’ rotation
Trevor Rogers’ first full season pitching in the major leagues featured him becoming an All-Star and finishing second in National League Rookie of the Year voting.
The next step?
Continue to grow and evolve.
Following a breakout 2021 during which he led all qualifying rookies with a 2.64 ERA and finished third among all rookies with 157 strikeouts over 133 innings, Rogers spent the offseason adding to and refining his pitching arsenal.
“Keep evolving, never get complacent,” said Rogers about . “Always try to improve. Just working with a few pitches. Just playing around with some stuff. Make sure my mechanics are where they need to be and kind of shorten some stuff up. Just make sure I’m good to go.”
Rogers, who would currently line up to pitch in the Marlins’ third game of the season April 10 in San Francisco, gave another glimpse of his new pitch mix during an impressive 69-pitch outing on Thursday night in Jupiter. Rogers touched 96 mph on his fastball, struck out six and walked one while allowing two earned runs on four hits over 3 1/3 innings against several of the Cardinals regulars. This included a good battle between him and Nolan Arenado which ended with Rogers striking him out on a changeup.
Rogers missed some time last year during a rough period for his family. After pitching against the Yankees on July 31, Rogers lost both his grandparents and both of his parents later tested positive for COVID-19 with his mother spending three weeks in the hospital with pneumonia.
Rogers returned to the mound in September and compiled a 3.52 ERA during his final five starts, striking out 28 and walking six.
“Going into last year, not a whole lot of people really knew who I was and how I went along pitching and now I’ve got a full year in and they know what I can do,” Rogers said. “If my Plan A isn’t working, then go to Plan B or Plan C. Be able to pitch backwards.”
One of Rogers’ biggest adjustments was changing the grip on his slider — a pitch he threw only 14.8 percent of the time last season according to MLB’s Statcast and opposing hitters hit .273 against.
“I was actually just brainstorming and just like kids my age, you go to YouTube,” Rogers said. “So I went to YouTube, just searched for videos and Trevor Bauer was probably one of the best there is and had a video on it, watched it and it made perfect sense. I tried it and had a lot of success. I’ve been improving on it every day, has more bite, more movement, kind of plays with the fastball, so it’s taking steps towards the right direction.”
Rogers has also worked on improving his changeup, which held opposing hitters to a .199 average last season, and developing consistency with the pitch as well as his slider and fastball, and the confidence to use them in different counts and situations.
“He’s not at that Sandy [Alcantara] level, but he’s at the younger stages of that where one day his delivery is really good and some days not,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “He’s a big, tall dude and sometimes he gets disconnected and his timing gets off. But he’s getting a better handle on feeling all that and knowing where his body is at and the position he has to be in.
“He’s not afraid to use his stuff, sometimes to a fault. That fastball is pretty good. We tell him, ‘don’t get too far away from it.’”
Injury updates
▪ Mattingly said reliever and closer candidate Dylan Floro (arm soreness) is “in a good spot,” but won’t be ready to pitch by the time the Marlins open the regular season next Friday in San Francisco. Floro pitched in a bullpen session on Friday, but will likely open the season on the injured list. Anthony Bender and Anthony Bass are both candidates to earn save opportunities.
▪ Lefty Sean Guenther is dealing with an unspecified arm issue and will be placed on the IL to open the season.
Miami Herald sportswriter Jordan McPherson contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 1:26 PM.
