The Colorado Rockies officially signed 34-year-old RHP Michael Lorenzen to a one-year deal worth $8 million on Thursday morning after the signing was first reported last Wednesday. Lorenzen met with the media via Zoom on Thursday afternoon to discuss his ties to the Rockies and his excitement about working with this team.
‘One of the things [that drew me to Colorado] It’s just that I feel like it’s untouched, and I don’t think you can say that anywhere else in Major League Baseball,” Lorenzen said.
“It feels like there’s a lot of new information to learn, and that’s right up my alley. I enjoy problem solving. There will be failures; there will be trials; you’ll get your teeth into it. But it’s the problem solving and making the adjustments that I really enjoy. And Colorado, in my opinion, provides that opportunity.”
“We didn’t have to convince him of anything,” PBO Paul DePodesta added in a separate Zoom meeting earlier in the day.
“He ran into this challenge. Michael actively wanted to pitch here. He’s done a lot of different things in his career – he was an outfielder, he was a reliever, he was a starting pitcher. I don’t think he’s afraid of anything. He also has some history with some of our staff, so I think there was some appeal as well.”
Lorenzen’s ties to the new Rockies pitching staff were definitely an added incentive to sign with the team, and he has known many of them for a long time.
‘I knew Alon [Leichman] since 2017, I want to say, before he was in professional football. I’ve known him a long time, and he and I have kept in touch over the years,” Lorenzen said. “So when he told me he was interviewing, I was excited for him and he said he would try to get me if he ended up getting the job, which is pretty cool that we can work together.
And as for the other coaches, Lorenzen said he knew pitching coordinator Matt Daniels from his time at Driveline in 2017; he knew assistant pitching coach Gabe Ribas from their time working with the Detroit Tigers in 2023; he knew Jeff Pickler from their time with the Cincinnati Reds, where Pickler was the bench coach; and he knew Brett Pill from their days at Cal State Fullerton.
Lorenzen brings an arsenal of six pitches to Coors Field (although according to Baseball savant(he has seven, and Lorenzen says he plans to release another next year).
And it was actually the Philadelphia Phillies’ pitching coach, Caleb Cotham, who helped Lorenzen understand pitch shapes to expand his repertoire.
“[He] helped me understand in detail what makes a pitch do certain things, and I kind of made it my own,” Lorenzen said.
“I was able to create a consistent sweeper; I was able to create a consistent gyro (sweeper); and I know what I’m trying to do with the cutter. So all of a sudden I feel like I own my shapes and if I try to manipulate the ball, I can. I just know what I’m trying to do. I know what I’m looking for. throw bullpens and see exactly how these shapes move.
“And that gives me an idea of how to use them all,” he continued. “Do I pick three? Do I lean on certain threes more than others when I’m pitching at pitches? So we’ll see. But I would say I have three fastballs and two different changeups. Right now I have the sweeper, the slider and the curveball.”
Lorenzen’s intensity intrigues DePodesta.
“I would say part of the appeal for him is that he is a very good striker pitcher and throws with an aggressive mentality,” DePodesta added. “He’s going to get after the hitter, he’s going to get the hitter to beat him, he’s going to attack the strike zone and he’s got a deep arsenal of pitches. Especially here at Coors, we have to find different ways to keep the hitter off balance, and I think having a deep arsenal is at least one of those ways.”
With all that said, Lorenzen is excited to be in Colorado for this next chapter of his career and to help this team get back into the thick of things.
“I don’t care how many games were lost last year,” he continued. “Every guy is one adjustment away from being one of the best in the game, and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that can be changed. We’re going to see performance increase, and so I think there’s a lot of easy ways to get better and I’m very excited.”
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