Nunez ready to prove he’s a big-league-ready catcher
Turning Dom Nunez into a bigleague catcher has been a longterm project.
There is nothing pejorative about that statement.
Indeed it’s a tip of the cap to Nunez’s dedication to his craft and his work ethic. At age 26, nearly eight years after the Rockies drafted him in the sixth round out of California’s Elk Grove High School, he says he’s ready.
When the Rockies open the 2021 season against the Dodgers on Thursday at Coors Field, Nunez will join Elias Diaz as one of the club’s two catchers.
“I think I showed up this spring training ready to go in all aspects of the game,” Nunez said Sunday.
“I’m just going to be myself. And I think that’s good enough to help the team win.”
Nunez entered professional baseball as an infielder before being converted to a catcher in 2014, his second season of rookie ball at Grand Junction. He spent 2015 at low-A Asheville, ’16 at high-A Modesto, and ’17-’18 at Double-A Hartford. He spent most of the 2019 season at Triple-A Albuquerque
before making his Rockies debut Aug. 13.
He’s well-seasoned behind the plate and hit 71 homers in the minors, but now the Rockies need him to take his game to the next level.
Nunez put together a solid spring training as he concentrated primarily on cultivating his relationship with pitchers. Although Nunez has only 16 major league games on his resume, his first trip to big-league spring training was in 2016, so he has a history with many of Colorado’s pitchers, especially German Marquez and Jon Gray.
“The thing I like about Dom is that he’s been with these guys for (five) years in big-league camp,” manager Bud Black said. “He knows these guys because of his
time in camp and because he worked with a lot of them in the minors.”
Black’s first commandment to his catchers is that they must work in concert with the pitchers. Commandment 1-A is that they play solid defense by blocking balls in the dirt, controlling the running game, etc.
But when the Rockies decided not to tend Tony Wolters a contract, it was clear that the team was searching for more offense. After all, over the past two seasons, Colorado’s catching corps ranked near the bottom in nearly every offensive category. Rockies catchers, for example, hit nine homers in 2019 (14th in the National League) and had a .665 OPS (13th). In the shortened 2020 season, they hit just two homers (15th) and posted a .551 OPS (15th).
Nunez made a bold statement early in this year’s camp: “I believe I can be one of the better offensive catchers in the game.”
He’s backed that up in the Cactus League, batting .364 with two home runs with a 1.129 OPS. But false springs are frequent in the majors and big numbers tumble dramatically for many players when the regular season starts. That’s especially true for catchers, who discover that the wear and tear of their duties behind the plate tend to diminish their skills swinging a bat.
Early in his career, Nunez teamed with Andy McCay, Colorado’s former mental skills coach, to formulate a plan to help separate his offense from his defense.
“I had a wristband I would flip between innings,” Nunez said. “When it was time to hit, I would flip it, to try and trick my mind into, ‘OK, it’s time to go on offense.’ And then, before going back on defense, I would flip the wristband back over.
“I’m a firm believer in a lot of imagery, a lot of breath-work and meditation and stuff like that.”
Nunez also believes he can be a take-charge guy in the infield,
something else that’s required to be an effective catcher.
“You have to earn (the pitchers’) trust before doing that kind of stuff,” he said. “You can’t just walk out there and start doing it. That’s been one of my goals in camp and I think I’ve had some success with it, and I’m looking forward to using it.”
Marquez, named Rockies’ opening-day starter. The big, bad Dodgers come to town Thursday to open the 2021 season at Coors Field. Left-hander Clayton Kershaw, a future Hall of Famer, will be on the mound for Los Angeles.
The Rockies will counter with right-hander German Marquez, who’ll make his second consecutive opening-day start.
Manager Bud Black has consistently said that he believes Marquez has some of the best stuff in the National League. Thursday, Marquez gets a chance to prove it against the defending World Series champions.
“It’s a feather in the cap for all pitchers who are named opening-day starters, something that will always be prevalent in a pitcher’s mind,” Black said Sunday when he made the decision official. “As his career unfolds and as he looks back on that, it’s an honor to be named openingday starter.”
Márquez started last year’s season-opener at Texas, allowing one run over 5 M innings in a 1-0 loss to the Rangers.
Marquez needs to become a better pitcher at home, where he owns a career 5.10 ERA vs. a 3.51 ERA on the road. He also needs to tighten up his fastball command, something lacking this spring when he posted a 5.68 ERA.
“Overall, German hit every marker this spring, and overall he’s in a good spot,” Black said. “There was an emphasis on his changeup, so I don’t know if he ‘ignored’ his fastball.
“His fastball velocity and fastball movement have been fine this spring, but locating this spring has not been German-like. So he’s going to get a side session and we’ll concentrate on that. Black is not worried.
“There are times when a season starts that guys heighten their focus and heighten their concentration, and things come together,” he said.
Chi Chi’s challenge. Righthander Chi Chi Gonzalez was essentially cut by the Rockies last December, but he signed a minor-league deal with the club, confident he would make the big-league team.
Now he’s done that. In the aftermath of lefty Kyle Freeland’s shoulder injury last week, Gonzalez is Colorado’s fifth starter.
“I believe in my heart and my head I belong in the big leagues,” Gonzalez said Sunday after allowing one run on three hits against Kansas City. He struck out five and walked one, finishing the Cactus League with a 3.29 ERA.
Asked what he must do better in 2021 to improve on 2020 when he went 0-2 with a 6.86 ERA in six games (four starts), Gonzalez said: “Attack the zone. The difference between strike one and ball one on the first pitch is super-important for me. And just being able to execute my offspeed pitches, even if I do fall behind in counts, like I did today.”
99 mph. Closer Daniel Bard, flashing a 99 mph fastball, struck out the side in the fifth inning. He has yet to allow a run this spring.
“My ‘velo’ has been really good all spring,” he said. “I’m more concerned about how easy I’m getting there, and I don’t feel like I’m muscling up to get it there, so I’m really happy about that.”