Esmil Rogers: Welcome to the Blue Jays Bullpen



Who is Esmil Rogers? A recent Toronto Blue Jays off-season acquisition who is slated to be in the bullpen as a relief pitcher for 2013. I've never heard of him before this winter. While recognizable faces like Brett Cecil and JA Happ seem to be fighting for a roster spot, newly acquired Esmil Rogers is out of options and supposedly a lock to start the 2013 season in Toronto.  So really, who is this Esmil Rogers that we're guaranteed to see in a key 2013 relief role?

 
Esmil Rogers, from the Dominican Republic, signed with the Colorado Rockies Dominican Academy as a shortstop in 2003. Esmil the infielder, however, struggled with a .203 BA over 3 seasons.  Recognizing that Esmil had superior arm strength, his DSL coach converted Esmil into a pitcher (similar to current Jays reliever Sergio Santos).  It's reported that Rogers initially struggled in his pitching role after being promoted to the Casper Rockies going 2-6 in 15 starts (63.1 IP) with a 6.96 ERA in 2006.  A frustrated Rogers strongly considered walking away from baseball entirely at that point, and was talked down off a ledge by current Baltimore reliever Pedro Strop (his friend and roommate at the time). According to Meagan Golden of TribeVibe, Esmil described the intervention as follows:

“[Strop] hit me two times in the face, in my eyes,” Rogers said. “I started to cry, saying, ‘I don’t want to play baseball anymore.’ He told me, ‘You can throw 95 mph, and you want to go home?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He hit me again and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere. You have to pass through me.’” Rogers then spoke to his brother Eddie on the phone: “My brother said, ‘What are you going to do? You’ve never worked. The only thing you can do is play baseball.’”

 
After further consultation with friends and family, and engaging in some serious soul searching, Rogers rededicated himself to his prosthetic craft and focused on improving through training. Rogers became a top-ranked AAA starter by 2009, and received his big-league call-up September 12, 2009. Rogers made his Major League debut for the Rockies against San Diego allowing 2 runs on 3 hits in 4.0 innings.  He would go on to pitch 184 2/3 innings over the next 3.5 seasons in Colorado.  The Rockies then sent Rogers and his 6.77 career ERA to the Cleveland Indians for cash in 2012. Although Rogers possessed a 96 mph fastball rumoured to touch on 99,  both a lack of consistent control and under-developed secondary pitches may have led Colorado to their decision to move on.  Cleveland, however, felt they were scouting a prospect with unfairly inflated numbers associated with the atypical long ball produced by the thin air in Colorado.  Indians management felt that Rogers' numbers could benefit from a more favourable pitching climate in Cleveland.  Judging from the immediate turnaround in his stats-line, Indians scouts appear to have been correct. Over 53 innings with Cleveland during the second-half of 2012, Rogers ERA more than halved to 3.06.  His WHIP also halved to 1.11, and he essentially maintained a K/9 of 9.2.  The 26 year old appeared to have been reclaimed as a success.

Enter Toronto Blue Jays. After the 2012 seasons end, Alex Anthopolous was forced into acquiring Mike Aviles from Boston as compensation for the affected departure of John Farrell. In typical fashion, AA coupled his transient acquisition with marginal prospect Yan Gomes, and shipped the package of Gomes and Aviles to Cleveland in return for Esmil Rogers. Toronto was in need of power-pitching relief, and neither Gomes nor Aviles really had a place in Toronto anyway.  Although Esmil has a career 5.95 ERA at this point, the Jays are currently counting on Esmil's more recent Cleveland numbers to be a true indication of what he really is, and are hoping that they've stolen a hidden gem from an unsuspecting trade partner. Although Cleveland had received Rogers for only cash, and had flipped that into a needed utility-guy in Aviles, so it really seems to be a win-win situation for both teams.

So... Esmil Rogers is out of options, and will reportedly be given a guaranteed job in the bull-pen to start 2013.  He will be joining Sergio Santos as another converted shortstop that Jays fans are counting on to protect the win column of our newly constructed all-star starting rotation. Hopefully the home-run friendly Rogers Center is closer in climate to Cleveland than to Colorado.  Hopefully Esmil can continue to produce his 2012 later-half results, and he and Santos will combine the kind of numbers that make shortstops nation-wide a new scouting target for relief pitching help.