Ex-Rockies pitcher has remarkable criticism of team

Aug 4, 2017; Denver, CO, USA; General view of the hat and glove of Colorado Rockies shortstop Pat Valaika (4) (not pictured) in the seventh inning against the Philadelphia Phillies at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

A former Colorado Rockies pitcher had a fairly damning criticism of the team after being traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Rockies made the rather minor move to trade reliever Nick Mears to Milwaukee on Sunday, but Mears caused a bit of a stir with some of his comments upon joining the Brewers. He suggested he had been tipping his pitches for months, but the Rockies had either never noticed or never bothered trying to correct it.

An interesting introduction with new Brewers reliever Nick Mears, who learned before the All-Star break that he’d been tipping pitches for months. pic.twitter.com/JsJGcOcBpf

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) July 28, 2024

“I’ve definitely had a few implosion innings, but it also doesn’t help that I was tipping pitches for a month and a half and I was never told. Hitting’s hard no matter how you put it, but it gets a little bit easier when you have an idea of if it’s a fastball or an offspeed pitch.”

Mears said he made an adjustment prior to the All-Star break to address the issue. Perhaps even more damning was his claim that he did not even find out about the issue from anyone on the Rockies.

“A player actually told one of my buddies on the Rockies,” Mears said. “He came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, this is what you’re doing. You should probably change it.'”

Mears made clear it was ultimately his fault that he was tipping pitches and took responsibility for not noticing the issue himself. However, this is fundamentally what coaching staffs are for, and it is rather shocking to think that nobody associated with the team said anything.

Mears had a 5.56 ERA in 45.1 innings this season out of the Colorado bullpen. Notably, since giving up two runs in two-thirds of an inning on July 2, he has struck out ten batters in 6.2 innings while allowing three hits and one run. The sample size is too small to draw any confident conclusions, but perhaps he really did figure something out in that time.

Colorado is already known as a tough place for pitchers due to the high altitude of Coors Field. It will not exactly help their reputation if there is a perception that they are not spotting issues with their own players that coaches would be expected to notice. Then again, the team’s coaching staff may just have some other priorities sometimes.