Jorge De La Rosa put his name to a contract Friday that assures him $25 million over the next two years. All he has to do is pitch at Coors Field.
Agreeing to pitch for the Rockies alone should be worth multiple millions in cash, if you ask some of the old-guard minds around baseball. But in De La Rosa, the Rockies have a pitcher who not only enjoys throwing at Coors Field, but does it well.
“I heard a lot about this stadium when I was in rookie ball with Milwaukee. They said how hard it is to pitch here,” said De La Rosa. “As soon as I got here and started pitching and throwing, it’s not bad to me. It’s more of a mental thing. I just try to do my job with balls and strikes.”
De La Rosa (83-67, 4.64 ERA in 11 pro seasons) on Wednesday night agreed to a two-year contract extension with Colorado that will bump his pay to $12.5 million per season, a $1.5 million raise from this season.
It took about two weeks of talks between his agent and the Rockies to get a deal done, he said.
He now has a contract that puts him in line with pitchers who have similar career statistics. Milwaukee’s Matt Garza (74-75, 3.84 ERA in nine seasons) will make $12.5 million per year through 2017.
“We always wanted him to stay here,” Rockies assistant general manager Bill Geivett said. “And he had no desire to leave. That made it easy.”
De La Rosa (44-14, .759) has the second-best home winning percentage since 2008. Only Dodgers all-star Zack Greinke (58-17, .773) is better at home. But De La Rosa does it at the place known as a pitcher’s purgatory.
“He actually prefers to pitch here. There’s probably a short list of guys who would say that,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. “The numbers warrant that. That’s a pretty amazing statistic, especially when you think about the history of this park. To be able to keep Jorge around is pivotal for us.”
The Rockies with De La Rosa have someone they can flaunt to potential free agents and upcoming young hurlers as an example of the possibility of pitching at Coors Field.
“He should be the poster child for this place as a pitcher,” Weiss said. “I don’t know if there’s a blueprint, but that’s about as close to it as you can get. Unfortunately, you can’t clone pitchers. But his run of success here is almost absurd. There’s a lot to take from that.”
De La Rosa’s 68 wins in a Rockies uniform are second only to Aaron Cook’s 72. And his 4.24 ERA with Colorado trails only Ubaldo Jimenez (3.66) and Jhoulys Chacin (3.78).
“You have to be a tough guy to pitch here,” Weiss said. “There’s no doubt about it. But you can have success here. Jorge is a great one to point to.”
De La Rosa’s success in Coors Field, Weiss said, owes to a commanded changeup and the mental ability to shake off the wild fluctuations.
“The X-factor in this league is when you get your teeth kicked in, what do you do?” Weiss said. “That’s gonna be tested here, especially as a pitcher early on. But you adapt, you overcome. There are things you deal with no matter where you play.”
De La Rosa’s key to Coors Field success is more simple.
“I just try to have nothing in my head,” he said. “It’s like a challenge for me every time. The only thing I have to do is make my pitches and keep the ball down.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or
