If you’ve heard much about RHP John Brebbia, it might have something to do with his beard — which has a story all its own. (More on that in a minute.)
Right now, however, the reliever is working to make the Colorado Rockies as they begin to shore up their Opening Day roster.
Last weekend, Purple Row spoke to Brebbia at spring training to get his thoughts on the rebuilding Rockies, acting as a mentor, and, of course, that beard.
Some background
Brebbia is the kind of journeyman reliever that’s seen a lot of places.
He grew up in Sharon, Massachusetts, and attended Elon University. (In case you’re intrested, he completed his degree in political science a few years ago.) The 35-year-old righty was drafted by the New York Yankees in the 2011 MLB Draft (30th round) and then embarked on his long baseball journey.
On May 28, 2017, Brebbia made his MLB debut against — and this is true — the Rockies.
Brebbia has played for a lot of teams: St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Chicago White Sox, Atlanta Braves (twice), and Detroit Tigers. Add to that, he’s had plenty of time on MiLB rosters, too.
He has the kind of arsenal the Rockies looking for. According to Baseball Savant, Brebbia has a four-pitch mix: a four-seamer (49%), a slider (43%), a changeup (7%), and a curveball (1%).
Brebbia has a career 4.04 ERA (3.80 FIP) in 378.1 IP and has accumulated 3.1 fWAR.
According to Baseball Reference, Brebbia has logged 13 games, including 43 plate appearances at Coors Field. He has a 0.93 ERA, allowing 10 hits that resulted in two runs while striking out 10.
Spending time with the Rockies
Brebbia has, admittedly, attended his share of spring training camps. So far, he’s impressed with the “good energy” he’s seen at Salt River Fields from coaches, players, and the performance department.
“It’s just a high energy,” Brebbia said. “There’s a lot of excitement, which I think is so fun. You don’t always, you don’t always get that everywhere.”
Even though he’s new to the Rockies orgnization, Brebbia is not new to some of the Rockies coaching staff since he worked with Gabe Ribas during as time with the Detroit Tigers and Matt Daniels while with the Tigers and San Francisco Giants.
“I think this staff is awesome,” he said. “I think they work well together. I think that they’re they’re all working towards the same goal. I don’t want to say they’re ‘like-minded’ because I think they all can offer different things in different ways.”
He continued, “But there’s a couple things that are philosophy/process-oriented that I think this coaching staff is really grabbing by the reins and using as the foundational driver for pitching success. And I it makes sense. It passes the gut check, it passes the brain check, it passes the computer algorithm check. So I think it’s a really good starting place.”
Brebbia was quick to point out the collaborative nature of the Rockies new coaching staff.
“I feel like the staff will offer input in roughly equal amounts throughout our pitchers meetings,” Brebbia said.
“It might not all be on the same topic. One person could be more pitch sequencing, while the other person is more biomechanical or flight-aerodynamic oriented, but I feel like everyone has an area of pitching that they like or that they’re interested in, or that they are maybe responsible for.”
Plus, the coaching staff is informed.
“I have noticed that throughout our meetings, they all provide input, and you can tell that they’ve done their research and they care about it.”
A lifelong learner
Although Brebbia is older that most of his fellow Rockies bullpen denizens, he doesn’t see himself as a mentor to younger players.
“I learned a heck of a lot more from them than the other way around,” he said, acknowledging that baseball is a fast-changing game.
“Baseball, every few years, you look at it and you’re like, ‘Whoa. Everyone’s a heck of a lot better now than they used to be,‘” Brebbia said. “So I’m doing as much as I can to absorb how the heck everyone here is throwing 1000 miles an hour, and why everyone’s got four pitches that are really good and that break right.”
Then he added, “if there’s anything I can offer, great, but I’m pretty useless, so we’ll see.“
Brebbia is cagey, however, about revealing what he’s working on in terms of his pitch mix.
“I might have a couple,” he said. “I might have six of them. I might have 11 of them.”
But there are definitely some changes in the mix.
“We’ll whittle it down into what will hopefully be the in season arsenal before too long. But yeah, I am working on a handful of things.”
Much of this is consistent with what Brebbia told hosts CJ Nitkowski and Ryan Spilborghs during “Players Week” on “Loud Outs.“
Spilborghs: I had the pleasure last night emceeing a little event with some stakeholders with the Rockies. And we were talking with Paul de Podesta. And Paul was describing this pitching staff and this group of new thinkers, as far as the coaching staff. They brought in Alon Leichman from Miami, Gabe Ribas— I believe he came from the White Sox. You have Matt Buschmann, who’s bounced around. What does that make you feel when you know you have a brand new coaching staff? Do you have a feeling, like, they’re just gonna throw stuff up, throw stuff up against the wall. Does that excite you to be a part of that?
Brebbia: I think that you can kind of have two approaches towards seeing that. I know some people are like, “Okay, give me one thing. Let me do this one thing. Let me slow down.” I’m the exact opposite. I would like to be rapid fire shot by a paintball gun with as many things as you can possibly get. And then let’s see what works and what doesn’t work.
I expect tons of failure because I want to try tons of things, and you hope you get a little bit that works out of it, at least. So when I see something like that, I get excited because I’m like, “Oh, cool.”
Baseball is so rapidly moving in — I don’t want to say a new direction. It’s not like technology is new, and the data they’re collecting is new, but it’s it’s advancing very quickly in the direction that it’s going. So I think that when you have a bunch of different thought processes, a bunch of different minds kind of getting together and firing away, I think you can get some really, really special things out of it.
Again, some people can look at it and say, ”That feels messy to me. I don’t like that.” But I think there’s a lot more people that are like, ”That’s pretty cool. Let’s see what happens.” Because if the one way doesn’t work, you have so many other options to go to. So I love being able to see it and then be a part of it.
If there’s one thing that’s been clear since DePodesta became the Rockies president of baseball operations, it’s that anything is on the table — In 2026, the Rockies intend to try a lot of things to see what works. To do that, they are going to need players who are willing to be creative and aren’t afraid to fail.
Brebbia is just the type.
Then there’s there’s the beard
Rockies fans are used to their players making the most of their facial hair — Charlie Blackmon provides an obvious point.
Brebbia, too, has his own approach that he curates during the MLB season in addition to his pitching.
“Years and years ago, 2014 was the first year I had some teammates that shaved and were just going to grow their beards at just for something to do in the middle of the season,” Brebbia said. “I thought, ‘Why the heck not? I’ll do that.’ So I clean shaved and then just let it go.”
Then the magic started.
“It ended up being a year where I was like, ‘Wow, I actually feel like I got a lot better this year.’ I did some really good things and tried to move my career forward. So I did it again the next year, and I felt the same way. And then it just kind of became, it became a thing.”
And so a Brebbian tradition was born.
“I’ll clean shave before the first game of the season spring training,” he said. “I more or less keep it however it is now, but I’ll clean shave right before the first game of the season, and then just let it ride until they tell me the season’s over.”
Look at any in-season photos of Brebbia, and you’ll have a pretty good sense of the month based on his facial hair.
The next question, then, is whether fans and Brebbia will be tracking his beard growth as a Rockie.
Teams are beginning to trim their rosters, so we’ll know soon enough.
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