Welcome to the 2025 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2025. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.
No. 37, Ryan Rolison (-0.3 rWAR)
Ryan Rolison was drafted by the Rockies 22nd overall in the 2018
MLB Draft. After numerous setbacks, the left-handed former starter finally made his long-awaited debut on May 13th this year in the bullpen against the Texas Rangers.
And even that was a bit of a waiting game – Rolison was called up to the active roster initially on May 11th, when the team was still in Colorado, and then traveled to Texas before debuting two days later.
“Everyone in this locker room dreams about the day they get the call to make a debut,” he said in September. “And my route to the big leagues was derailed for a couple years, and to fight back from those injuries and the dark times that I went through, to get that call was very special.”
Rolison threw nine pitches in his debut, walking his first batter but then getting his second to ground out to third to end the eighth inning. He earned his first-career strikeout in his next game, where he pitched 1 ⅓ innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“For the first couple of weeks, your head’s kind of spinning,” he said.
“You’re trying to figure everything out and how everything works up here. And once I got settled in, it’s just baseball at the end of the day. I think throughout my first year, there were some ups and downs. I think I showed some flashes where I was good and consistent, and there were other times where I let things get sped up a little bit.
“And I was sent down a couple times to figure some things out, but now I just feel comfortable in the role that I have with this team,” he continued. “It’s been a learning curve, but I’m excited.”
Rolison’s first three outings were very good – he pitched four innings, struck out one and walked another while allowing just one hit. He ran into some inconsistency between May 20-June 20, but then things really started to go sideways in July. So much so that Rolison was optioned back down to Triple-A on July 27th. He was recalled on August 2nd, then sent back on August 17th and yo-yo’d every few weeks for the remainder of the season.
One of his best late-season outings came on September 13th against the San Diego Padres, where he pitched a clean seventh inning with two strikeouts after both Bradley Blalock and Antonio Senzatela got tagged for nine runs. He was the only Rockies pitcher that day who did not record a hit or run.
“It felt good,” Rolison said of the outing. “I think it was a lot of my pitch sequence and locations. Obviously, you can get away with a little bit more down in the minor leagues than you can up here, so it’s just fine tuning those locations and the mindset with the fastball.
“Early on when I first got up here, I was trying to be too perfect with the fastball instead of just being loose and letting it rip,” he continued. “That was something I talked with the analytical guys and the pitching coaches about – letting my fastball just ride at the top of the zone. I think it tunnels well with my curveball. So there were just a couple of mindset switches.”
Rolison also leaned on some veteran pitchers during his first season.
“A guy that helped me really a lot early on was Tyler Kinley,” he said.
“He did a great job of taking me in. I’ve known Tyler for a long time, so just being able to talk to him and actually being on the same team as him, and him experiencing a lot of ups and downs in his career… just being able to bounce things off him. Obviously, we’ve got a bullpen full of guys that have been in these situations, like [Jimmy] Herget and [Victor] Vodnik. So [I’m] just leaning on them.”
Interim manager Warren Schaeffer also offered him some advice.
“When I first got called up, he said: ‘Don’t make it bigger than it is. You got here for a reason, and be yourself. Your stuff’s good enough, and that’s why you’re here, so you don’t have to do more. Just be yourself,’” Rolison said.
After a shaky middle to the 2025 season, Rolison finished strong.
In the month of September, Rolison made five appearances spanning 4 ⅔ innings and allowed two runs – a two-run homer to Marlins’ infielder Heriberto Hernández in his final appearance on September 18th. He walked two and struck out four to finish strong.
All in all, Rolison posted a 7.02 ERA and 1.77 WHIP in 31 appearances in 2025. That was a far cry from his 4.45 minor-league ERA and 1.32 WHIP.
It’s hard to say what Rolison’s role will be in 2026. He showed flashes of why the Rockies drafted him in the first round all those years ago, but there were also plenty of other moments where he seemed to be the white flag in another Rockies loss.
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