This has been a year of rebuilding for the Colorado Rockies.
Understandably, the tendency is to focus on personnel, but don’t overlook the technology rebuild that’s happening as well. Prior to the Rockies decision to bring on president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta, reporters documented extensively how the Rockies were behind their peers in terms of using technology to improve player performance. It’s an area in which the current front office is working to correct.
When Purple Row spoke with
Rockies bullpen coach Matt Buschmann about bullpen usage, he mentioned the team was using Catapult, a wearable device that allows pitchers to track their work.
Manager Warren Schaefer noted that the Rockies were one of the last MLB teams to adopt this technology, but it’s become a significant factor in helping the organization manage pitcher workloads.
We wanted to know more about Catapule, so I spent last weekend asking coaches and players to explain what Catapult does and how it’s affected their approach to the game.
What do the numbers show?
Let’s start with the obvious: Bullpen management is key to any successful baseball team. A big part of that involves tracking pitcher workload.
“I think it’s more important here in Denver than it is anywhere,” Schaeffer said.
As a starting point, consider how many innings Rockies relievers have thrown over the last three seasons.
- 2024: 601.0 IP (13th in MLB), 5.41 ERA (30th in MLB), -0.3fWAR (29th in MLB)
- 2025: 631.0 IP (6th in MLB), 5.18 ERA (29th in MLB), -0.7 fWAR (30th in MLB)
- 2026: 579.2 IP (5th in MLB), 4.72 ERA (26th in MLB), 3.3 fWAR (15th in MLB)
So, yes, the 2026 Rockies bullpen is significantly better than it was in the previous two years. Although it is on track to throw more innings than most other teams, the ERA is lower than that of previous Rockies teams, and the fWAR is significantly improved.
(I realize this leaves out many significant factors, but given that Catapult is primarily focused on workload management, that’s the factor I am most interested in examining.)
Here are the heaviest throwers in those seasons:
- 2024: Victor Vodnik (73.2 IP), Tyler Kinley (64.0 IP), Justin Lawrence (59.2 IP)
- 2025: Jimmy Herbert, (83.1 IP), Juan Mejia (61.1 IP), Angel Chivilli (58.2 IP)
- 2026: Zach Agnos (69.2 IP, ), Juan Mejia (58.0 IP), Brennan Bernardino (56.0 IP)
Given Agnos’ status as a bulk reliever, it makes sense that his innings count would be so high. Notably, Mejia and most of the Rockies heavy-use relievers will exceed their 2025 numbers. But they are still being effective.
That’s where Catapult comes in.
What is Catapult?
Baseball teams know how many pitches a player throws in a game. That data is easily tracked.
Buschmann wanted to know how many pitches a pitcher throws outside the context of a game because all of those throws contribute to a pitcher becoming fatigued.
Think about it.
Pitchers are throwing all the time. They play catch with a teammate. They work on pitches. They warm up. And, as Schaeffer puts it, “It’s a ridiculous high amount of throws to get themselves feeling right.”
But all those throws add up over the course of the season.
“The majority of the throws are made outside the game,” Buschmann said. “So once we track that, we get a full idea of the throwing.
Plus, the intensity varies, and it’s not possible for a pitcher to accurately measure how much he has exerted himself over the course of a day.
“I’m a guy that always used to throw a lot,” Rockies closer Jordan Romano said, “and I didn’t even really know that. I would say, ‘Oh, I’m throwing light today.’ But my light day would actually be super heavy compared to everyone else, so (Catapult) kind of helps monitor you, keeps the arm feeling good, makes sure you’re not overdoing it.”
A visit to Catapult’s website shows this is an Australia-based company involved with many sports. It provides “[c]omprehensive baseball data & video analysis tracking technology to capture, analyze, plan, and share every aspect of team & player performance.”
A Catapult vest has a GPS system with an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a magnetometer that measures a variety of activities.
When a player who has been wearing a Catapult vest finishes a throwing session, Buschmann uploads the data. Catapult then has a program that extracts each throw and determines how hard each throw was.
“So that gives you a score,” Buschmann said. “Then every day, we kind of add up all those scores to understand and make sure we’re kind of rolling a wave where you have high days and you have low days and mediums in between. But you want to make sure that you’re actually doing that, so kind of staying in one place throughout.”
The result is a visual report that he discusses with pitchers.
After a player has worn a Catapult vest long enough, the Rockies are able to establish a baseline, which guides, according to Buschmann, “What you should throw that day to make sure you stay within a certain throwing load to make sure we don’t spike it.”
Knowing this information provides additional data Buschmann and the Rockies can use in load management.
“Essentially, if we understand how much they’ve thrown, know what they did in the game,” Buschmann said, “it really comes down to what your workload was, what your output was in that workload, and then your response to it. So when we measure those three things, we get a really good idea of where that player is relative to their baseline.”
“But it kind of takes the guesswork out of what to do pregame throwing,” Romano said.
What do the pitchers say?
Romano is a Catapult enthusiast.
He first began using the technology in 2021 when he and Buschmann were with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“Then I then I got off it just because other teams didn’t have it,” Romano said.
That changed when he signed with the Rockies.
“I got here — I think a week or two in — Buschmann’s like, ‘Hey, do you want to get back on the Catapult?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I think that’d be a great idea just for myself.’ So I started wearing it, and then I think a lot of other guys are wearing it, too. And I think just talking with them, they’re finding it very helpful as well.”
For Romano, it’s taken a lot of the guesswork out of his training program.
“I just found it really helpful. It helps you understand what you’re supposed to do pregame. So if you’re throwing a lot pregame, then you get in the game, Catapult will tell you, ‘Hey, today needs to be within these parameters. It needs to be a light day.’”
For the last month, starter Gabriel Hughes has also been experimenting with Catapult while playing catch.
“The (measures) that I look at are the amount of throws and the intensity building up in the throws,” Hughes said. “And so I think it’s allowed me to manage my workload a lot better, both in the number of throws and the way that I’m throwing, the manner that I’m throwing.”
Like Romano, Hughes appreciates having an additional information source.
“I think it’s been very valuable because it’s given me an objective measure to how much I’m throwing. That’s what I’m very bad at estimating,” Hughes said. “So I think, in the same vein, it’s helped me manage my workload better because it gives me an accurate number for how much I’m throwing and the intensity that I’m throwing at.”
Not all Rockies pitchers are experimenting with Catapult.
As Brennan Bernadino put it, “I’m just old school.”
And, to be fair, the numbers indicate that Bernadino’s current system is working just fine for him. It’s tough to beat a 2.09 ERA in 56.0 IP.)
(Per the Major League Baseball Players Association, players’ decisions to use wearable technology “shall be wholly voluntary.” Moreover, teams must be explicit about the data that will be collected and those who will have access to that information, which is considered highly confidential.)
Final thoughts
It can be easy to focus on roster and staffing decisions and lost sight of the fact that the Rockies are not only rebuilding but also trying to solve baseball at elevation.
Catapult is one tool the Rockies hope will help them do that.
They are also exploring other kinds of sports technologies, but that’s a subject for a separate discussion.
This week on the internet
Speaking of technology, in case you missed the recent feature on Rockies TV about Trajekt, here you go:
Improvements point to brighter future | MLB.com
This week in his Rockies Beat newsletter, Thomas Harding spoke with Rockies hitting coach Brett Pill about what he’s seeing in terms of hitting improvements on the part of a young Rockies team.
MLB Power Rankings: A top-5 shake-up; How do each team’s trade deadline moves look now? | The Athletic ($)
By this point in the season, I’ve generally stopped reading power rankings but this one caught my attention given that it factored in teams’ trade deadline moves. The good news is that the Rockies are not last. Instead, they have moved into a less-basement-y 27th place. However, they received a “C” from the evaluators based on the Rockies decision not to trade Mickey Moniak, especially in light of his terrible August. That’s a fair criticism, but to focus on Moniak as opposed to the pitchers the Rockies brought in seems to me to be missing the forest for the trees. The Rockies have already put some of those pitchers to work with promising results.
‘This is home’: The lights shine bright in the inaugural WPBL season | SB Nation
I wanted to be sure that Joelle Milholm’s terrific article on the WPBL didn’t get lost.
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