Astros New Addition Ready to Takeoff! Recent Pickup Believes Move from Colorado will Unleash His Full Potential
The Houston Astros have made quite a few moves over the course of this offseason, trading away Kyle Tucker and Ryan Pressly, signing Christian Walker, and making other decisions around the roster. One of their choices has been to move franchise legend Jose Altuve to left field, which had left a gap at second base to open the season.
This opening was filled by free agent Brendan Rodgers, who may end up being the opening-day second baseman, despite being signed on a minor league contract initially. Rodgers has spent his whole professional career to date with the Colorado Rockies after being selected by them in the third round of the 2015 MLB draft.
He would make his debut in 2019, and despite a slow start, has had a few solid seasons such as 2021 and 2024. However, with Coors Field being called a hitters park, many would have likely expected a little more out of his bat whether that be power or contact. Now he will be moving to a team closer to sea level, and while many would think that may make things harder, he believes the opposite.
Chuck King of MLB.com recently transcribed the quotes from Rodgers regarding this, who said, “I’ve been a sea-level hitter my whole life, until I got to Coors. I think going there maybe once a year, instead of playing 80 games, I think it’s going to benefit me — just picking up spin and knowing where my swing needs to start and where my swing needs to be.”
As was also mentioned in the article, hit splits at home vs. away were night and day, hitting .328 at home with an .888 OPS and nine homers, vs .214 with an .570 OPS and no homers away. This distinct split is likely caused by training for home field advantage of being in a hitters park, and then when he goes on the road he is not prepared to hit in that environment anymore since he left Florida.
Now, he will get a chance to prepare for the newly named Daikin Park, which is about the middle of the pack when it comes to hitter friendliness. In his three spring training appearances so far with the Astros, he has eight at-bats, .250/.333/.250 slash lines, with a walk and two strikeouts.
Ultimately it will be a wait and see game when it comes to whether or not he is the opening day starter at second base, but if his optimism can lead to on-field consistency and production, he could become a valuable asset for Houston in 2025.
