Victor Vodnik, the Reliable Rookie Rockies Reliever
SAN DIEGO — It was the bottom of the ninth inning of Friday’s Rockies–Padres game, and Victor Vodnik was on the mound with two outs. He was protecting a 5–2 Rockies lead, facing Jackson Merrill with Jake Cronenworth on second and a 1–2 count. Vodnik fooled Merrill with a changeup. Merrill swung very early, pulling an end-of-the-bat squibber up the first-base line. Michael Toglia fielded it on the line and immediately in front of the bag. Toglia stepped on first, and first-base umpire Nate Tomlinson pointed fair before signaling out. Ballgame over.
Or so we thought. Plate umpire Larry Vanover signaled foul ball. With the ball not having passed first yet, Vanover had the primary call here. Replays showed that the ball clipped the corner of the bag a fraction of a second before Toglia scooped it up, something Vanover could not have seen. Unfortunately for the Rockies, however, it was not reviewable, meaning Vodnik had to go back to the mound and try again for the final out.
Many rookies would have folded here, but not Vodnik. “I told myself after that happened to not let this get away from me,” Vodnik said. “Stay focused, stay locked in, and make the next pitch.”
It worked. Vodnik struck Merrill out on the very next pitch. Game over for real this time, Rockies win.
Rockies pitching coach Darryl Scott was not surprised at all by Vodnik’s response to the foul ball call. “That goes to his mindset,” Scott explained. “He’s aggressive, but it’s a controlled aggression. (Victor) has learned to slow things down, so he didn’t flinch in a situation like that. It was, ‘Okay. Alright. We’ll just get him with the next one.’ Which is awesome.”
First Impressions of Victor Vodnik
Victor Vodnik came to the Rockies in the Pierce Johnson trade with the Atlanta Braves on July 24, 2023. He debuted September 9, 2023, against the San Francisco Giants, the first of six appearances for the Rockies in 2023. Although those outings as a whole did not go well — he allowed runs in four of the six — he made an impression on the other relievers, with Peter Lambert saying he had an “electric arm.” Justin Lawrence remembered, “Lively fastball. It’s an exciting fastball to see him throw. We knew we might have something special here with some of the first few outings he had last year.” Tyler Kinley recalled, “Lethal arsenal. From a little guy, kind of unexpected. He has a quick delivery, and the ball came out super-hot. So we were all, pretty eyes wide open, like ‘What is THIS?’ This is different.”
Scott’s first impression was in a different department. “My first impression was he’s a gamer. The way he carries himself, he wants to pitch. So the first instinct was (nodding and grinning slyly), ‘Alright. I’m in.’”
Vodnik said his arrival with the Rockies was “very cool” and that he was “really grateful for the opportunity.” He added, “Obviously, it didn’t go as well as it’s been going this year, but I’ve been very happy and very blessed.”
Victor Vodnik the Teammate
It did not take long for Vodnik to mesh with the rest of the team. Lambert said of the 24-year-old Vodnik, “As a guy, he’s been great. He fit right in. He’s just one of the guys, always having a good time. Comes to the field every day with the same attitude. He’s everything you look for in a teammate — coming to the field ready to go every day, good clubhouse guy. All of the above.”
Lawerence added, “He’s a great guy. Great teammate. He’s a funny guy to be around, funny guy to hang out with. He keeps things lively. It’s nice when you can see a guy have a distinct separation between when he’s going 100%, game mode, and when he’s in the clubhouse around the guys. Seeing him be able to flip that switch is important. It’s impressive for a guy to do it at his age in the position that he’s in, because it’s hard to turn that dial off and have it on or off at the right time. And it’s healthy for the clubhouse.”
Being one of the youngest players on the team means being the butt of several jokes, and Vodnik has taken it in stride. Said Kinley, eight and a half years Vodnik’s senior, “Vic’s great. Bullpen-wise, he’s kind of like the younger brother out there. We all pick on him, give him a hard time, and keep him in check. But he’s good. He learns, he adapts, he asked a lot of good questions, especially early. He’s built a good routine and a lot of stuff that will help him going forward.”
Offseason Improvements
At the end of the 2023 season, Scott told Vodnik what to work on — command. Scott said, “The stuff was outstanding. We weren’t chasing velocity. Didn’t chase a changeup, because he had it. There was some work on improving the slider. But really, going into the offseason, we needed to be able to command it. There’s more to pitching than just throwing 100 mph at the top (of the zone). And he really did a great job with that.”
Vodnik worked on his slider in the offseason, something he said “helped a lot.” But the change his teammates saw in him came from the mental and emotional side of the game. Lawrence noted that he walked into spring training with confidence and belief of, “Alright. I got those few innings under my belt, now it’s go time.” Kinley added that there was a “lot of growth” within Vodnik, adding, “most importantly, knowing he can pitch at this level. He’s always had confidence, and maybe a little bit of arrogance, like ‘I can do it,’ chip on the shoulder kind of thing. But this year, actually going on some really dominant stretches is helping cement in his brain that he belongs here, he can pitch late in games, and he can do it against any lineup.”
Scott added, “Going into this season, what, for me, the biggest improvement has been calmness. Breathing better, slowing himself down out there. So that’s awesome. Because I’d much rather be working on that stuff rather than trying to prod a guy forward. He’s a guy that—as a coach, you always would much rather be trying to slow a guy down than speed him up.”
The In-season Growth of Victor Vodnik
Vodnik started 2024 on a hot streak, not allowing any runs until his ninth appearance. He kept opponents from scoring any earned runs in 21 of his 27 appearances between Opening Day and June 6 (77.8%; league average is around 69%), good for a 2.55 ERA and 54 ERA-minus. Additionally, he had a 1.387 WHIP, a 0.7 HR% (1 HR out of 149 batters), 27 K (18.1%), 15 BB (10.1%), and an 8.0 K–BB%. The WHIP was higher than the NL average of 1.284, suggesting that a cold spell might be coming.
Well, it did. Vodnik had a tough five-game stretch between June 8 and June 18, allowing at least one earned run in each game and a home run in three of them. But from June 21 onward, he’s been terrific. In 19 1/3 innings across 17 appearances from June 21 through August 6, Vodnik has held opponents scoreless in 14 of them (82.4%), allowing four earned runs. This has given him a 1.86 ERA and 39 ERA-minus. He also has had a 0.931 WHIP, a 1.3 HR% (1 HR out of 76 batters), 20 K (26.3%), 7 BB (9.2%), and 17.1 K–BB%. For reference, the NL averages are a 2.9 HR%, 22.2 K%, 8.1 BB%, and a 14.0 K–BB%.
Therefore, outside of that five-game stretch, Vodnik has tossed 54 2/3 innings across 50 appearances. He has held opponents scoreless (earned runs only) in 76.0%, with a 2.30 ERA (14 ER) and a 50 ERA-minus. In addition, he has a 1.226 WHIP, a 0.9 HR% (2 HR out of 225 batters), 47 K (20.9%), 22 BB (9.8%), and an 11.1 K–BB%.
He Belongs Here
During spring training, Lawrence spoke with Vodnik. Lawrence recalled, “I told him if there’s one thing that I wish I could have changed when I came up was to not let that feeling of being new in the league and being young linger for too long. Turn it into, ‘I belong here. I’m here for a reason’ as soon as you can, and that confidence will come a lot quicker. I wish I had done it that way, knowing that I’m here for a reason right away and then going with it.”
When looking at his performance during the season, Vodnik seems to feel like he belongs. “He’s been as consistent as can be for the whole year,” Lambert said. “It’s been fun to watch. He’s the guy you want in the game, that’s for sure.”
Confidence
A big reason for the growth is Vodnik’s mental approach to his performance. For him, every game is a learning experience. Vodnik said. “I have very high expectations for myself, so I go over every outing and what I could have done better, even on the days I do well. I want to know what I could have thrown or what I could have done instead, (such as going) from a groundball out to a strikeout. Things that could have been improved, such as pitch selection or even pitch location. I just try to get better.”
Scott added that Vodnik’s constant desire to grow has boosted his confidence. The confidence boost has made it where he does not feel nervous, because he’s always prepared for any situation he’ll face. “He’s got a plan now,” Scott said. “The plan isn’t just to go out and throw as hard as he can. There’s a plan. He’s not afraid to use his changeup at any time against anybody. He isn’t afraid to throw the slider against anybody. So there’s a confidence level to him that there’s no intimidation factor. He’s just going. He knows that all three of his pitches are good, and he can go to them whenever he wants.”
Morphing into a Closer
One of Scott’s favorite traits about Vodnik is how he has handled his gradual metamorphosis into the team’s closer. “As he’s moved into this closer role and starting to get those closing opportunities,” Scott beamed, “he actually looks calmer in the closing role than he does coming in the middle of the seventh to get out of a jam and finishing the seventh and taking the eighth. It’s almost like the role has surprisingly calmed him down.”
His calmness showed in his save opportunity Friday night against the Padres, the situation mentioned earlier. The foul ball call would have bothered several veterans, let alone rookies. But not Vodnik. Striking out Merrill on the next pitch — with a changeup in the dirt, no less — raised eyebrows across Petco Park. Kinley attributed Vodnik’s poise in that situation to “the growth in his resiliency and growth within things that he can only control” within the game of baseball. He said, “It would have been very easy for him to shut things down and get too emotional, thinking he finally got through it but now has to restart again. But he does a good job of keeping his head down and staying locked in until he knows for sure that final out is recorded, which was big for the win (Friday) night.”
Poise
Scott called Vodnik’s poise in handling that situation “a huge compliment to his mental game and how he’s gone about his work and the confidence level.” He added, “When you’re confident and something like that happens, it doesn’t faze you. But when you feel like you’re fighting every pitch, then those situations play that emotional roller coaster on you. You get really high, then you come back down, then you have to get yourself back up. You’ll see that a lot with relievers. They’ll work out of a big situation, and then when they go back out, they have trouble getting re-amped because they’re playing that roller coaster. Whereas he’s playing it calm. He’s under control and processing the situations as they come.”
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