Rockies Young Reliever Projected to Lead Team in ERA for 2026 Season

The Colorado Rockies certainly need to improve their pitching staff ahead of 2026, but one reliever in particular has shown enough to be viewed highly.

Sep 28, 2019; Denver, CO, USA; General wide view of the bottom of the ninth inning between the Milwaukee Brewers against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Colorado Rockies have pretty much rebuilt their front office from scratch this winter, which was expected given their inability to gain any momentum during their 2025 campaign.

With that, they now have lots of work to do to start to fix the roster they have been provided with, most notably in the starting pitching department. With one of the worst pitching seasons in recent memory, they need to start there and work to get some core pieces to stabilize things.

On the bright side, there were a few promising players in the bullpen last season, notably young righty Victor Vodnik, who had an exceptionally productive year despite the inconsistency of the unit as a whole. He is someone the Rockies will want to retain long-term, hopefully, as he has been continually improving year over year.

Victor Vodnik, Wicked 93mph Changeup. 👌 pic.twitter.com/zld6szrOts

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 13, 2025

Building off that into 2026 will be a key to his development, though, and FanGraphs recently put out their projections for next season, which have him among the best pitchers on the roster currently. While they do believe he may step back a little bit and be slightly less efficient, the belief is that he will still be a critical component to the bullpen.

What Are the Projected Statistics for Vodnik in 2026?

Aug 29, 2025; Denver, Colorado, USA; Colorado Rockies relief pitcher Victor Vodnik (38) pitches in the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Coors Field. / Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

According to the predictive metrics coming from FanGraphs for 2026, they believe Vodnik will get pretty substantial playing time and will regress slightly, but still be among the best arms on the team. Their analytics have him picking up a 3-3 record in 64 innings, with 22 saves, a 4.38 ERA, 4.17 FIP, 0.3 fWAR, 8.85 K/9, 4.26 BB/9 and 1.03 HR/9.

This is not exactly an outstanding season, given how productive he was in 2025, but it is still quite good, given how unfriendly Coors Field is to pitchers. Compared to his previous year of stats, this is a worse record, HR/9, ERA and FIP. But he does improve in saves, as well as strikeouts and walks per nine innings.

It seems like a bit of a conservative prediction for Vodnik, as they have quite a bit of his metrics falling off nearly completely. The ERA jumping from his 3.02 in 2025 to a whopping 4.38 is astounding, especially when his walk and strikeout rates both get better over a larger sample.

Odds are he will be utilized more, no doubt, but it is hard to believe he would fall this harshly, as he still has plenty of room to grow as a player and improve.

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