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. 8, Juan Mejia (0.6 rWAR)

“His stuff is nasty,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer would say when asked about reliever Juan Mejia’s arsenal.

The 25-year-old native of the Dominican Republic made his MLB debut in 2025 and began showing what he could do with his fastball-slider arsenal.

Mejia signed with the Colorado Rockies in 2017 as an international free agent. While working his way through the Rockies farm system, he was added to the Rockies’ 40-man roster in 2023 after splitting the season between Low-A Fresno and High-A Spokane. He spent 2024 with Double-A Hartford where he earned a 5.00 ERA 54 innings pitch.

In 2025, he started with Triple-A Albuquerque and was promoted to the Rockies on April 24. Mejia spent the season working out of the bullpen, and in 55 relief appearances (61 1/3 innings pitched), he earned a 3.96 ERA (123 ERA+) with 68 strikeouts and six home runs. Over the course of the season, Mejia faced 261 batters and finished the season with 9.98 K/9; 3.67 BB/9; and 0.88 HR/9. In addition, he finished 2025 with 30.4 Whiff% and a 30.4 Chase%.

He also had one save. (More on that in a moment.)

Like most pitchers, Mejia was better on the road (2.45 ERA) than at Coors Field (5.34 ERA).

For Mejia, it was a season of learning, he explained through interpreter Edwin Perez.

“I’ve learned a lot from everyone,” he said. “From the pitchers the relievers, I think they taught me a lot about the my development as a whole pitcher, what it takes to be up here.”

Part of that involved learning to become more resilient, “to keep going, to keep adjusting, to understand that there’s going to be times where you’re going to have a bad outings.”

Mejia continued, “Something bad may happen out there, but you just got to continue to have faith and continue to understand that things are going to happen. It’s a process. So you just got to continue to grow and continue to have faith in yourself as a person.”

Then there was that epic catch he made in his first MLB save. You remember the one when he was facing Ketel Marte back in August.

For Mejia, it was just another day of playing hard.

“I think as a kid in the Dominican,” Mejia said, “they show you that you have to be reactionary to every play, that you have to go make a play no matter what’s happening in the game. And so the instincts kicked in because I think every player, they love the win. And so obviously I want to help out with the win in that moment.”

Mejia’s play was spontaneous.

“I think that was an instinct play,” he said, “just going up there and jumping. Obviously, at the time, it was a little iffy about what was going to happen, but, obviously, I’m happy that I made that catch and helped the team that day.”

And what of his teammates who, stunned, helped him to his feet following the play?

“They were telling me that it was a good play,” Mejia smiled. “They told me it’s crazy, making that kind of play, but that they’re happy that I was able to make it.”

Would he do it again? Absolutely.

And would Warren Schaeffer encourage him to make that play?

“I don’t think that play will ever happen again,” Schaeffer said.

Looking to 2026, those kind of heroics aren’t what the Rockies will need from Mejia. Instead, they will need a reliever who is able to improve his pitching at Coors Field.

There will be competition in the Rockies 2026 bullpen. Mejia’s story will be one to watch.

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