{"id":542531,"date":"2026-01-28T16:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T16:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/542531\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T16:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T16:41:14","slug":"colorado-rockies-prospects-no-22-yujanyer-herrera-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/542531\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Rockies prospects: No. 22, Yujanyer Herrera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Herrera turned 22 a few months ago, but he has been a professional for over six years, having been signed in August 2019 out of Venezuela by the Brewers<\/a> for only a $10k bonus. Due to the pandemic, Herrera didn\u2019t throw a pitch in affiliated ball until 2021 and he didn\u2019t come stateside until the next year. Indeed, the 6\u20193\u201d right-hander was Rule 5 eligible after the 2023 season but not selected. I don\u2019t blame teams, as Herrera truly didn\u2019t pop up on the prospect radar until 2024. He seemed like a strong candidate to be added to the Rockies\u2019 40-man roster after the 2024 season, but unfortunately he underwent Tommy John surgery in October 2024 and missed the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Herrera began his breakout 2024 back in Low-A Carolina for the third-straight year (though he was still 1.6 years younger than league average), where he quickly showed that he was ready for a new challenge with 17 innings of 2.12 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, and 14.3 K\/9 rate ball over four games. A promotion to High-A Wisconsin followed, where he was 3.1 years younger than league average. In 12 games there, Herrera threw 51 innings with a 3.18 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 8.8 K\/9 rate, and 3.0 BB\/9 rate.<\/p>\n

That was enough for the Rockies to acquire Herrera as part of the Nick Mears trade (along with Bradley Blalock) in July. After the trade, Herrera made six starts with Spokane, throwing 32 2\u20443 innings with a 3.31 ERA (3.41 xFIP), 1.13 WHIP, 9.1 K\/9 rate, and 3.0 BB\/9 rate. Those were strong results that pointed toward an upper minors placement before his arm injury scuttled those plans.<\/p>\n

Here is Herrera being dominant in April 2024 in the Brewers system:<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-3 right-hander has three pitches in his arsenal that he was just starting to really learn how to use effectively when he went down. He typically throws his fastball in the 92-94 mph range and uses his hard above-average slider with bite as his go-to pitch. He misses plenty of bats with the pitch, showing the ability to backfoot lefties with it. He has a changeup, but it\u2019s behind the other two offerings.<\/p>\n

Because of that slider, Herrera\u2019s strikeout rate took a nice step forward in 2024 and he uses the two-seam variation of his heater to get a lot of ground-ball outs. He threw a lot more strikes as well last year, but the Rockies will have to wait until 2026 to see if that sticks and if he can refine a third pitch so that he can stick in a rotation.<\/p>\n

Herrera is listed at 175 pounds but is more like 250. He\u2019s a below-average athlete who has struggled to throw strikes at various points during his career, and he still looks like he has below-average command despite his reasonable walk total from 2024. Herrera\u2019s best pitch is his slider, a tight mid-80s hellraiser with late bite and good length for how hard it is. Still, too many of his sliders back up on him right now. He has a well-demarcated four-seam\/two-seam fastball mix, but no cogent third pitch yet. Herrera\u2019s velo keeled off at the very end of the year and he was put on the IL with elbow inflammation in September (he also had a hamstring issue last season); the Rockies left him off the 40-man roster. There\u2019s a little too much development needed here to comfortably project Herrera as a starter, but he should be a fine sinker\/slider middle reliever in time.<\/p>\n

Herrera represents the kind of pitching prospect the system needs more of and I\u2019m excited to see how he reacts to the challenge of Double-A once he is fully recovered from the Tommy John surgery \u2014 at least, that\u2019s where I assume he will be. If his stuff is still there and he does well against upper minors batters, Herrera could be a rotation option for the Rockies soon and will be a no-brainer 40 man roster add this off-season. Due to the uncertainty, I couldn\u2019t rank Herrera higher than a 35+ FV player, 25th on my list, though I love his potential to stick in the rotation and the quality of his slider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Herrera turned 22 a few months ago, but he has been a professional for over six years, having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,167,52,38897,4316,4,168],"class_list":{"0":"post-542531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-rockies","11":"tag-colorado-rockies-minor-leagues-and-prospects","12":"tag-coloradorockies","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rockies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115973723459984853","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}