This reliever is turning heads at Arizona Fall League

This story was excerpted from Thomas Harding’s Rockies Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Rockies right-handed relief prospect Juan Mejia has this way of making sure he is not overlooked.

Mejia, 23, entered the Arizona Fall League with little fanfare after posting a 5.06 ERA in 48 combined appearances at High-A Spokane and Double-A Hartford in 2023. But through eight appearances with the Salt River Rafters, Mejia has a 2.16 ERA with three saves in four opportunities, and 16 strikeouts to nine walks in 8 1/3 innings. In Sunday’s Fall Stars Game, Mejia pitched a clean seventh inning with two strikeouts.

Maybe no one tuned in specifically to watch Mejia, 6-foot-3 and loose-armed out of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. But he made sure he was seen.

His penchant for turning heads is how he enticed the Rockies to sign him in the first place.

“It’s a little bit of a long story,” Mejia said in Scottsdale, Ariz., earlier this fall, through interpreter Annalee Ramirez. “The Rockies initially showed up to look at one of my teammates, but the pitching coach noticed that I was there. He told me to get dressed to go out there. My teammate didn’t perform the way they expected him to. Then they saw me on the mound, they saw the velocity that I was throwing, and I caught their attention.”

During the 2023 Minor League season, Mejia was at his best in July and August. Mejia yielded just five runs (one earned) in his final 10 appearances for Spokane, during which he fanned 17 against five walks in 12 innings. His first eight appearances for Hartford brought a 1.69 ERA with 16 strikeouts to four walks in 10 2/3 innings. But struggles at the beginning and end of the season led to an inflated ERA.

It’s possible, however, that learning to handle the rough times has made good times like in the AFL possible.

“Accepting the downs has always been hard for Juan -- he always wants to succeed, and when he didn’t, he would have a hard time with it,” Rockies Minor League pitching coordinator Doug Linton said. “Juan really matured this season and accepted those down moments better.

“He has tremendous stuff with his three-pitch mix -- fastball, slider and changeup. The slider was the one pitch he needed to get more consistent. The 88-89 mph sliders are his best. When he throws it 83-84, he has a tougher time commanding it.”

The two strikeouts in the Fall Stars Game were actually at the lower velocity, but Linton said Mejia is on the same page with him and Hartford pitching coach Blaine Beatty about developing a harder, tighter pitch.

Mejia, who is likely to be placed on the Rockies' 40-man Major League roster and protected from being selected by another club in the Rule 5 Draft, is succeeding at his main goal in the Fall League -- to turn his desire into a plus, rather than a minus.

“At the end of the season, there was a struggle,” Mejia said. “But if I want to be the best, sharpening my stuff against the better hitters -- in Hartford and here -- is the way to go."