Welcome to the 2022 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2022. 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.
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No. 27, Brian Serven: 0.0 rWAR
The date was May 21. A young catcher came up to the plate in the second inning. Whack! He hit a two-run homer in his third-career at-bat to give the Rockies a 4-2 lead over the New York Mets.
Two at-bats later, whack! Another two-run homer to put the Rox up 8-3.
That young catcher is named Brian Serven, and that was the absolute highlight of his first year in the big leagues, he said. However, offense isn’t everything and defensively, Serven had other highlights.
“Being able to be a part of a few shutouts was awesome,” Serven said. “Watching other guys come up and make their debuts — [Wynton] Bernard, [Sean] Bouchard, guys that I played with last year and this year — and seeing how welcoming the home fans are and how welcoming everyone is in the clubhouse, that was what was good for me.”
Serven started his Rockies tenure hot — slashing .308/366/.492 with a double, triple and home run in 21 games through May and June. He drove in nine runs, scored eight, walked six times (9%) and struck out 15 times (23%). Unfortunately, after that, Serven’s offensive production took a sharp nosedive.
Brian Serven 2022 Stats
| Month | G | AB | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | Triple Slash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | G | AB | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | Triple Slash |
| May | 7 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 5 | .250/.286/.550 |
| June | 14 | 45 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 10 | .333/.400/.467 |
| July | 12 | 37 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 8 | .081/.171/.189 |
| August | 18 | 51 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 11 | .196/.250/.333 |
| September | 9 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | .143/.172/.179 |
| October | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .167/.167/.167 |
Defensively, though, Serven performed well. He posted a 4 DRS (tied for 10th in MLB with Rays’ Christian Bethancourt and Twins’ Ryan Jeffers) at the catching position, and also pitched a nearly-perfect ninth inning (he allowed one walk) in the 13-0 thrashing at the hands of the Dodgers on July 28.
That all being said, though, Serven is looking forward to opportunities to continue working with the hitting and pitching coaches in his sophomore campaign.
“[I’m looking forward to being able to] continue with Darryl [Scott] and Reid [Cornelius] and the staff to continue to learn the game,” Serven said. “And then on the offensive side, work with the coaches and continue to make adjustments because I came on pretty strong offensively and then the league makes adjustments and I didn’t do a great job of making adjustments off of that. So just figuring out what they picked out about my game that they could exploit and improve both offensively and defensively.”
But when asked to describe his season in one word, Serven couldn’t pick out just one. He threw out “growth” “opportunity” and “fun” before eventually landed on “exciting.”
“It’s exciting to get to the big leagues, make an impact right away and then continue to learn and grow,” he said.
With the likely departure of Dom Nuñez, the backup catcher position is probably Serven’s to lose depending on how Willie MacIver (or others) looks in camp.
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