Charlie Blackmon, Gerardo Parra, and Trevor Story. Colorado Rockies vs San Diego Padres. June 10, 2016. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite) colorado rockies; baseball; sports; coors field; denver; colorado; denverite This could be the year that the Rockies put everything together.
For Rockies fans, the last time that Rocktober swept Colorado was 2007 when the team won a one-game playoff for the NL West Championship en route to a surprise run to the World Series. Now, almost ten years to the date of the Rockies last postseason appearance, fans should be optimistic for a possible return in the 2017 season.
Let’s start with what may be the most loaded lineup in baseball from top to bottom. The offense is led by all-world third baseman Nolan Arenado, who mashed to the tune of 41 HR and 133 RBI in 2016, leading the NL in both stats. For the second straight season, Arenado led the NL in total bases and won a Gold Glove Award, but perhaps most importantly, ended the 2016 season having nearly doubled his walk total from 34 to 68 while raising his OBP thirty-nine percentage points. Next to Arenado is shortstop Trevor Story, who burst out onto the scene in 2016 by homering in each of his first four games in the bigs. Despite playing in only 97 games, Story finished the season with 27 HR and 21 doubles and should be looking to build on one of the more memorable rookie seasons in reason memories. Rounding out the infield is second baseman DJ LeMahieu, one of, if not the most underrated player in all of baseball. LeMahieu developed into a legit top of the order bat in 2016, winning the NL batting title with a .348 AVG, and also scoring 104 runs, and leading the team with a .416 OBP and 192 hits. Taking over for Nick Hundley behind the dish is Tony Wolters, who will look to continue to develop a strong relationship with a young, budding pitching staff.
While Mark Reynolds had a minor career revival thanks to the air at Coors Field, the Rockies went out and signed Ian Desmond to a five-year, $70 million dollar contract to play first base. Although he will be new to the position, Desmond should thrive in the middle of the Rockies lineup, bringing twenty home run power (a mark he’s reached in four seasons in his career) with 100 run athleticism and 20-steal speed.
Moving into the outfield, David Dahl should take over in left field after a stellar debut during 2016. In sixty-three games, Dahl looked prepared for big league pitching and ready to take over a starting role full time in 2017, hitting .315 with 7 HR, and 24 RBI. In centerfield is All-Star Charlie Blackmon, who despite missing nineteen games narrowly missed out on his first thirty home run season, finishing with 29. One of baseball’s best power and speed combinations, having hit 46 home runs and swiped 60 bases over the past two seasons, Blackmon took a leap forward in 2016, raising his AVG thirty-seven points to .324, and raising his OPS over one hundred points from .797 to an elite .933. In right field is the Rockies longest tenured player, Carlos Gonzalez, who finished yet another All-Star season in 2016 with 25 HR and 100 RBI, while slugging and 42 doubles and raising his AVG and OBP over twenty-five points each. Having never reached the postseason in eight years in Colorado, Cargo will be eager to lead the Rockies back to the playoffs.
Yet despite their stacked lineup, this year’s Rockies will run into the same problem that Rockies teams have been running into for years, which is that they will only go as far as their pitching in Coors Field allows them to. For the first time in a long time, the Rockies rotation features multiple young, high upside starters. In his first full season in the big leagues, Jon Gray displayed the ace-like stuff that made him the third overall pick in the 2013 draft, finishing the season with 185 strikeouts, including a sixteen-strikeout shutout against the Padres in September. While Gray’s 4.61 ERA may seem high, it was over a run higher than his 3.60 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) suggesting that Gray was unlucky last season. In a home stadium that breeds home runs, Gray’s swing and miss stuff will be essential towards the Rockies success in 2017. Behind Gray is Chad Bettis, who led the rotation with fourteen wins, as well as 32 starts, building off of his 2015 rookie season. Rounding out the rotation is a pair of Tylers, Tyler Chatwood, and Tyler Anderson. In 27 starts for the Rockies, Chatwood won twelve games, while pitching to an extremely low for Coors Field 3.87 ERA. And although he only made nineteen starts, lefty Tyler Anderson lived up to his hype as a former first round pick, with a solid 3.54 ERA and 99 strikeouts across nineteen starts. Additionally, there are reinforcements in the minor leagues, with Jeff Hoffman, the centerpiece of the Troy Tulowitzki trade, and German Marquez, both top 100 prospects according to MLB.com, waiting in the wings.
The biggest x-factor for the Rockies may be the offseason hiring of 2010 NL Manager of the Year Bud Black to take over as manager for Walt Weiss. With ten years of managerial experience in the NL West as the former manager of the Padres, Black knows what it takes to win the division, having managed the Padres as recently as 2015. Where Black might put the Rockies over the top is his reputation for helping young pitchers to develop, having pitched in the big leagues for fifteen seasons, and serving as the Angles pitching coach from 2000-2006, including their 2002 World Series Championship. Under Black, pitchers such as John Lackey, Felix Rodriguez, Ervin Santana Mat Latos, Jered Weaver, Tyson Ross, and Andrew Cashner all developed, while Bartolo Colon and Jake Peavy both took home Cy Young Awards. In Black, the Rockies made a slam-dunk hire, as they hired a manager who knows the landscape of the NL West, and who can help guide their young pitching rotation to success.
Last year, the Rockies finished with a 75-87 record, only seven games under .500. Using Bill James’ Pythagorean Expectation formula, which is an estimate of how many games a team should have won based on the number of runs they scored and allowed (run differential), the Rockies should have been an 80-82 team, suggesting they were somewhat unlucky in 2016. With an improved and more experienced roster heading into 2017, don’t be surprised if the Rockies make a 10-12 win jump to put them in the 85 to 87 win range, and right into the heart of the NL playoff race.
