For a minute there, the Rockies looked like they were going to be the Cinderella story of the season. After the first week of May, the Rockies were tied for first place in the NL West much to the surprise of everyone. But by the time the All-Star break hit, however, Colorado was tied for last place in the NL West, much to the surprise of no one.
Despite an MVP caliber season from Troy Tulowitzki, the Rockies ended up the first team eliminated from post-season contention in the National League. Throw in a dysfunctional front office and an owner that is deliberately antagonizing his own fans and this once promising season looks like it is going to end up being one of the most embarrassing seasons in franchise history.
Preseason Prediction: Regression is going to happen. The Rockies are building more and more around a groundball pitching staff, but the odds are strongly agains their starting pitchers being able to supress homers as much as they did last season. That doesn’t mean they are going to be terrible, but having Chacin, De la Rosa and Chatwood all finish with ERAs under 3.50 was a fluke and very unlikely to be repeated.
Health remains the big wild card here. When Tulo and CarGo are healthy, the offense can be good. But that is seldom ever the case. The problem for this year’s lineup is that even the healthy version might be hampered by some of the holes in the lineup. Justin Morneau figures to hit fifth in the order, but that altitude isn’t going to solve his inability to handle left-handed pitching. Yet the Rockies don’t currently have a platoon mate for him.
What might hurt more than that is trying to find someone to plug into the leadoff role. Drew Stubbs takes a lot of walks, but really struggles to make contact. Even at Coors, playing part-time, he could have a hard time posting an ERA over .315. His likely platoon partner is Charlie Blackmon, but in his brief time in the majors, he’s walked in just 2.9% of his plate appearances. Corey Dickerson is the best offensive option at leadoff, but getting him on the field means moving CarGo to center, making it that much harder for Gonzalez to stay healthy.
The Rockies should be better this season, but there are just too many question marks and not nearly enough depth. A 78-win season and a fourth place finish in the NL West seems likely at this point, but with young pitching on the way, 2015 is shaping up to be the year they really make a leap forward. (Garrett Wilson, February 24th)
What Went Right: The moves the Rockies made in the off-season were largely derided around the baseball world, but to their credit, many of those acquisitions worked out well. Justin Morneau used the altitude of Coors Field as a fountain of youth of sorts. He nearly made the All-Star team and will finish the season with his best offensive numbers since his concussion problems started in 2010. Beyond Morneau, the Rockies also managed to turn Drew Stubbs from an OBP-sinkhole into an actual above average producer. Of course, there was Troy Tulowitzki who was shaping up to be the runaway NL MVP winner and Triple Crown threat until he suffered his standard injury problems.
What Went Wrong: You’ll notice that the above section said nothing about the Rockies’ pitching. As the preseason prediction, errr, predicted, their rotation got clobbered over the head by the regression hammer. Jorge De La Rosa took a step back from his strong 2013 campaign. Tyler Chatwood was only able to make four starts. Juan Nicasio, Jhoulys Chacin and Franklin Morales were all unqualified disasters. Brett Anderson, their big trade acquisition, was excellent when he pitched, but he only pitched eight games before he got hurt, because that is what Brett Anderson does.
In fact, health was a huge problem in general for the Rockies this year. The aforementioned Tulowitzki basically only played half a season. Michael Cuddyer will end up missing over 100 games. Carlos Gonzalez had a sub-replacement level year as he tried and failed to play through finger and knee ailments before ultimately giving in after 70 dreadful games. Wilin Rosario also battled health issues throughout his disappointing 2014 campaign.
One of their offseason moves that definitely didn’t work out was Boone Logan, whom they inexplicably gave a three-year, $16.5 million deal. He rewarded them with a 6.84 ERA over 25 innings and finished the season on the DL with a bum shoulder. Good thing they sold Dexter Fowler to the Astros for pennies on the dollar to clear payroll space to sign Logan, right?
Most Surprising Player: The biggest surprise by far for the Rockies was one of their young outfielders. In May, it looked like that guy was going to be Charlie Blackmon who briefly led the league in WAR only to fall off a cliff in the second half of the season. However, his surprising production was replaced by Corey Dickerson who has quietly been an offensive monster, currently boasting a .396 wOBA and 138 wRC+. He’s largely been sheltered from left-handed pitching, but in the small sample of southpaws he has faced, he’s held his own, which could lead to him having a more everyday role going forward. Considering that his platoonmate, Brandon Barnes, is only producing an 77 OPS+, what do the Rockies really have to lose?
Most Disappointing Player: So, so many to choose from. On one level, it is disappointing that Tulo just couldn’t stay healthy amid what was shaping up to be an incredible season. But, sadly, his injury woes are simply to be expected now. Instead, the “most disappointing” nod has to go to Carlos Gonzalez.
By comparison, CarGo made Tulo look like an ironman this year. Gonzalez had an emergency appendectomy in the offseason, then came into camp still dealing with the finger problems that limited him in 2013 before eventually having surgery for that problem. He came back from that and only lasted another miserable month before succumbing to a knee injury that actually could have him miss the start of next season. Put it all together and CarGo finished the season with a .292 OBP, which seems unfathomable for someone of his talent playing his home games at Coors Field.
Honorable mention goes to Wilin Rosario who not only didn’t continue his development as the team had hoped, but instead regressed into a sub-replacement level hitter, which is kind of a problem for a guy who is already a defensive liability behind the plate.
The Future: The Rockies do have some nice young pieces that would normally be reason for hope. Nolan Arenado took a big step forward at the plate this year and appears to be on the verge of stardom. Their farm system is starting to produce some nice young pitching, with Tyler Matzek being the first taste of that. He wasn’t particularly impressive, but he didn’t flameout either, which is actually a real plus for Colorado. With Jonathan Gray and Eddie Butler on the way, there is a young core that could finally give Tulo and CarGo some help.
That is if Tulo and/or CarGo are still around. The big issue in Denver is that nobody seems to know what the plan is, possibly because their just isn’t a plan. This is a young-ish team that isn’t very good, but the front office spent last offseason adding veteran complement pieces like Logan and Morneau as if they were fine tuning a roster that was on the cusp of being a World Series contender. At the trade deadline, they traded none of their veterans… again. Instead, they signed 33-year old Jorge De La Rosa to an extension that locked up a big chunk of their limited payroll through 2016.
It all goes back to what might be the most dysfunctional front office in baseball (sorry, Astros). Their bizarre dual-GM arrangement creates nothing but confusion and their owner only enables the negative situation. Let us not forget that owner Charlie Monfort made headlines a few months ago for sending angry, defiant e-mails to season ticket holders who dared to complain about the organization’s obvious lack of direction or progress.
By all rights, the Rockies should be looking to blow up their roster and start building around Arenado, Butler and Gray instead of patching holes with high character veterans on the downside of their career. This should be the offseason that they finally raise the white flag and trade Troy Tulowitzki for a treasure trove of young talent and letting someone else worry about his constant injury woes. But they probably won’t do any of that which means that we’ll be back here next year with all the same complaints. It is just what the Rockies do.
