Hi everyone, I'm here today to talk about the one team in baseball that is most affected by its surroundings, the team that Jim Leyland admitted to being incapable of managing it, the one who to this day has never had an ace-like starter, the Colorado Rockies.
This Denver team in its short history already has had its moments, making the playoffs in the first year on Coors Field (95), winning the pennant over their division rival, D-Backs following a crazy September run that saw them winning 21 out of 22 heading into the WS, where they were crushed by Boston, but nonetheless a great achievement for such a young franchise.
They returned to the playoffs in 09 but didn't make any noise and that is it when it came to postseason action for them until obviously this year where they won 87 games and held off the Brewers for that second wildcard spot, eventually lost to Arizona in what was a very exciting game, but in the bigger picture, Rockies fan ought to be excited about the future with this young roster and prospects such as Brandon Rodgers, Riley Pint, Ryan McMahon and Raimel Tapia coming up, but since is very easy to get caught in assumptions and just presume that something is dependent on some things happening, if this makes any sense at all, the point is the Rockies were good, but not for the reason you think
In 2016 the Rockies offense scored 845 Runs, good for second in baseball, that doesn't mean much, they will always score a lot of runs, because of Coors, if you look at a park-adjusted number like wRC+ they ranked 20 at 94, for some context here are some playoff teams that year, WAS 97, SF 97, LAD 97, TEX 98, NYM 98.
In 2017 they scored 824 Runs, 21 less than the year before, again not reading too much into that, the interesting stat is that they ranked 27th in wRC+ at 87, ahead only of PIT, SD, and SF, obviously the worst among playoff teams, the two other teams under 100 were BOS and ARI.
It's undeniable that their offense suffered quite the decline, but their record was vastly improved, all because of the pitching staff.
Now I'm not here to say Colorado is some great staff, not at all, I want to show the Colorado formula at least for this year
On the hitting side, they had two great hitters that completely carried the team, I cannot overstate this, one number sums it all up, their overall batting WAR was 13.7, 12.1 belonged to Charlie and Nolan, the rest of the hitters amounted for 1.6 WAR.
On the pitching side they were very sneaky in the sense that nothing really jumped out at you, everybody just kind of a performed well, I'll show what I mean.
The Rockies staff this year had 3 different pitchers with 3+ WAR seasons, again for some context that's more than the Astros (2), Cubs (1), STL (1 and a half, Martinez had 2.9), MIN (1), that's pretty great, especially for Colorado.
They also were 7th in ERA- at 90, and last but not least according to Baseball Reference's Wins Above Avg b5 Position their pitching staff ranked 5th at 9.5 behind only CLE, ARI, WSN, and NYY, ahead of powerhouses like the LAD, BOS and CHC, not too shabby am I right.
Also to point it out no one really stood out but they pitched well enough to have 9 different pitchers with at least 1.3 WAR, 3 Oof them at 3, 3 at 2, and another 3 at 1, and that's without accounting for late season additions Pat Neshek and Chad Bettis, Neshek pitched well, Chad not so much, but the important thing is this staff is young, is good and with improvements from guys like Jeff Hoffman, Jon Gray, German Marquez and Kyle Freeland they'll make a lot of noise.
I think you all got my point, Colorado won 87 games this year on the backs of Arenado, Blackmon and a staff with good to pretty good performers all around, with no one jeopardizing the team and everyone contributing.
There was no Corey Kluber but also no Ubaldo Jimenez.
Anyway that's a wrap, see Y'all later, again writing off my phone, it sucks
This Denver team in its short history already has had its moments, making the playoffs in the first year on Coors Field (95), winning the pennant over their division rival, D-Backs following a crazy September run that saw them winning 21 out of 22 heading into the WS, where they were crushed by Boston, but nonetheless a great achievement for such a young franchise.
They returned to the playoffs in 09 but didn't make any noise and that is it when it came to postseason action for them until obviously this year where they won 87 games and held off the Brewers for that second wildcard spot, eventually lost to Arizona in what was a very exciting game, but in the bigger picture, Rockies fan ought to be excited about the future with this young roster and prospects such as Brandon Rodgers, Riley Pint, Ryan McMahon and Raimel Tapia coming up, but since is very easy to get caught in assumptions and just presume that something is dependent on some things happening, if this makes any sense at all, the point is the Rockies were good, but not for the reason you think
In 2016 the Rockies offense scored 845 Runs, good for second in baseball, that doesn't mean much, they will always score a lot of runs, because of Coors, if you look at a park-adjusted number like wRC+ they ranked 20 at 94, for some context here are some playoff teams that year, WAS 97, SF 97, LAD 97, TEX 98, NYM 98.
In 2017 they scored 824 Runs, 21 less than the year before, again not reading too much into that, the interesting stat is that they ranked 27th in wRC+ at 87, ahead only of PIT, SD, and SF, obviously the worst among playoff teams, the two other teams under 100 were BOS and ARI.
It's undeniable that their offense suffered quite the decline, but their record was vastly improved, all because of the pitching staff.
Now I'm not here to say Colorado is some great staff, not at all, I want to show the Colorado formula at least for this year
On the hitting side, they had two great hitters that completely carried the team, I cannot overstate this, one number sums it all up, their overall batting WAR was 13.7, 12.1 belonged to Charlie and Nolan, the rest of the hitters amounted for 1.6 WAR.
On the pitching side they were very sneaky in the sense that nothing really jumped out at you, everybody just kind of a performed well, I'll show what I mean.
The Rockies staff this year had 3 different pitchers with 3+ WAR seasons, again for some context that's more than the Astros (2), Cubs (1), STL (1 and a half, Martinez had 2.9), MIN (1), that's pretty great, especially for Colorado.
They also were 7th in ERA- at 90, and last but not least according to Baseball Reference's Wins Above Avg b5 Position their pitching staff ranked 5th at 9.5 behind only CLE, ARI, WSN, and NYY, ahead of powerhouses like the LAD, BOS and CHC, not too shabby am I right.
Also to point it out no one really stood out but they pitched well enough to have 9 different pitchers with at least 1.3 WAR, 3 Oof them at 3, 3 at 2, and another 3 at 1, and that's without accounting for late season additions Pat Neshek and Chad Bettis, Neshek pitched well, Chad not so much, but the important thing is this staff is young, is good and with improvements from guys like Jeff Hoffman, Jon Gray, German Marquez and Kyle Freeland they'll make a lot of noise.
I think you all got my point, Colorado won 87 games this year on the backs of Arenado, Blackmon and a staff with good to pretty good performers all around, with no one jeopardizing the team and everyone contributing.
There was no Corey Kluber but also no Ubaldo Jimenez.
Anyway that's a wrap, see Y'all later, again writing off my phone, it sucks
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