Tag Archives: Colorado Rockies

April 1, 2013

Brewers Comeback

The Brewers overcame three home runs by the Rockies to win the first extra-inning contest of the season 5-4. Aramis Ramirez had the big blow in the eighth inning, a two-run double with two outs that briefly gave Milwaukee a 4-3 lead. Jonathan Lucroy hit a bases loaded sacrifice fly in the tenth for the win.

It was a tough loss for the Rockies. They received home runs from Dexter Fowler, Carlos Gonzalez, and Troy Tulowitzki, while Jhoulys Chacin pitched a strong game into the seventh. The Rockies need to win when those players contribute if they are going to be successful this season.

April 1, 2013

2013 NL West Preview

The division preview series finishes with the NL West. The starting point for my analysis is the 2012 WAR of the position players, the starting rotation and the closer. All WAR numbers come from FanGraphs. The Giants and Dodgers go head-to-head at 4 PM EDT Monday, although the Padres play earlier in the day against the Mets.

San Francisco Giants

Position Player WAR: 23.7
Pitcher WAR: 12.5
Total: 36.2

Los Angeles Dodgers

Position Player WAR: 22.0
Pitcher WAR: 15.7
Total: 37.7

Arizona Diamondbacks

Position Player WAR: 23.3
Pitcher WAR: 14.2
Total: 37.5

The top three teams in this division come into the season evenly matched. The Giants have upside in Brandon Belt having the first base job from day one, and Tim Lincecum recoverng from an off year. The Dodgers have already felt the injury bug, as Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford, and Chad Billingsley won’t start the season healthy. Arizona might have the most downside, with Aaron Hill and Martin Pardo coming off great seasons. For all the money and resources the Dodgers spent, they may only have pulled even with the last two division winners. There’s nothing wrong with that, they just need to have a little luck run their way. I get the feeling, however, that if Buster Posey is healthy, the Giants will keep winning.

San Diego Padres

Position Player WAR: 17.3
Pitcher WAR: 2.7
Total: 20.0

The Padres position core isn’t bad, but it’s tough to realize the potential of this unit when so many of their players are hurt. That includes Chase Headley, the one superstar on the team.

My feeling is that there is plenty of upside to Edinson Volquez, Clayton Richard, and Eric Stults. Even with a combined five WAR increase by those three, San Diego just does not have the personnel to compete with the big three.

Colorado Rockies

Position Player WAR: 9.2
Pitcher WAR: 4.2
Total: 13.4

The five pitchers in the projected starting rotation for the Rockies all have the first initial, “J”, but none of them have the same first name. That might be the most interesting thing about the group.

The offense has upside, mostly if Troy Tulowitzki is healthy and gets back to his superstar production. Along with star years from Dexter Fowler and Cargo Gonzalez, the Rockies could add eight WAR to the total above. That still doesn’t put them in the playoff hunt.

Predictions:

Here’s how I see the probabilities of each team winning the division:

Giants 31%
Dodgers 30%
Diamondbacks 29%
Padres 8%
Rockies 2%

I really think this division is a toss up between the top three teams, but I didn’t want to cop out and not pick a winner. Putting the Giants in first is based on Tim Lincecum rebounding from his poor 2012. The Dodgers show they are willing to break the bank to win, so they may make big trades to fill any weaknesses that show up early in the season. The Diamondbacks appear to have the most downside potential. The two teams who don’t finish first have a fine chance at winning the wild card. This should be an exciting race.

March 18, 2013

Team Offense, Colorado Rockies

The series on team offense continues with the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies finished sixth in the majors and third in the National League in 2012 with 4.68 runs scored per game.

The CBSSports.com projected lineup that Walt Weiss may use is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers slot, the 2012 Cardinals pitcher results were used. That information produces the following results:

Best lineup: 5.11
Probable lineup: 4.89
Worst lineup: 4.54
Regressed lineup: 4.48

Weiss comes into his managerial debut with a team with a number of interchangeable parts as far as the lineup is concerned. The LAT agrees with Dexter Fowler in the leadoff spot, and wants to see Wilin Rosario batting cleanup and Todd Helton ninth. Otherwise, it flips Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez between the second and fifth slots, and Chris Nelson, Josh Rutledge and Michael Cuddyer between the third, sixth, and seventh slots.

Wilin Rosario

Wilin Rosario could add a great deal of power to the Rockies lineup. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

At this point, I don’t expect the Rockies to put Rosario in the cleanup slot. He remains young and inexperienced with just 133 major league games under his belt, and will play 2013 as a 24-year-old. His power is impressive however, with 54 of his 118 hits falling for extra bases. He looks like he’s built for Coors field. Maybe Weiss could implement a home/road platoon, with Wilin taking the cleanup slot in Colorado, Tulowitzki handling the duties on the road.

Troy is certainly a key to this team. He has not played 150 games since 2009, and only 47 in 2012. A full season from the star shortstop should make the rest of the lineup a lot better.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

Previous posts in the series:

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November 8, 2012

Walt Vaults

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The Rockies hire Walt Weiss as their new manager. He was coaching at the high school level:

“I would put Walt up there with (Joe) Girardi as the two guys I played with that had the most respect on the field because of how they carried themselves and how they played the game,” said former Rockies star Dante Bichette. “Obviously leading a team is different, but they sure handled themselves well.”

Inexperienced managers did well in 2012. Colorado hopes the same thing happens in 2013.

October 15, 2012

Problem Solver

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Andrew Martin comes up with a way to solve the Rockies crowded outfield problem: Make the designated hitter universal!

Step 1: Expand active rosters to 26 men. This way, the NL can employ a Jim Thome/Adam Dunn type player as a DH without the dramatic liability on the field. On the other side, the AL can add that extra relief pitcher which makes all them doubleswitches in the NL so feasible.

Step 2: Both leagues have the OPTION to use the DH, it’s not required. While this is pretty much how the rule goes now, I added a wrinkle: before the start of the series, the home manager declares whether or not the DH rule will be in play for the entire series. Should the DH be in play, rules proceed as normal, as far as forfeiture of the DH and what have you. If not, it’s NL baseball, baby.

I’m for both of those rules, although I would do the DH on a per game basis, not per series. I suspect it would force managers to try to get a good hitting pitcher against Stephen Strasburg. 🙂

October 7, 2012

Tracy Steps Down

Jim Tracy resigned as manager of the Rockies. I wonder if the Rockies gave him the opportunity to step down rather than be fired? That leaves the Red Sox and Rockies without managers, with Ozzie Guillen’s status uncertain with the Marlins.

September 20, 2012

Power Heart

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Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval combined for four hits, three of them home runs as the Giants blew out the Rockies 9-2 Thursday afternoon. Sandoval has been cold during much of the Giants run since losing Melky Cabrera, but his two homers today gives him three straight multi-hit games. The win reduces the Giants magic number to clinch the NL West to ~~eight~~ four.

Correction: Magic number is four. I can’t read the standings any more.

September 15, 2012

Back to Five

The Rockies won’t use a four-man rotation next season. They will, however, keep some aspects of their experiment from this year:

The starters will be limited to between 90 and 100 pitches next season, and the Rockies will continue to use “piggyback” relievers. Those relievers will pitch only every few days but will be allowed to throw up to 45 pitches per outing.

The experiment did bring down the ERA of the starters, 6.28 before the change, 5.68 after. The fact is the Rockies don’t have good pitchers, and improving the rotation strikes me as a better route to success.

September 6, 2012

Unearned Series

With Colorado losing to Atlanta 1-0 on an unearned run for the second game in a row, Kyle Elstun writes:

Rockies just completed a interesting stretch against the Braves:
Tuesday – 6-0 Win
Wednesday – 1-0 Loss the run was unearned
Thursday – 1-0 loss on another unearned run.

Has back-to-back 1-0 loss on unearned runs ever happened? If so, how about pitching staff as bad as the rockies giving up 0 earned runs in 3 games?

There have been 50 games this year (including today) in which a team’s pitchers had no earned runs charged to the them, but the pitchers did allow runs to score. I don’t have team earned runs in the Day by Day Database, so 50 is a floor. Interestingly, 18 of those happened since Aug. 1. Only four of those games resulted in losses. Besides the two by Colorado, the Pirates beat the Brewers 4-0 on 8/25, and the Royals beat the Rays 1-0 on 8/21. So all the losses have come in about a two-week period.

Tim Hudson faced 29 batters, and all but four put the ball in play. The Rockies managed just six hits.

September 6, 2012

Throwback

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The Braves lead the Rockies 1-0 in the bottom of the fourth, the one run scoring on an unusual play. With Juan Francisco on third, Rockies catcher Wilin Rosario held a pitch and looked Rosario back to the base. He then threw the ball back to the pitcher, Jhoulys Chacin, who swatted at the ball and knocked back behind the mound. That allowed Francisco to score, and give the Braves a 1-0 lead. I’m not sure I’ve seen that before. I’ve seen catchers not be able to throw the ball to the pitcher, but this was a perfectly good throw. I wonder if Wilin holding the ball longer threw off Chacin’s timing?

September 5, 2012

Minor Miracle

Mike Minor just finished six no-hit innings against the Rockies. He’s walked two and struck out four, and is actually throwing a low percentage of strikes, 56.6% The Braves lead 1-0 as they come to bat in the bottom of the sixth.

Update: Jordan Pacheco singles leading off the 7th inning.

September 2, 2012

Chacin Back in Form

It’s good to see Jhoulys Chacin back in form after a shoulder problem. He allowed one run in seven innings Saturday against the Padres in the Rockies 9-1 win.

It was the first time a Rockies starting pitcher had gone seven innings since the team instituted its unorthodox four-man rotation with a roughly 75-pitch limit per outing June 19 (Chacin had 74 pitches). The last starter to go that long in a game was Christian Friedrich on June 4 against Arizona.

Chacin allowed one run in each of his three starts. He’s not striking out batters yet, but his walk and home run rates have been good enough to keep him in the game.

August 29, 2012

Kemp’s Contustion

Matt Kemp had a run-in with a wall Tuesday night.

According to the Dodgers, Kemp was officially diagnosed with a right knee contusion. He’ll also undergo x-rays on his jaw, but to this point has had no concussion-like symptoms. So it appears that he has escaped a significant injury and should only be sidelined a handful of games.

The Dodgers lost to the Rockies 8-4, while San Francisco scored twice in the ninth to beat Houston 3-2. That drops the Dodgers 3 1/2 games behind the Giants. So far, the big trade isn’t working the way Los Angeles wanted.

The Rockies are 12-4 in their last 16 games. Maybe they’re not as bad as Mike Francesa thought.

August 24, 2012

To Increase Mather’s Spirit

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Joe Mather knocked in the go-ahead run with a single in the eighth inning, and the Cubs go on to a 5-3 win over the Rockies. Chicago came into the eighth trailing 3-2 on two solo home runs, and after Brett Jackson led off the inning with Chicago’s third solo of the contest, the Cubs still didn’t have a hit on a fieldable ball in play. Luis Valbuena double broke that string, and Mather’s single were the only hits of that type for the Cubs all game. The Cubs came into the game hitting just .226 since the All-Star break, and their 5 for 29 didn’t help that number at all. They won with power and timing.

August 24, 2012

In Play No Hitter

Drew Pomeranz just finished four no-hit innings against the Cubs. He walked one, but also struck out just one. Chicago is putting the ball in play, but none of them are finding holes. The Rockies hold an early 3-0 lead in the game.

Update: Alfonso Soriano leads off the fifth with a home run.

Update: DJ LeMahieu homers in the innings also, cutting the Rockies lead to 3-2. Those are the only hits in the game for Chicago, so the Rockies have turned every fieldable ball in play into an out.

August 23, 2012

Swept by the Rockies

The Rockies solidified their annual late season surge with a sweep of the Mets at Citi Field. In a very low scoring contest, Colorado wins 1-0 when Chris Nelson drives in Tyler Colvin in the eighth, after Colvin led off with a triple. The Rockies have won five in a row and nine of their last 11 games. Despite that, they own the third worst record in the National League and are 17 games out in the wild card race.

The good news for the Mets was the pitching of Collin McHugh, making his major league debut. Collin was a high K, low BB pitching in the minors, and the 25-year-old (seasonal age) walked one and struck out nine in seven shutout innings. The Mets offense just could not come through for him. Given his consistently good three-true outcomes in the minors, I’m surprised it took this long for him to get called up.

August 21, 2012

Young No-No

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Chris Young has a perfect game through five innings for the Mets. He’s struck out six Rockies as the Mets lead 1-0 in the bottom of the fifth. It would be impressive if after 50 years of zero no-hitters, the Mets would get two in one season. Of course, given that a ball in Johan Santana‘s no-hitter hit the chalk line and was called foul, Young might end up with the first pure one in team history.

Update: DJ LeMahieu breaks up the no-hitter with an infield single leading off the top of the sixth.

August 18, 2012

The Assualt on Coors Continues

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Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run in the first inning against the Rockies in Denver. He has now played six games at Coors field and homered in each of them. The one tonight was a three-run homer that gave the Marlins an early 4-0 lead. Stanton has now driven in ten runs and scored seven in his games at Coors.

August 11, 2012

Bad Rotation

The AP notes Drew Pomeranz‘s short start Saturday afternoon seems to be normal for the Rockies:

The Rockies starters have pitched four innings or fewer a major league high 33 times.

You can see how poor the Rockies rotation performed this season in the game score report. As the average game score goes down, the difference between any two adjacent teams is small, until you get to team 27. There’s a big drop from 26 to 27, but the Royals, Indians, and Twins are grouped close together. Finally, there is another big drop from those teams to the Rockies in last place. There average game score is just 41.9. They have only turned in 24 quality starts, while every other team has at least 41. At the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how the average game score for this rotation ranks over a long time span.

The Giants win 9-3. Buster Posey returned to the lineup and went two for four with a homer and a walk to continue his hot hitting.

August 6, 2012

Season Ending?

Todd Helton needs surgery on his hip labrum:

Helton, who turns 39 later this month, told The Post that he plans on returning to the Rockies next season.

“The recovery time is about six months, so I am doing this now so I can be ready for spring training,” Helton told the newspaper. “I plan on playing next year.”

He is under contract for 2013. Given his poor play this season and age, I wonder if the Rockies will try to convince him to retire?

August 1, 2012

Rockies Shakeup

Dan O’Dowd received a non-demotion demotion:

After rumors spread last night that Dan O’Dowd was reassigned persisted into the morning,Troy Renck batted away the smoke to get the details of the front office shift. Here is what we know:

Dan O’Dowd was not fired.

Dan O’Dowd will remain the Rockies general manager by name.

Dan O’Dowd will still oversee all baseball operations, trades, free agents, waiver claims and other player acquisitions.

Now for the changes:

Dan O’Dowd will be shifting his focus to the minor leagues and player development.

Bill Geivett has been named Senior Vice President of Major League Operations,continuing his rise in the organization. Geivett will work closely with Jim Tracy but will still answer to Dan O’Dowd.

As Dave Cameron has already pointed out, those responsibilities seem backwards to the traditional position titles.

I remember getting a promotion once from programmer to senior programmer. I asked if my work or pay would be any different, and my boss said no. I pointed out that it really wasn’t a promotion, then. The exact opposite happened here. O’Dowd keeps his title, but he clearly has less responsibility. That to me is a demotion.

July 18, 2012

A Little Help from his Friends

The Pirates beat the Rockies 9-6 Wednesday afternoon. Andrew McCutchen had a rare quiet day at the plate, going 0 for 4 with a walk and a run scored. His teammates picked him up, however, as they hit four home runs in the game, part on an 11 hit attack. Garrett Jones missed the cycle by a triple, and Pedro Alvarez hit his 19th home run. The Pirates keep the pressure on the Reds, who are losing 7-1 to the Diamondbacks in the top of the eighth.

July 8, 2012

Rockies Road

Jeremy Guthrie shows once again that he can pitch away from Coors field. He gives up two runs in six innings against the Nationals to lower his road ERA to 3.67. His ERA stands at 9.44 at home. The Rockies beat Washington 4-3.

Despite the loss, Washington goes into the All-Star break with the best record in the National League and a four game lead over Atlanta in the NL East.

June 28, 2012

Scoot-Off Win

Marco Scutaro singles on a 3-2 count with two out in the bottom of the 11th to drive home the winning run as the Rockies beat the Nationals 11-10. There were two Coors Fields today, the one where the hitters dominated, as the teams combined to score 19 runs in the first five innings. The Rockies got out to a 7-0 lead after two innings, and the Nats tied the game at nine. The pitchers dominated the last six innings, with just two runs scored, one on a Bryce Harper homer in the top of the ninth to tie the game.

After not score ten runs in any game this season, the Nationals score ten runs in three straight games.

June 28, 2012

Scoring Disagreement

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I just saw a play in the Nationals/Rockies game, and I disagree with the scoring decision. The Rockies were leading 1-0, and had the bases loaded with no one out in the bottom of the first. Chris Nelson grounded a ball down the third base line, and Ryan Zimmerman went to his right to field it. He booted it, knocking the ball into foul territory. He stayed with the ball, however, picked it up, and faked a throw to third. Carlos Gonzalez rounded third and looked up to see where the throw went, and Zimmerman tagged Cargo out. Ryan turned a lemon into lemonade.

The official scorer ruled this as Nelson reaching on a fielder’s choice. However, since Gonzalez reached base safely, I saw it as either a hit or error (an error in my opinion), with the runner out trying to advance. It was a base runner error that caused the out, although it was caused by fielding legerdemain. I suppose the OS saw this as a continuation of the same play, not a new play after the batter reached.

Tyler Colvin homered to give Colorado a 5-0 lead, which they still hold as they bat in the bottom of the first.

June 28, 2012

Western Roundup

The Rangers matched the Angels in wins and runs Wednesday night as they beat Detroit 13-9. It was a good day to be named D. Murphy as David Murphy of the Rangers out did Daniel Murphy of the Mets by a bit. David and Daniel both hit two home runs on Wednesday, but David collected four hits and five RBI to Daniel’s three and four. Leonys Martin went two for four in the game with a double and a triple and is now 6 for 19 on the season with three doubles and two triples. I don’t think he’ll bat ninth much longer.

Doug Fister and Roy Oswalt both pitched well in terms of walks and strikeouts, but Fister allowed three home runs and both saw over 50% of balls in play fall for hits against them in the game.

The Nationals power surge continued with an 11-5 win over the Rockies in Denver. Veterans Ryan Zimmerman and Mike Morse collected two hits each, while rookies Bryce Harper, Tyler Moore, and Jhonatan Solano combined to go 7 for 14 with three doubles, a home run, five runs score and five RBI. Jordan Zimmermann got away with pitching to contact, walking three and striking out one in seven innings. He got the Rockies to keep the ball on the ground and allowed one run.

The Nationals own the best record in the National League and maintian their 3 1/2 game lead over the Braves. The Rangers are a game down in the loss column to the Yankees for best record in the AL and lead the Angels by 4 1/2.

June 27, 2012

The Others Come to Life

The Nationals collect 11 extra base hits, a record since moving to Washington as they beat the Rockies 12-5. A number of players suffering through poor seasons produced big games. Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Morse, and Ian Desmond have all been out machines this season. Zimmerman knocked out three hits, Morse and Desmond four each, seven of those for extra bases. Ryan and Mike homered and doubled, while Desmond hit three doubles. Rookie Tyler Moore drove in three with a home run and singled, and he’s taken up some slack as Bryce Harper fell into a bit of a slump. Zimmerman is six for 13 with two doubles and a home run since a cortisone shot relieved some pain.

If the Nationals can get their veteran hitters to come around, they’ll make life much easier for their excellent pitching staff. It will also be easier to defend their 3 1/2 game lead in the AL East. They have a ways to go, as only Desmond of the three raised his OBP above .300 with the big night.

June 25, 2012

Double Jesus

Jesus Flores and Baseball Jesus, a.k.a. Stephen Strasburg hit back to back doubles in the top of the firth inning, giving the Nationals a 2-1 lead over the Rockies. Stephen’s slash line now stands at .348/.375/.652 with four doubles and a home run. Strasburg and Jeff Francis are in a pitching duel, both with no walks and four strikeouts through the first four innings.

June 25, 2012

The End of Interleague as We Know It

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With the Yankees beating the Mets 6-5 Sunday night, the current version of interleague play comes to an end. With 15 teams in each league next season, there will be constant IL series throughout the year. Instead of teams playing one short and one long stretch of interleague games, they will be an almost daily occurrence.

The AL wins this round of play 142-110, a .563 winning percentage. Note that run scoring did not change much when a pitcher or designated hitter batted. The AL outscored the NL 4.61 to 4.12 runs per games with the DH, 4.45 to 4.09 without the DH. One of the problems that faces the NL is with all the pitchers carried, they can’t afford to carry a great hitter on the bench, so a designated hitter doesn’t add much to their offenses.

Texas was the big winner, going 14-4 against NL opponents. They managed to gain two games on the Angles, who finished third at 12-6. The Yankees used their might to go 13-5, gaining two games on Baltimore (11-7) and four on Tampa Bay (9-9). Arizona owned the best winning percentage in the NL at 9-6, .600, while Pittsburgh and Washington won the most games, both 10-8.

The bottom seven teams all came from the NL, with the Rockies going 2-13 for the worst record, and Miami 5-13 for the second spot.

According to the ESPN broadcast Sunday night, all teams will play 20 IL games next season. We’ll see how the NL adjusts. They should at least think about calling up a great AAA hitter and sending down a pitcher when they face AL teams. An NL team that can beat AL teams can gain a bit of an advantage, certainly enough to move into the second wild card slot.

June 21, 2012

When the Rockies Plan Works

Wednesday night showed he weakness of the Rockies four-man rotation plan, Thursday showed how it could work effectively. Jeff Francis started and pitched five strong innings with 76 pitches, allowing just one run. He left down 1-0, but the Rockies bullpen did their job and held the Phillies scoreless the rest of the way. That gave the Colorado offense a chance to come back, as they finally got to Vance Worley in the seventh for two runs and end up winning 4-1. Chris Nelson had the big hit with a two-run homer in the seventh. Vance now knows how Cliff Lee feels this year.