Troy Tulowitzki led the Rockies in wins above replacement last year, in a season where he played all of 91 games. Carlos Gonzalez played only 70 games. The only Colorado players to make 500 plate appearances were Charlie Blackmon, Justin Morneau and D.J. LeMahieu. The only Rockies pitcher to work even 150 innings was Jorge De La Rosa.
Colorado lost 96 games, and there is a little secret about what happened: it wasn’t just because there were a lot of injury problems. Take the case of Tulowitzki: with their best player on the field, the Rockies went 36-55 for a .396 winning percentage. When Tulowitzki did not play, Colorado was 30-41, a .423 winning percentage. The response of the front office was to spend the winter making bold moves such as trading neither Tulowitzki nor Gonzalez, doing nothing to replace departed free agent Michael Cuddyer and, uh, jeez, well, gosh, hey Nick Hundley is the new catcher!
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So, what can be expected from the Rockies in 2015? Here are five predictions.
1. The Rockies will be bad
It wasn’t just the 96 losses last year. Colorado has had four straight losing seasons. Even when everything was going as well as the Rockies could have ever hoped at the start of last season, Colorado spent exactly zero days in sole possession of first place, with one day tied on top of the National League West at 22-14 (which meant the Rockies went 44-82 the rest of the way, which, yikes). If Tulowitzki and Gonzalez stay healthy and stay on the team, the Rockies will not suffer the organization’s first 100-loss season. That’s a big if.
2. Fault Walt
The Rockies being terrible cannot totally be laid at the feet of manager Walt Weiss, now entering his third year at the helm. At the same time, the skipper is not blameless. The Rockies had the second-worst stolen base success rate in the majors, at 63.9%. Only the Cubs were worse, and they have a new manager now. At some point, when your runners keep getting thrown out, you have to tell them to stop. This will not be the reason that Weiss is the major leagues’ first manager fired this year – that decision will be about wins and losses. It’s just to say that even if the managerial change is based on failing to meet unreasonable expectations, sometimes right decisions can be made for wrong reasons.
3. Mile high Kyle
Kyle Kendrick has pitched his entire career up to now with the Phillies, with a 4.39 ERA and .775 OPS allowed at home, and 4.45 ERA and .772 OPS allowed on the road. In seven games (six starts) over the years in Denver, he has posted a 5.26 ERA and allowed an .820 OPS. The worst ERA among qualifiers for the National League ERA title last year belonged to Travis Wood of the Cubs, at 5.03. Kendrick was second-worst at 4.61. This year, the crown will be Kendrick’s alone at 5.18, helped along by a move to Denver that made no sense outside of the Rockies needing somebody to fill up some innings and Kendrick needing a job. Hey, so it actually makes great sense for everybody.
4. Fly, Hawk, fly
LaTroy Hawkins, the Rockies’ closer and the oldest player in the majors at 42, will not get a chance to finally win a World Series if he sticks around in Colorado all season. To give him a chance to get a ring, the Rockies will trade Hawkins in July. Tulowitzki and Gonzalez, however, will remain, as the Rockies continue to insist, as an organization, that these are the players they want to build their team around, even though both will be over 30 in 2016, which probably still is not the year that things will get turned around in Denver.
5. Not the worst
Despite their problems, highlighted by a pitching staff for which there really is no way to expect anything positive – even by Colorado standards, the Rockies will not be the worst team in baseball. They won’t even be the worst team in their own division. For a good chunk of the season, they will be, but Colorado does have Tulowitzki and Gonzalez. That gives the Rockies a leg up on Arizona, and the dead-cat bounce that Colorado gets after its managerial change will make the difference in a race to the bottom that really is not too terribly different from what happened last year at the wrong end of the West standings.