2024 Rockies: We've Tried Nothing And We're All Out of Ideas

[FlexFlexerson]

I think it's been a while since adopt-a-team has covered the Rockies of Colorado. Well, what the hell, I could use a little more pain and suffering in my life.

Two items to start us off:

1) the Rockies are one of the teams that have moved to an in-market streaming option, so true masochists can pay $100/year to watch this team: https://www.purplerow.com/2024/2/14/24073003/colorado-rockies-will-stream-games-on-new-platform-rockies-tv-mlb

I will fascinated if we can glean any info on how many people sign up. As a longtime cable-cutter, this does present the horrific possibility I may actually, like, buy this service and watch these games.

2) The Rockies are projected to lose 104 games this season, worst in the majors:
View: https://twitter.com/PatrickDLyons/status/1754994987542999232


Oh, and Daniel Bard injured himself and is going to miss Spring Training. This is before Spring Training has even started. Let's see how much worse it can get for the Boys in Purple this season. Join me, as I half ass it to start the season and then, in true Rockies fashion, just give up.

Rockies Fever: contract it!

 

[mwonow]

That's a heck of an intro, Flex!

 

[Rudi Fingers]

2) The Rockies are projected to lose 104 games this season, worst in the majors:
View: https://twitter.com/PatrickDLyons/status/1754994987542999232

The Colorado Rockies' Advance Projections are literally CRAP

 

[FlexFlexerson]

Well, since the Rockies don't really "sign players" or anything, it's been pretty quiet over here in the Rocky Mountains. One of the few things about the Rockies that has popped up on my radar at all since Spring Training began is this cartoon:

Link: https://coloradosun.com/2024/03/01/drew-litton-spring-training-rockies-call-the-whole-thing-off/

Now, this is as "funny" as most newspaper cartoons, but it gets the vibe right anyways. It did remind me, though, that the Colorado Sun did an extensive deep dive into what's wrong with the Rockies last season, it's a pretty good read for folks who want to get caught up on where exactly the franchise is. Spoilers: the franchise is stuck in nowheresville and everyone is the problem, but most especially the Monforts. Anyways, here's the link to the series: https://coloradosun.com/rockies-at-30/

In other news, the Rockies front office staffing drain continues (the article alludes to the churn on the analytics side of the FO in recent years - indeed, I think with Haby's departure total staff size is around 10 now) and the devoted maniacs at Purple Row have an extensive writeup of the Rockies farm system where probably the key, bottom line takeaway is that the system took steps back in ranking and valuation relative to last year. Still some meaty stuff in there to peruse if you want. In some ways, the system has some of the same problems as the Sox: some decent prospective talent but a dearth of the kind of franchise-changing pitching talent a team like the Rockies, or anyone, really needs to be competitive. I hear it's a problem that's going around.

I think games are happening though. In the Purple Row Rockies game threads, people are already talking about how the Rox face LA 10 times towards the end of the season and hopefully the team will be good enough to spoil some home field advantage for the Dodgers and maybe fuck up some player bonuses or something. That's the optimism for the season. Good stuff.

 

[jon abbey]

Isn't the fundamental problem with the franchise that it's pretty much impossible to build a team when your hitters and pitchers both have to deal with entirely different circumstance in road and home games? I'm not sure even the best ownership in the world could deal with that successfully for a prolonged period.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

Joe Posnanski started doing season previews for each team the other day, going in reverse order of projected wins. The Rockies came in at #30:
https://joeblogs.joeposnanski.com/p/no-30-colorado-rockies

My big problem with the Rockies now is not that they’re bad—teams generally go through low ebbs, and I’ve certainly been around a lot of bad teams in my life—but that I have no idea who they are or what they’re about or what they’re trying to accomplish. No clue.
Let me offer just two 2023 statistics that describes my utter confusion: The Rockies batters led the National League in strikeouts. I cannot begin to explain how much that blows my mind. A team that plays in Coors Field, the best singles park in baseball, leads the league in strikeouts? I simply cannot imagine anything more self-defeating than building a high-strikeout team in Colorado. Put the ball in play, take your chances, right?
At the same time, their pitching staff was dead last in the National League in strikeouts. Again, I simply cannot imagine anything more self-defeating than building a low-strikeout pitching staff in Colorado. Opponents hit .302 at Coors Field with a .870 OPS. The Rockies hit .262 at Coors Field with a .778 OPS.
It all feels like the exact opposite of what they should be doing.

In many ways, the Colorado Rockies face the toughest challenge in baseball: Beating the altitude. There are just so many difficulties to overcome. There’s the trouble of building an offense that can hit well at home AND on the road. Sam Miller pointed out in last year’s Baseball Prospectus that the Rockies have been an above-average hitting team on the road ONCE in their history.
There’s the trouble of getting enough pitchers to make it through the season. Do you know how many Rockies pitchers threw 160 innings in 2023? That would be zero. The Rockies had to start 17 different pitchers over the season, many with fun names like Chris Flexen and Dinelson Lamet and Karl Kauffmann and Connor Seabold and Austin Gomber.
And so on. It’s a challenge, no doubt. And the Rockies seem no closer to figuring out this puzzle than ever—they actually seem further away than ever. The seven-year, $182 million deal they gave Kris Bryant after he had so clearly started the decline phase of his career—and after the Rockies traded away Nolan Arenado—was a perfect demonstration of this befuddlement. They seem to just be throwing stuff at walls in Denver (and in some cases, missing walls).

 

[Yelling At Clouds]

Here's some Rockies content - catching up with Kris Bryant, who seems to maybe regret the whole "signing with the Rockies" thing...
https://theathletic.com/5306377/2024/02/29/kris-bryant-cubs-rockies-contract-spotlight/

 

[FlexFlexerson]

Isn't the fundamental problem with the franchise that it's pretty much impossible to build a team when your hitters and pitchers both have to deal with entirely different circumstance in road and home games? I'm not sure even the best ownership in the world could deal with that successfully for a prolonged period.

The Colorado Sun series I linked to aims to tackle that question. That article ends up landing on, essentially, yeah it's an issue but there should be smart ways for a team to compensate:

So, is altitude to blame?

We talked to two baseball-mad scientists for this story — in addition to Nathan, we also spoke with University of Colorado mechanical engineering professor Peter Hamlington. And we asked both whether playing at altitude just makes it impossible for the Rockies to be good.

Neither took the bait.

Nathan said the altitude effects are known things, so they are something team leaders can plan around. Organize your farm system to produce nothing but altitude-inured mountain goats. Sign pitchers who are good at getting opposing hitters to swing and miss — taking out of the equation how far a ball can travel at altitude.

“One of the things that major league players are really, really good at is adjusting,” he said.

(The Rockies, of course, would argue that they have tried and are trying all of these things.)

Hamlington pointed out that, as tough as the altitude is for ballplayers in Denver, it could be worse. Denver’s dry air actually mutes some of altitude’s impacts because dry air is more dense than humid air. A city of Denver’s elevation in the tropics would produce even wilder baseball.

“It’s kind of hard at times to parse out what is due to the lower density of the air versus the lack of humidity versus the size of the outfield,” he said.

On top of that, altitude training should in theory give Rockies players a slight advantage over their competitors. Pitchers will fatigue less quickly. Hitters can recover faster from running the bases. “Good general managers will try to put together a team that fits Coors Field, trying to take advantage of things that could be a disadvantage,” Nathan said.

Link: https://coloradosun.com/2023/08/22/colorado-rockies-coors-field-elevation/

Anecdotally, I moved to Colorado in 1993 - the Rockies inaugural season - and while there have been a lot of ups and downs, there were a good chunk of competitive years there too. They weren't always an organization that other teams literally couldn't get a hold of to talk trades or whatever. There's good evidence that baseball in Colorado will always be a challenge, but organizational rot seems like why those challenges aren't being managed, like, at all anymore.

 

[FlexFlexerson]

Oh and

Joe Posnanski started doing season previews for each team the other day, going in reverse order of projected wins. The Rockies came in at #30:
https://joeblogs.joeposnanski.com/p/no-30-colorado-rockies

Thanks for sharing this. Pos seems to get the twin challenges of the built in environment and the absolutely rudderless leadership and roster construction.

Here's some Rockies content - catching up with Kris Bryant, who seems to maybe regret the whole "signing with the Rockies" thing...
https://theathletic.com/5306377/2024/02/29/kris-bryant-cubs-rockies-contract-spotlight/

Ha, after I posted my little update I actually saw some comments of Rockies fans getting a bit chippy about Bryant but hadn't had time to track down the origin. Real bad fit signing which was obvious at the time. I remember seeing some spring training interview with him after he signed saying he's never played for an under .500 team before and he doesn't plan to start now and thought "ah, good luck with that one."