Traditionally, records don’t matter until Memorial Day, but the season is already over on Blake Street.
Through 39 games, the Colorado Rockies are doing the implausible–trailing last year’s White Sox for the worst record in modern baseball history. Their 6-33 (.154 win percentage) is almost the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats level of evil. While there is a long way to go, FanGraphs projects the team winning nearly 40% of their remaining games.
The Rockies have a zero chance of making the playoffs, and that has been the conclusion since the calendar turned to April. It leaves me to wonder why this season has gone about as well as expected, or at least how I expected it.
The first reason is that they are vying for the least number of runs scored in the Major Leagues this season. Coors Field is a mile above mean sea level. Just let that sink in for a second. The team with the second-fewest runs scored per game (3.18, only beating PIT) plays half of its games in the most hitter-friendly park in the Majors (110.5 park factor, according to Baseball Reference, where the average is 100).
Kyle Farmer as a Rockie (photo courtey Rox Pile)
The Rockies aren’t even a leading-edge team in payroll cost-cutting (20th according to Spotrac), and other teams in heavy hitters’ parks are doing very well comparatively–with Boston and Cincinnati around .500 with large plus-run differentials. A lot of this comes off the bats of 1B Michael Toglia and IF Kyle Farmer. Both were strong fly-ball hitters last season, with ground/fly ball ratios well below 1. But that form disappeared in the first quarter of this year’s campaign.
What they have gotten into the air hasn’t traveled as far either, with infield fly-ball rate increasing by a factor of four, hits from the barrel of the bat down markedly, and exit velocity loss of three MPH compared to last season. It may be, though watching film isn’t quite my strong point yet, something to do with the bat is angled during the swing, at least for Toglia, after comparing footage at 4x slow motion from highlights from the MLB official YouTube channel about ninemonths ago, along with footage uploaded yesterday by a channel named Baseball Is Everything. Those two, along with DH Nick Martini, who has similar ground and fly ball rates and an isolated power of .027, form the mid-to-back part of the batting order, and predictably, shred many opportunities.
Coors Field (photo courtesy CoPIRG Foundation)
Now to the other half of the equation, pitching. At the best of times, pitching at Coors Field is an arduous task. This year, however, has been horrific, with Rockies pitchers allowing 6.62 runs per game. Worse yet, no one has made a statistical case proving they haven’t had a hand in the mistakes, other than the setup men and closers. They haven’t found a way to consistently get to them without being down and out. Luck hasn’t turned for them either, with opponents earning a BABIP of .340, 48 points higher than the league average.
The only thing I can think of is giving the players who aren’t arbitration-eligible yet more time to develop, as last night’s 13-run albatross from Bradley Blaylock isn’t likely to be a fluke. Well, spend an amount closer to the CBT threshold, and start giving teams half-shares of the local revenue pool if they can’t win 70 games every other year.
Ultimately, I’m unsure what they can do to fix this, except wait until the Winter Meetings and start planning an October trip. I’ll tell you if Cincinnati is worthwhile, as I’ll attend a game in person.
