For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Colorado Rockies.

Batters

There are a lot of problems with the Colorado Rockies as an organization, but I think the biggest one is different than what ails most other poorly run franchises. It’s not parsimony; while the Rockies aren’t exactly the Mets, with a projected 2023 payroll around $163 million, they’re not the Pirates or the Marlins either. Playing in Coors make things trickier, but the team’s already shown they can find viable starting pitching — the biggest challenge in an environment like Denver — and they play in a beautiful park and city, and get consistent fan support. It isn’t even necessarily an analytics problem. While the top levels of the org clearly aren’t on board with the ways modern front offices think about the game — they have a department with sky-high employee churn — this is more a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. The problem that plagues the Rockies is a lack of imagination.

What do I mean by imagination? With most bad teams, you can imagine the scenario in which they’re good. The Orioles looked like a pretty lousy club entering the 2022 season, but they also had the most high-upside minor league talent in baseball. The Reds have several young pitchers with impressive physical tools, while the Pirates have some interesting starters to go along with some good prospects and young big leaguers at key defensive positions. But if you look at the Rockies, especially the offense, there just isn’t ambition there. While it’s bad that this group projects as one of the worst lineups in the league, it’s even worse that they project as having the lowest variance of any team I’ve projected so far this offseason. It’s a bit like buying a lottery ticket; almost every time you play Powerball, you’re going to be a loser, but if you hit it big, you become fabulously wealthy. Nobody buys a Powerball ticket because the winning prize is a 1989 Mercury Sable. Read the rest of this entry »

The Colorado Rockies have received their fair share of criticism since winning 91 games and earning a Wild Card berth in 2018. Four losing seasons have played a part in that, but so too have some questionable decisions, financial and otherwise. Four months ago — and he’s no lone wolf in having offered such a critique — my colleague Dan Szymborski called Colorado “The worst-run organization in baseball.”

My own coverage of the club, which has focused primarily on players, prospects, and coaches, has included neither criticism nor compliment. Which isn’t to say I’m not intrigued by brickbats thrown. I am, which led me to approach Colorado GM Bill Schmidt to get his perspective on some of what has been said about the team he’s been with for two-plus decades.

The first thing I asked Schmidt about was the October decision to fire hitting coach Dave Magadan and replace him with Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens, who’d previously worked with the San Francisco Giants and, this past season, the New York Yankees.

“They’re different people with different experiences.” said Schmidt, a longtime scout who replaced Jeff Bridich (initially on an interim basis) as Colorado’s GM in May 2021. “Hensley had a lot of success with the Giants. There are certain things… I’ll let him talk about the certain things he believes in, but he and Bags were different types of players who have different ideas of what they consider important.”

Bringing “Bam Bam” on board is notable in part because he’s an outsider; the Rockies have often been called an insular organization. Schmidt bristled when asked about that claim. as well as about accusations that the team he leads lacks direction. Read the rest of this entry »

The 40-man roster deadline led to the usual squall of transaction activity, with teams turning over portions of their rosters in an effort to make room for the incoming crop of young rookies. Often, teams with an overflow of viable big leaguers will try to get back what they can for some of those players via trade, but because we’re talking about guys straddling the line between major league viability and Triple-A, those trades tend not to be big enough to warrant an entire post.

Here I endeavor to cover and analyze the moves made by each team, division by division. Readers can view this as the start of list season, as the players covered in this miniseries tend to be prospects who will get big league time in the next year. We’ll spend more time discussing players who we think need scouting updates or who we haven’t written about in the past. If you want additional detail on some of the more famous names you find below, pop over to The Board for a more thorough report.

The Future Value grades littered throughout these posts may be different than those on the 2022 in-season prospect lists on The Board to reflect our updated opinions and may be subject to change during the offseason. New to our thinking on this subject and wondering what the FVs mean? Here’s a quick rundown. Note that because we’re talking about close-to-the-majors prospects across this entire exercise, the time and risk component is less present here and these FVs are what we think the players are right now. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2019 election, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Baseball at high altitude is weird. The air is less dense, so pitched balls break less and batted balls carry farther — conditions that greatly favor the hitters. Meanwhile, reduced oxygen levels make breathing harder, physical exertion more costly, and recovery times longer. Ever since major league baseball arrived in Colorado in 1993, no player put up with more of this, the pros and cons of playing at a mile-high elevation, than Todd Helton.

A Knoxville native whose career path initially led to the gridiron, ahead of Peyton Manning on the University of Tennessee quarterback depth chart, Helton shifted his emphasis back to baseball in college and spent his entire 17-year career (1997–2013) playing for the Rockies. “The Toddfather” was without a doubt the greatest player in franchise history, its leader in most major offensive counting stat categories. He made five All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, a slash line triple crown — leading in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in the same season — and served as a starter and a team leader for two playoff teams, including Colorado’s only pennant winner. He posted batting averages above .300 12 times, on-base percentages above .400 nine times, and slugging percentages above .500 eight times. He mashed 40 doubles or more seven times and 30 homers or more six times; twice, he topped 400 total bases, a feat that only one other player (Sammy Sosa) has repeated in the post-1960 expansion era. He drew at least 100 walks in a season five times, yet only struck out 100 times or more once; nine times, he walked more than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

Nolan Jones might be ready to break out in Colorado, and turning 4 o’clock into 7 o’clock is how he would go about doing it. His time in Cleveland over — the Rockies acquired the rangy 6-foot-4 outfielder from the Guardians earlier this week in exchange for Juan Brito — Jones heads west with a swing that is, by his own admission, compact in the cage and too long in the batter’s box. Striking an effective balance between the two is an ongoing goal and a key to his future success.

“I’ve got really long levers, so I’m trying to simplify my moves and make them more efficient,” Jones told me earlier this summer. “Like anybody else, my moves become bigger in the game, and when your limbs are long, a two-inch move in the cage can become a six-inch move. My swings in the cage are those toned-down moves. I’m trying to be shorter to where, when they get bigger in the game, they’re right where I want them to be.”

Reaching his potential has been a frustrating endeavor for the 24-year-old. Selected in the second round of the 2016 draft out of Philadelphia’s Holy Ghost Preparatory School, Jones has ranked as Cleveland’s top prospect multiple times, and he was No. 51 in our Top 100 as recently as the spring of 2021. What has largely held him back is a penchant to swing-and-miss, a trait that accompanied him to the big leagues this season. Along with a .244/.309/.372 slash line over 94 plate appearances, the rookie had a 33% strikeout rate and a worst-on-the-club 71.6% Z-contact rate. Given the Guardians’ preference for hitters who can consistently put the ball in play, Jones no longer fitting into their plans comes as no surprise. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rockies and Braves wasted little time in kicking off the offseason trade market. On Sunday, just one day after the World Series came to a thrilling conclusion, the clubs made a one-for-one swap: Sam Hilliard for Dylan Spain. And while the move’s significance paled in comparison to the the major transaction of the day, Edwin Díaz’s extension with the Mets, there is more to it than meets the eye.

For many Braves fans, their biggest concern might be how the team chooses to fill the Dansby Swanson-shaped hole at shortstop. Currently, our depth charts have rookie standout Vaughn Grissom soaking up 74% of the innings at short. But though he fared quite well with the bat in his major league audition, to the tune of a 121 wRC+, the 21-year-old graded out as a net negative at second base this year. His mark of -5 Outs Above Average (OAA) at the position, typically thought to be the easier of the middle infield spots to defend, does not portend success at short.

The larger question mark for the Braves might be in left field, though. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Michael Harris II are locked into right and center, but there is no clear choice for the club in left. As Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario floundered, Atlanta’s left fielders this year cost the team 0.8 WAR, tied with the lowly Rangers for the worst mark in the league. Hilliard can play all three outfield spots but has played the most in left and grades out best there in terms of OAA, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR). He provides the Braves with meaningful depth at their weakest position, well worth the cost of a 24-year-old relief prospect in Spain, who spent the year amassing a 5.30 ERA in High-A. Read the rest of this entry »

Dinelson Lamet’s time in Milwaukee is over before it ever really began, as the team cut him loose last Wednesday. Between missing time with forearm soreness and two stints in the minors, Lamet was ineffective for the Padres this season, issuing nine walks and 13 runs in just 12 1/3 innings spread over 13 relief appearances. One of four players sent to Milwaukee last week for Josh Hader, he never got into a game with the Brewers before being designated for assignment and subsequently claimed by the Rockies.

Typically, a quiet waiver wire claim of a struggling relief pitcher without a big contract falls, well, under the wire, but Lamet is a pitcher I’ve always been fascinated with. Plus, I like surprises, and there’s a big one here: the Rockies did something I really, really like.

Lamet has long been an interesting pitcher, but he’s had a number of serious setbacks that leave him with his career up in the air barely after his 30th birthday. Already behind the usual development curve as a prospect by virtue of being an amateur signee just before his 22nd birthday who was delayed by two years because of paperwork issues, he’s had less time to hone his craft professionally than most. Tommy John surgery cost him his 2018 season, and much of his 2019, and the always dreaded forearm soreness left him on the injured list for large chunks of ’21 and ’22.

Despite the relative lack of experience and the injuries, Lamet got solid results from 2017 to ’20 with a fastball that poked into the upper-90s and a slider that batters ineffectually whiffed through. In 256 1/3 innings over 47 starts in that span, he struck out just under 12 per nine innings, for an ERA of 3.76, a FIP of 3.72, and a healthy WAR tally of 5.1. Per 180 innings, that amounts to 3.6 WAR, nearly at the level we consider to be All-Star, but 180 innings has been a big “but” for him. Time that he should have been honing a third pitch, he instead spent recovering from his various injuries.

With less time spent in Milwaukee than Mike Piazza was a Marlin — I’m not sure Lamet even got issued a jersey in his two days on the team — it seems clear that an extended look at him was not in the team’s plans. It’s hard to blame the Brewers for that, as they’re thick in battle with the Cardinals for the NL Central crown and with a few other teams for one of the wild card spots. A reclamation projection isn’t an ideal situation for a contending team in August to be in. Where Lamet needed to go was to a team out of the playoff race and thin enough on talent that it could afford to look at a 30-year-old who may not be on the roster for more than two months. Enter the Rockies. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rockies conjured up their own trade deadline magic, extending their closer, Daniel Bard, to a two-year contract extension reportedly worth $19 million. Bard, who turned 37 last month, has done a solid job as Colorado’s closer for the second straight season, putting up a 1.91 ERA — though with a considerably less impressive 3.55 FIP — in 37 appearances for the last-place Rockies this season.

Colorado had previously dropped hints that there were not going to be many, if any, trades of veteran talent this week. As this extension highlights, this was not a negotiating position to entice other teams to make more lucrative offers for its most valuable players. At this point, I doubt anyone in baseball thought otherwise, as the Rockies have long been notorious for not treating the trade deadline as an opportunity either to improve the team in a pennant drive or to rebuild/retool to help achieve future goals. For one of the best examples, look no further than last season, when they decided not to trade Trevor Story (to Story’s confusion) or Jon Gray, instead preferring to let the former walk for a compensation pick and, since he received no qualifying offer, the latter move on with no compensation for the franchise.

Don’t get me wrong: for a lot of teams, getting Bard as either a short-term rental or on this exact contract would have been a very good move. If he were not the best reliever plausibly available this week, he was certainly in the top tier, and a wide variety of contending teams with middling-or-worse bullpens, such as the Cardinals, Twins, or Blue Jays, ought to have had an interest in swapping prospects with real futures for his services. Bard’s 1.91 ERA this year is no more “real” than his 5.21 ERA last year in the opposite direction, but he’s an above-average closer, and it’s nice to be able to sign one of those in free agency to a two- or three-year deal at a reasonable price.

Liking Bard for the rest of 2022 and/or the next two seasons is not the least bit odd; it just makes little sense for the Rockies to be the organization to act on that positive evaluation. Even more baffling is that, when it came to Gray, they never went above a three-year, $35–$40 million offer — one they didn’t even make until the very end of the 2021 season. Valuing a solid starting pitcher only a little more than a solid closer is just the latest example of this organization’s dysfunction. Why trade for a 22-year-old and have to wait 15 years for him to become a 37-year-old veteran when you can just keep the player you have? Read the rest of this entry »

Trevor Story is an accomplished hitter. The 29-year-old Boston Red Sox infielder was a stalwart in the middle of the Colorado Rockies’ lineup prior to this season and has 173 home runs and a 110 wRC+ over six-plus MLB campaigns. Twice a National League All-Star, Story blasted 37 home runs in 2018, and he followed that up with 35 more in 2019.

His first go-round in the Junior Circuit has been of the up-and-down variety. Signed to a six-year, $140 million free-agent deal by Boston in March, Story has 15 long balls to his credit, but just a .221/.289/.423 slash line. Currently on the injured list with a hand contusion, the Irving, Texas native is expected to return to the Red Sox lineup in the near future.

Story discussed his evolution as a hitter earlier this week.

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David Laurila: Nolan Arenado and Daniel Murphy, players with different approaches to their craft, were among the earliest interviews for my Talks Hitting series. [Links here and here.] Which of your former Rockies teammates are you most similar to that regard?

Trevor Story: “It would be Nolan. He was a mentor to me my first few years, and we still talk the game a lot. Nolan pretty much taught me how to pull the ball the right way. But knowing yourself as a hitter… just like Murph did. Murph knew himself, and he knew that he was going to be thinking the other way or thinking up the middle. There are obviously different schools of thinking, and I would say I’m closer to Nolan, trying to get the ball in the air pull-side.”

Laurila: What about in terms of analytics? When I spoke to them, Arenado was all about keeping things as simple as possible, while Murphy was very in-depth and detailed. Have you delved into analytics much over the years? Read the rest of this entry »

You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

I’m touching up prospect lists using the same complex-based clustering as usual, incorporating notes from my in-person looks, sourced data, and the opinions of pro scouts. First up is the group of teams based in Scottsdale, with a focus on the Giants due to their status as contenders, making them the team most likely to be motivated to part with prospects between now and the trade deadline. Players whose Future Value grade changed have an “Up” or “Down” arrow in the “Trend” column on The Board.

Arizona Diamondbacks

I didn’t make many changes to Arizona’s list. Small-school righty Brandon Pfaadt leapfrogs former tiermates Blake Walston and Ryne Nelson, and moves into the Top 100. He’s throwing a tick harder than last year and working with three above-average (or better) pitches at Double-A Amarillo now that his changeup has taken a step forward. While he’s a below-average 2B/3B, recent debutant Buddy Kennedy has hit enough to be considered a righty-hitting 1-WAR role-player type, à la Mike Brosseau. Jose Curpa and Christian Montes De Oca have been added to the org list; their reports can be found on The Board. I also considered adding hard-throwing youngsters Rael Santos and Diomede Sierra (each 20-21 years old and sitting 94 mph), but they’ve been too walk-prone for that. Read the rest of this entry »