Although it’s not yet completely certain, it looks like the Rockies are going to earn a trip to the playoffs. Should they get there, they’re going to need someone who looks like an ace. And, you know what, even if the Rockies somehow miss the playoffs, there’s still going to be more baseball, in 2018 and beyond. In those years, the Rockies are going to need someone who looks like an ace. Even in this era where starting pitchers have slightly diminished importance, there’s no substitute for a No. 1. Every team could use one; every team badly wants one.

The Rockies might thank their lucky stars for Jon Gray. Not that it’s all been luck, of course — the Rockies drafted Gray in the first round, and the Rockies developed him. But, with pitching prospects, anything can happen, for almost any reason. There would’ve been countless opportunities for Gray’s career to veer off the tracks. Still could, I suppose. Nothing’s for sure. But where Gray is, now, a few weeks shy of his 26th birthday — he seems to be becoming the best starting pitcher the Rockies have ever had.

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You have to look past the raw runs-allowed numbers. If you do, though, you’ll quickly realize that a large part of the Rockies’ success this year has been their bullpen. Second in the National League in Wins Above Replacement, second in the entire league in Win Probability Added, third in Shutdowns, third from the bottom in Meltdowns, and first overall in Clutch: this is a strong unit. Talk to a some of Colorado’s relievers about what they’ve discovered this year and a trend emerges. There’s a bit of a secret, maybe, to building a good bullpen when you’re up a mile high.

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The Rockies are struggling again. After winning eight of nine to re-solidify their lead in the race for the second Wild Card spot, they’ve now lost five of seven, including their last three in a row. Meanwhile, the surging Brewers have won nine of 12, closing Colorado’s lead to just a single game. Yesterday, they got shut out by Matt Moore, who has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball this year. The team’s inconsistent offense broke up for 16 runs last Saturday, but scored a grand total of 12 runs in the other five games they’ve played in the last week, and now the Brewers are nipping at their heels.

But if you look at our Playoff Odds, our algorithm still thinks the Rockies are in a pretty good spot, with a 68% chance of capturing the second Wild Card spot, versus just 16% for the Brewers. With just a one game lead, this is a pretty big discrepancy, and might seem like our projections are just wildly overrating the difference between the two teams. However, those calculations aren’t just accounting for the projected performance of the Brewers and Rockies over the next week and a half, but also taking both teams’ schedules into account. And the schedules for the two teams couldn’t be more different.

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The baseball season is currently about seven-eighths complete. Typically, around this time, the MVP races in both leagues start to become somewhat clear, with two or three players distinguishing themselves from the crowd. In the American League, that’s more or less the case. Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge, and Mike Trout possess the highest WAR marks among batters by some distance. Boston’s Chris Sale, meanwhile, will almost certainly provoke philosophical debates about a pitcher’s worthiness for the distinction of MVP.

In the National League, however, the picture is much less clear. One could make a convincing argument for Paul Goldschmidt. On the other hand, Giancarlo Stanton might hit over 60 home runs. Anthony Rendon is the current NL WAR leader. Corey Seager is the best position player on the team with the best record. Joey Votto is having a great season even for Joey Votto (and even for a last-place team). Kris Bryant has approximated the offensive numbers from his MVP-winning season last year. And, finally, Nolan Arenado is generally regarded as the best player on a Rockies club that’s likely bound for a play-in game.

This post actually does concern a member of the Rockies. It isn’t Arenado, though. While Arenado is probably the club’s best player, that’s not necessarily the same thing as having authored the club’s best season. Charlie Blackmon earns that distinction, and he’s a deserving MVP candidate.

A brief examination of Blackmon’s stat line reveals some gaudy numbers. He’s got 34 homers, the third-highest total in the NL. His .338 batting average leads the league, as does his total of 128 runs scored. His .404 on-base percentage ranks seventh in the NL; his .617 slugging percentage trails only Stanton’s .644 mark.

Of course, those numbers are all a product of Coors Field to some degree. As a member of the Rockies, Blackmon plays half his games in a ballpark that inflates offensive lines, which naturally invites suspicion regarding the legitimacy of Blackmon’s hitting exploits.

Fortunately, we can account for that. His 147 wRC+ — a mark that adjusts both for league and park — ranks sixth in the NL and indicates that Blackmon has been one of the National League’s best hitters even after acknowledging the influence of Coors.

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When the Rockies set out on their road trip Thursday, the conventional wisdom was that the team needed to pick up at least three wins during their time away from home. Expectations are usually modest for Rockies road trips, but particularly when they’re travelling to Los Angeles, Phoenix, or San Francisco. Historically, the Rockies have fared very, very poorly in those cities. And yet, the Rockies skipped LA on Sunday night with a four-game sweep of the Dodgers in their back pocket. What? To say this was unexpected would be a severe understatement. Yes, the Dodgers haven’t looked right lately, but most honest Rockies fans would tell you that they expected LA to get right against Colorado in this series. Such a belief would be well founded.

The Rockies, simply put, haven’t ever played well against the Dodgers. Entering the series, Colorado had a .366 winning percentage in LA, one of their lowest against any competitor. But it’s even worse than that. During the team’s first seven seasons, they went 22-19 in Los Angeles, a respectable showing to be sure. In those seven years, they swept the Dodgers in LA three times, and weren’t swept once. Since 2000, it’s been quite a different story. In the 18 seasons since, up to the start of this series, Colorado had a 52-109 record in LA, good for a .323 winning percentage. Since 2000, LA has swept the Rockies 16 times in LA (including in 2017, the last time Colorado had been in town from June 23-25) and the Rockies had only swept them once. That one time was in 2007, during the magical Rocktober run.

Historical records from over a decade ago obviously don’t possess much (or even any) predictive value for the present. It’s the identities of the players on each roster — not their uniforms — which ultimately dictate the course of play. It makes the recent result no less surprising or rare, however.

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In the age of the shift, it takes a lot for a particular defensive alignment to merit real attention.

But over the weekend, the Diamondbacks managed to do just that, utilizing what appears to be the most dramatic shift in recent history — notable even more so because the park at which they did it, Coors Field, features one of the game’s largest outfields.

We’ve seen about every variety of infield shift over the last four years, but we’ve never witnessed anything quite like what the Diamondbacks employed against DJ LeMahieu.

That gets your attention. That is bold.

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Last night, with a 4-3 leading heading into the 9th inning, the Rockies called on Greg Holland to shut down his former team and provide the team with a much-needed win. With the Cardinals already winning, there were now two teams breathing down their neck in the NL Wild Card race, and a big win on the road would help stem the team’s August slide.

Holland began the inning by walking Alex Gordon, who has a 51 wRC+ this year. He then gave up back to back line drives to Whit Merrifield and Lorenzo Cain, both of which were fortunately hit right at his defenders. Melky Cabrera then singled through the left side, putting the winning run on base and bringing Eric Hosmer to the plate. Hosmer did this.

The loss dropped the Rockies to 68-58, the first time they’d only been 10 games over .500 since mid-May. It was their fourth loss in a row, and their ninth loss in their last 12 games. And once again, the team surrendered a ninth inning lead because Holland doesn’t currently look like a guy you want pitching in high-leverage situations.

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Sometimes it takes a while to really hear an idea. Justin Turner told me something two and a half years ago that only recently clicked. All it took for this idiot to finally understand was an illustration of a bat path, a couple of graphs, and like 10 others players articulating a similar thought. Maybe you got it the first time. The rest of you, though, might benefit (as I did) from hearing it again: go get the ball. It’s that simple, but it’s also not that simple.

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Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Pedro Avila, RHP, San Diego (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: NR  Top 100: NR
Line: 7.1 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 13 K

Notes
This was Avila’s fifth double-digit strikeout game this year and his second in the last three starts, as he K’d 18 at Great Lakes on August 8th. A stocky 5-foot-11, Avila doesn’t have a huge fastball, sitting mostly 91-93 and dipping just beneath that from the stretch, but he frequently demonstrates pinpoint command of it, working to both his arm and glove sides. That gets Avila ahead in the count and sets up his deep-diving curveball, which bites enough to miss bats in the strike zone as well as below it. He also flashes a plus changeup. Avila began the year in High-A and struggled to throw strikes (but not miss bats) there for nine starts before a demotion. He has 102 strikeouts in 74.2 innings since then. Avila was acquired during Winter Meetings from Washington in exchange for Derek Norris.

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the National League West. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Arizona Diamondbacks (Preseason List)

1. Anthony Banda, LHP
2. Jazz Chisholm, SS
3. Jon Duplantier, RHP
4. Pavin Smith, 1B
5. Marcus Wilson, OF
6. Taylor Clarke, RHP
7. Socrates Brito, OF
8. Domingo Leyba. INF
9. Kristian Robinson, OF
10. Drew Ellis, 1B/3B

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