On Tuesday, we looked at the best pitches in baseball last year when judged by whiffs and grounders. One thing we learned in that exercise: they were all thrown by relievers. Makes sense. They get a lot of advantages when it comes to short stints and leveraged situations. Let’s not hold it against them because the rest of the reliever’s life is very difficult. On the other hand, let’s also celebrate the starting pitchers separately, because many of them have pitches that are excellent despite the fact that they have to throw more often, to batters of both hands.

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If you’re an avid FanGraphs reader, you might remember a piece I wrote January in which I wondered whether Vladimir Guerrero had the credentials of a Hall of Famer. The verdict? He does. As an inductee, he wouldn’t have the most impressive resume in the Hall, but he’d belong — and, according to the first 44 ballots collected by Ryan Thibodaux by way of his BBHOF Tracker, it appears as though the voters agree:

At 74%, Guerrero is right on the threshold for induction (which requires a candidate is named on 75% of ballots). That means that even if he isn’t selected this year Guerrero will almost certainly gain entry to the Hall next year. Which is great. Guerrero was a fantastic player. He’s deserving.

Larry Walker was also a great player, though. In most important ways, he was a superior one. And he’s received enough votes on previous Hall of Fame ballots to return for a seventh year. Like the previous six years, however, Walker is unlikely to be enshrined in Cooperstown this year — if the early polling holds steady, that is. In light of Guerrero’s seeming popularity, that’s strange. By most reasonable accounts, Walker has a better case. If you vote for Guerrero, you have to vote for Walker.

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Hoo boy, here we go. Welcome to prime hot-stove season, everyone. Ian Desmond is going to the Colorado Rockies, and he’s going to be paid $70 million to play there for five years. And, according to various reports, the Rockies may be looking at him as a first baseman. This move is the equivalent of the Denver Broncos signing Lionel Messi. It’s unexpected. It’s bonkers. It’s newly legal in Colorado, and Jeff Bridich is into it.

Man, let’s think about this for a minute. Ian Desmond was a lost cause a year ago. He had imploded in glorious fashion in Washington and then took a pillow contract with the Rangers to play a super-utility man. He wound up moving the outfield and recorded roughly average overall defensive numbers there. He also put together a 106 wRC+ for the year… but just a 65 wRC+ in the second half. Did he go back to being his 2015 self? Was it just a prolonged slump. Was he really a decent hitter once more?

We’re going to find out. We’re also, apparently, going to find out if he can play first base. Or… are we?

I mean, is Ian Desmond really going to play first? Committing $70 million to a guy to play a position entirely foreign to him seems strange. Asking him to play first base after he’s just finished a roughly average offensive season is also strange. If the Rockies wanted to move an outfielder to first base, they could’ve just done so with Carlos Gonzalez, whose defensive skills have been declining for some time now. Instead, the Rockies are going to stick Desmond there and cross their fingers.

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The curveballs just keep coming at the 2016 Winter Meetings, as Ken Rosenthal just reported a whopper:

Sources: Ian Desmond to #Rockies.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2016

While we were all trying to process exactly where Ian Desmond would play for the Rockies, since they’re nominally all set at the positions he plays, Rosenthal struck again:

Source: Desmond with #Rockies is multi-year. Likely will play 1B and also OF. Rox forfeit No. 11 pick in draft, first unprotected selection.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2016

This is interesting on so many levels, more of which will be sussed out later in a piece from Nicolas Stellini. What the trade appears to suggest most immediately, however, is that the Rockies are ready to push their chips into the middle of the table as they enter Year Three of the Jeff Bridich Era. This is news. The Rockies have made a habit of lying in the weeds or rebuilding for the better part of this century, having typically stayed out of the deep end of the free-agent market. With the five-year, $70 million commitment to Desmond, they have officially returned.

How much first base Desmond plays will ultimately be determined by whether the Rockies decide to move one of their outfielders. Charlie Blackmon and Carlos Gonzalez constantly see their names in trade rumors, and that’s unlikely to cease now that Desmond is in the fold. But what could perhaps be more interesting is if the Rockies choose to use Desmond in a Ben Zobrist role, letting him shuttle in for Trevor Story to help keep the latter fresh, as well as manning first base and cycling among the outfield spots.

The bottom line is that the Rockies are now officially interesting. They had already been trending that way, but this signing confirms it. They have a rotation that contains four pitchers projected at 2 WAR or better, plus an interesting rookie in Jeff Hoffman, as well as decent starting-pitching depth. The promotions last year both of Tyler Anderson and Jon Gray added much-needed substance to the rotation. They likewise have solid incumbents at second, short, third and the outfield. Now they’ve added Desmond. Their bullpen could be bolstered, but most teams can say that and the Rockies bullpen doesn’t project to be awful. There’s a good chance that there are more moves coming from the Rockies, moves that allow Desmond to shift back to a more natural outfield position, but in any event, there is now very real optimism around the 2017 Rockies.

Bud Black has made a lot of tactical decisions at Coors Field. He’s done so from the visiting dugout, having previously served as the skipper of the San Diego Padres. His perspective will be different going forward. Following a year-long stint as a special assistant in Anaheim, Black is now at the helm in Colorado. The Rockies named the 59-year-old former big-league lefty as their new manager earlier this month.

Black was a pitching coach before becoming a manager, and run-prevention remains his area of expertise. He’ll have his hands full in his new position. The offensive environment at Coors is well known, and the Rockies pitchers allowed the second-most runs in the National League this past season. Their 4.92 ERA was also second from the bottom.

Black has ideas of what will work in Colorado. He’s receptive to analytics — a trait surely not lost on GM Jeff Bridich — so while he has no intentions of trying to reinvent the wheel, he’s by no means old school. His moves will sometimes qualify as conventional, but that’s a matter of pragmatism, not a cookie-cutter mentality.

Black, who was featured in this past Sunday’s Notes column, talked about the approach he’ll bring to his new job — the focus was on pitching — late last week.

———

Black on managing in Colorado: “I have a little bit of perspective, because I’ve managed close to a season [at Coors Field]. I’m not sure of the exact number, but it’s probably 80-90 games. Even though they were three- and four-game series over the course of a nine-year period, I’ve experienced all types of ballgames there.

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Earlier today, I published an article about the season’s worst home run. The criteria was very simple: I just selected the home run with the lowest recorded exit velocity, courtesy of Statcast. I think that position is fairly defensible, even if there might be other ways to identify other bad home runs. It’s subjective. Sorry!

Having that post go up all but demands the posting of the opposite. At the very least, I figure the community is curious. The opposite of the home run hit with the lowest exit velocity is the home run hit with the highest exit velocity. And the opposite of the worst home run is the best home run. I don’t know if this position is so defensible, but, I had to use this headline, just for consistency.

This home run is less interesting than the weak one, because this is just a really good home run. Hence this being an InstaGraphs post, instead of a FanGraphs post. The home run was hit by Carlos Gonzalez, against Zack Greinke, in Arizona, on April 4. It was the season opener for both the Rockies and the Diamondbacks. Gonzalez hit his home run at 117.4 miles per hour. You may watch it now.

The healthy version of Giancarlo Stanton is a Statcast darling. Over Statcast’s brief history, Stanton leads the majors, by far, in the number of batted balls hit at least 115mph. Gonzalez, though, comes up a distant second, which still counts as second. So Gonzalez is no stranger to absolutely stinging the baseball, and this home run was better than any Stanton hit in 2016. Stanton owns the next-hardest homer, at 116.8mph. Then there’s a tie at 115.9mph, between George Springer and Avisail Garcia. It’s interesting to see Gonzalez going deep here in a full count — you might think, with two strikes, he’d somewhat cut down on his swing. He did nothing of the sort, and Greinke made a horrible location mistake.

Greinke knew pretty quickly what Gonzalez had done to him.

Now here’s where it gets extra fun: If you watch the highlight clip, the Rockies announcers joke about the ball’s exit velocity and launch angle. They didn’t know those numbers at the time. They were right that the ball had a high exit velocity — it had the highest exit velocity, among dingers. And they were right that the ball had a low launch angle — it had the lowest launch angle, among dingers. It’s a two-fer! Gonzalez hit the ball 14.2 degrees above the horizontal. The next-lowest homer was hit 15.2 degrees above the horizontal (Kevin Pillar). A shot from the side:

It wound up standing as a very extraordinary home run. It was the sort of batted ball you’d think would be a well-stung double, but it just never came down, registering a Statcast distance estimate of 420 feet. One more time, the ball was hit 117.4mph, with an angle of 14.2 degrees. The average baseball this year hit 420 feet had an exit velocity of 105.4mph, with an angle of 26.9 degrees. Gonzalez just beat the living crap out of a terrible full-count pitch, and this is one of the reasons why he’s not simply a product of Coors Field. You can’t fake his contact quality. He makes some of the very best contact around. Congratulations, Carlos Gonzalez, on your very good dinger.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Colorado Rockies farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

60 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Recorded .199 ISO in Low-A.

Scouting Report
Some amateur evaluators thought Rodgers, the top prep talent in the 2015 draft, was the best overall prospect in the class because they liked his chances to stay at shortstop and eventually hit for more power than Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman. While the other two have already made their big-league debuts, Rodgers has hit well as a young regular for two pro seasons while maintaining (and, in 2016, improving) a body some thought would fill out and require a move to third base.

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Let’s start with some facts. The Rockies didn’t play .500 baseball this year. In fact, they played .463 baseball by going 75-87. They allowed more runs than they scored, had one of the highest bullpen ERAs in the game (even after adjusting for park), and still have to wear those hideous black vests every now and then. The vests are probably the largest area of concern for the team, but we’ll focus on the actual playing of baseball right now.

Despite the above, the Rockies have a fair amount of hope for the future. The 2016 season marked the arrivals of heralded prospects such as David Dahl, Jeff Hoffman, and Trevor Story. The team boasted a lineup that looked fearsome on paper, unless you adjust for Coors Field. (Even without adjusting for Coors, Gerardo Parra and his .271 OBP weren’t great.) 

Of course, it also included Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon, Carlos Gonzalez, DJ LeMahieu, and the aforementioned Dahl and Story. That’s more than enough to build around. The Rockies also have the benefit of being able to look forward to the premiers of highly rated prospects such as Ryan McMahon, Raimel Tapia, and (a bit further down the line) Brendan Rodgers over the next few years. Any number of these young players could also serve as trade chips to bring in more pitching. With owner Dick Monfort going on the record to say that Colorado will be operating with a larger budget than ever before, it’s time to start thinking about just how close this team is to contention.

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Episode 688
Lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen is the guest on this edition of the pod, during which he discusses recent prep work on his horrible burden — namely, the forthcoming organizational prospect lists, which will begin with NL West clubs. By way of preview, Longenhangen discusses one prospect of note from each the five western teams: Jazz Chisholm (Arizona), Joan Gregorio (San Francisco), Michel Miliano (San Diego), Riley Pint (Colorado), and Jordan Sheffield (Los Angeles).

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 16 min play time.)

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On Sunday evening, the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the Colorado Rockies in what was legendary announcer Vin Scully’s last home game at Dodger Stadium after 67 years of calling the team. The Dodgers won, in walk-off fashion, scoring in the ninth on a Corey Seager home run that tied the score at 3-3, and again in the 10th on a home run by Charlie Culberson that clinched the National League West Division and ensured Scully’s final call in Los Angeles would come on a high note.

But Seager and Culberson only had the opportunity for their theatrics because of a home run hit in the top of the ninth inning by a Rockies player. With the Rockies down to their final strike of the ninth inning and with rookie outfielder David Dahl in a 1-2 count with two outs, this happened:

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