Carlos Gonzalez is slumping. That isn’t news to you, unless you don’t really pay that much attention to the Colorado Rockies. Even then, it still might not be news to you. Gonzalez, who from 2010-2013 hit 108 homers (tied for 18th-best in the game), and posted a .245 ISO (ninth-best) and 103.4 Off (13th-best), is knee deep in a slump that seemingly has no end. If true, the question then becomes what do the Rockies do with him, because it might be impossible to trade him.

First, let’s see if we can figure out what exactly the issues are. Let’s begin with batted ball distance. Jeff Zimmerman has set up his handy batted ball distance search over at Baseball Heat Maps, and here we see that for the first five years of Gonzalez’s time with the Rockies, his was fairly consistent. He was right around 300 feet each season, with an overall average of 309.277′. Last year, that dropped quite a bit, down to 295.891′, and this season he is at 280.565. That’s nearly a 30 foot drop over the span of two seasons. Perhaps not predictive of how he will fare for the remainder of 2015, but it’s certainly not a great sign.

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I wrote yesterday about the uncertainty surrounding the #1 overall pick, but that doesn’t keep scouts from trying to figure out who will go in the subsequent picks. It’s way too early to have any real idea what’s going to happen beyond the top 10-15 picks, but the buzz is growing in the scouting community about how things will play out and you people are sustained by lists, predictions and mock drafts. You’re welcome.

I’d bet it’s more telling on draft day to make judgments using the buzz and all the names I mention, rather than the one name I project to be picked, but you guys already don’t read the introduction, so I’ll shut up. For reports, video and more on these players, check out my latest 2015 MLB Draft rankings, or, if your team doesn’t pick high this year, look ahead with my 2016 & 2017 MLB Draft rankings.

UPDATE 5/11/15: Notes from this weekend’s college games: Dillon Tate was solid in front of GM’s from Arizona, Houston and Colorado. Dansby Swanson was even better, in front of decision makers from all the top teams, including Houston, who may still be debating whether they’d take Swanson or Rodgers if given the choice (Rodgers’ season is over). Carson Fulmer did what he usually does and probably has a home from picks 7-17 depending on how things fall on draft day, with an evaluation similar to Marcus Stroman and Sonny Gray as previous undersized righties with stellar track records and plus stuff.

Andrew Benintendi went nuts at the plate again (I’ll see him and Fulmer this weekend). And, finally, Jon Harris was excellent, rebounding from a not-so-great start, so, at this point, I would make Harris the 9th pick to the Cubs and slide Trenton Clark down a few picks, but still comfortably in the top 20. I also updated the 2016 MLB Draft Rankings as a few top prospects came off the DL and impressed, further strengthening the top of that draft, which is far and away better than this year’s draft.

1. Diamondbacks – Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt
I wrote about this more in depth yesterday, where I wrote it’s down to CF Garrett Whitley, C Tyler Stephenson and CF Daz Cameron with some chance RHP Dillon Tate is still in the mix and SS Dansby Swanson possibly involved. After writing that, I heard that Arizona is definitely considering those prep players, but teams don’t think they’ll pull the trigger on a way-below-slot prep option and they are leaning college, with Tate and Swanson the targets and SS Alex Bregman also getting some consideration as a long shot.

I’ve heard Arizona wants a hitter here and GM Dave Stewart was in to see Vanderbilt last night. I had heard they were laying in the weeds on Swanson, so, for now, I’ll go with Swanson here. To be clear, Arizona hasn’t made any decisions yet, so this group could still grow or they could change course. One scouting director told me yesterday when asked what he thought Arizona would do that “it sounds like they are going to do something crazy.” Until a few hours before this published, I had Arizona taking Whitley, so this is still very much in flux. There’s also some thought that Tate or Swanson were the targets all along and the rumors of cut-rate high school options have just been a ploy to get the price down–you can pick your own theory at this point.

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Adam Ottavino has been frustrated by platoon splits over his career. And admittedly, he’s had trouble with the lefties. So he’s looked around baseball for pitchers with similar skillsets that he can learn from.

First, he asked me about Steve Cishek, but he quickly understood that his arm slot made him a different pitcher than the Miami closer. Then, he spent some time thinking about Garrett Richards — “he has similar mechanics, that big curve ball, good velocity, and a slider he likes to use a lot,” said the new Rockies closer before his game against the Giants.

Ottavino noticed something about Richards’ fastball — “His four seamer tends to cut slightly when he goes to his glove side. It was the combination of that movement and his awesome sinking movement on his two seam that was interesting to me,” the Rockies pitcher said. But he also wanted to point out that it wasn’t all Richards. “I’ve played with a bunch of guys who had a good cutter and they all seemed to be more comfortable vs lefties than I was. Carlos Torres of the Mets is someone who immediately comes to mind. Adam Wainwright and Jake Arrieta are others that I watched.”

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Nolan Arenado will never be Joey Votto. He’s too hyperactive, he’s too aggressive, and he knows it. He’s fine being Nolan Arenado, too. But that doesn’t mean the Rockies’ standout third baseman doesn’t struggle to find the perfect approach at the plate to fit his skill set.

Over the last two years, there hasn’t been so much of a yo-yo in his approach as a steady progression. “I’m just trying to be selective, as much as I can,” he said before a game with the Giants. “But I don’t want to get too selective, because that’s when I get tentative.”

A hitter in his own head is no good, but a hitter that swings at everything isn’t either. While Arenado’s swing rates have never swung below league average (he’s almost 10% above league average for his career), his reach rates have changed, signaling that the batter has indeed started to discern balls and strikes better. Watch his monthly reach rate haltingly improve over his career:

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You’ve already read about the stuff being tried in an effort to improve baseball’s pace of play. You’ve already read so much of it you’re probably already tired of reading it. Sorry. Pace of play is a relatively boring subject, when compared to everything that happens in between the various delays and stoppages (i.e. baseball). But, hey, here’s something: last year, the median game duration was 3:07. So far this year, 2:58. Maybe that means something. Maybe all that means is it’s been just a few days. Don’t know, but, forget the macro. This is about the micro.

Among the new rules implemented: batters must keep one foot in the box. A candid Bud Selig:

“A guy gets in the batter’s box, ball one, and now he’s adjusting all this crap he has on,” Selig said. “And I’m thinking to myself watching the game, ‘What is he adjusting? He hasn’t swung the bat.’ ”

Bud Selig is very old, but that’s something I myself would’ve said, with the same terminology. Baseball has been littered with hitters who have to meditate between every pitch, and perhaps the worst offender has been Troy Tulowitzki. Back in 2008, Tulowitzki averaged 20.5 seconds between pitches. That subsequently rose every year, to last season’s 27.9. Tulo, like other hitters, would explain it as a habit. Part superstition, part taking a breather, part thinking things through. But Tulo wasn’t always like this. He grew into it. When he worked faster, he was an excellent player. He’s always been an excellent player, but his is a frustrating trend.

So how has he been changed? How has Tulowitzki responded to a new rule that addresses one of his quirks? We’ve got games, now. Games mean data.

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A few weeks back, I wrote about Jorge de la Rosa’s remarkable mastery of Coors Field, a fact made all the more interesting by the reality that he’s struggled badly pretty much everywhere else. One of the comments on that piece put forth a pretty fascinating idea:

The Rockies need to break the straitjacket of the five-man rotation on a fixed schedule. Rather, they need to platoon their starters to some degree. Split them into ‘pitch mainly at Coors’ and ‘pitch mainly on the road’.

Could that possibly work? Should it? I’ve been thinking about it ever since then, during which time two things have happened. First, Jeff Sullivan wrote a very similar piece about Jered Weaver and the Angels, causing me to mostly table this. But then second, the Rockies announced that the vastly inferior Kyle Kendrick would start on Opening Day, opening the door to “worst Opening Day starter ever” articles, and that they’d push de la Rosa all the way to the fourth game of the season… which just so happens to be the home opener.

Are they actually trying to put this into motion? It’s true that de la Rosa is battling a groin injury this spring and probably could use as many extra days as the team can give him, but it’s also clear that they want him on the mound at home whenever possible. It might be just as clear that Kendrick, who always seemed an odd fit for the Rockies, would be best served setting foot in the state of Colorado as few times as possible. Maybe this isn’t just about de la Rosa’s odd skill; maybe he’s just the starting point. Let’s put forward a plan to optimize the Rockies’ rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

It can be a bit tricky to do this job from the west coast. As soon as you wake up, you’re behind, and I find I always have to begin my days reading. On the plus side, it’s usually reading I’d have to do anyway. Also on the plus side, you never know where you might find an idea. Earlier today, I was reading Eno’s latest post, on Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. Not only did the post provide excellent insight — it also took me back to something from last July. Eno was talking to Bruce about shifts, and using the whole field. An excerpt of a response:

But you hear people talk all the time, ‘I don’t know why he doesn’t just hit the ball to left field, or bunt.’ Well, the shifts are getting more sophisticated, where the third baseman is playing in. And the other guys are over. How many guys do you really know that hit for power that hit ground-balls to the opposite side of the field?

This is data I’ve played with a little before. Nori Aoki, for example, hits a ton of grounders toward the opposite field. Aoki also has 19 career home runs. Not a power threat. You already know many of the guys with stronger pull tendencies on the ground. They see a lot of shifts, and the group includes players like Chris Davis, Ryan Howard, and David Ortiz. But let’s see about answering Bruce’s question. Are there any powerful hitters who send grounders the other way? I know I already ruined the surprise before I even started the body of the post, but, do play along, won’t you?

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Last July, Rockies owner Dick Monfort earned some well-deserved ridicule by indicating that his team wouldn’t consider trading 33-year-old free-agent-to-be Jorge De La Rosa, despite the fact that Colorado was well on its way to a 96-loss season and De La Rosa is, all things considered, pretty mediocre and not even that durable. The owner’s money quote: de la Rosa “has won our last three,” without noting that the three wins had required 21 Colorado games to attain. According to a Peter Gammons report, Monfort killed a potential deal that would have sent De La Rosa to Baltimore for Eduardo Rodriguez, who was instead swapped to Boston for Andrew Miller and has impressed so much since that he ranked No. 23 overall on Kiley McDaniel’s recent Top 200 Prospects list.

While Rockies fans cringe at that thought and pray that Gammons’ information was incorrect, the Rockies instead gave De La Rosa two more years and $25 million in September. Considering that the team’s major additions this winter were minor pieces like Daniel Descalso, Kyle Kendrick, John Axford, Nick Hundley, and David Hale, it’s looking like another season of praying that this is the year that Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez stay healthy at the same time, while hoping that young arms Jon Gray and Eddie Butler can contribute.

While it’s difficult to see a scenario where the Rockies break through this year, it’s perhaps even more difficult to see De La Rosa still being around to contribute to the next good Colorado team. But while Monfort’s direction and baseball sense may have been misguided, he’s not wrong about one thing: “he pitches great here,” and in a sport where finding any pitcher who can be anything other than awful in Coors Field has proven terribly difficult, maybe that’s not such a meaningless thing to have.

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You play 81 games at home a year, so it seems like it might be a good idea to think about that park when you’re building your team. Then again, you play 81 games on the road, maybe it’s not a good idea to worry too much about one half of the ledger, particularly if your home park is an extreme one.

Extreme parks lead to extreme home-road splits. That part seems obvious, but it bears out in the winning percentage, too. Take a look at how teams that have called extreme parks home have faired over the last five years compared to the middle.

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Jason Giambi announced his retirement on Monday, after 20 seasons as a major leaguer. For most of those 20 years, Giambi was one of the best hitters in the game. I won’t waste your time putting down the narrative of his career — Jay Jaffe already did that better than I would anyway. But I thought today that we would celebrate his career with a few choice facts and/or moments from a career that at the very least belongs in the Hall of Very Good.
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