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First half in review: What’s wrong with the Rockies?

No Rockies games for three days. Well, we can support Aaron Cook and Matt Holliday in the All-Star Game, but other than that, the Rockies have three days off. And it’s probably a good thing after a first half in which almost everything that could go wrong went wrong. The team started slow out of the gate, with an 11-17 record in April. That was actually a little better than their April record in 2007, when the team was 10-16. But the 2007 Rockies picked things up in May and June, going 15-13 in May and 14-13 in June. This year’s Rockies tanked in May, going 9-19. That’s awful.

So what the heck went wrong? The cast didn’t change a whole lot. On offense, the Rockies lost Kaz Matsui and that was it. Playing around on Baseball Reference and some of its advanced stats gives some idea.  That shows that losing Kaz Matsui wasn’t that big of a deal: Rockies second basemen have an sOPS+ (that’s OPS compared to the league average for second basemen) of 84 this season, compared with 83 in 2007.  Part of that, certainly, is that Kaz spent a significant amount of time in 2007 on the DL, only starting 96 games at second.  Getting 49 starts from Jamey Carroll (OPS: .617) and 17 starts from Omar Quintanilla (OPS: .566) brought down the average, but Kaz’s .747 OPS wasn’t all that great, either.  No, Kaz wasn’t the answer.  In fact, second, along with left field, right field, and third base, is one of the four positions where the Rockies haven’t seen much change from 2007 to 2008.

At one position, the Rockies have improved greatly upon their offensive production: catcher.  Rockies catchers were below average in 2007, with an sOPS+ of 83.  That’s jumped to 112 this season.  Yorvit Torrealba, the primary starter at catcher last season, hasn’t changed much, going from an OPS+ of 75 to 74.  Yorvit wasn’t anything great in 2007 (despite popular myth) and hasn’t been in 2008.  Chris Iannetta, on the other hand, after struggling with an OPS+ of 71 (only four points lower than Yorvit, but that’s a different story), has seen his production (and, eventually, his playing time) increase dramatically.  He’s at 127 this year, and is a large reason why the Rockies have gotten better than average production from their catchers in 2008 (sOPS+: 112.)

That leaves three positions.  One, you were expecting: shortstop.  Troy Tulowitzki’s struggles are mystifying, but he’s also missed a lot of time this season, so his production alone can’t explain the Rockies’ drop from an sOPS+ of 122 to 90 at short.  But, of course, it’s a big reason, as Clint Barmes has been surprisingly good and Omar Quintanilla has been at least an adequate fill-in.  No doubt that Tulo is weighing this one down heavily.

You probably also expected center field and first base as well.  In center, the Rockies have gone from adequate (sOPS+: 97) to horrific (sOPS+: 72.)  Willy Taveras and his .597 OPS is a big reason for that, though his .749 in 2007 wasn’t great — but at least when he’s hitting like that, his speed on the basepaths makes up for it a bit.  Giving 14 starts to Scott Podsednik and his .582 OPS hasn’t helped, either — hell, both of them have a lower OPS than Aaron Cook.  The one thing that makes this not truly abysmal is the fact that Ryan Spilborghs has gotten 14 starts in center (and posted a .936 OPS in those starts.)  At least an aging Todd Helton can explain the drop at first (from 123 to 96.)  Todd’s been in decline for some time, but he had a bit of a blip in 2007 — after his OPS+ dropped from 165 in 2004 to 144 in 2005 and 117 in 2006, it suddenly picked back up to 133 last year.  This year, it’s at 103 — barely above a league-average hitter.  But it seems about in line with his career path.  In retrospect, even though Todd obviously contributed to the Rockies’ championship run in 2007 (Joe Koshansky or Ian Stewart — with Atkins moving to first — wouldn’t have had an OPS+ of 133), trading him prior to the season wouldn’t have been that terrible of a move in the long run.  Now the Rockies are stuck with his contract and declining production for several years.

What to do?  There’s really nothing the Rockies can do at first: the Rockies are paying Todd too much money for him to languish on the bench (and Koshansky’s not really a better option, anyway), and there’s little they can do at short other than hoping that Tulo regains his 2007 form — and considering he’s just 23, that seems likely.  In center, the Rockies should be giving more playing time to Ryan Spilborghs, defense and speed on the basepaths be damned — and I wouldn’t rule out a September callup for Dexter Fowler.

But of course, hitting doesn’t completely explain the Rockies’ problems.  Pitching has been a big culprit in this.  The Rockies got adequate starting pitching in 2007, which, coupled with a strong offense, was good enough to make the playoffs.  In 2007, of the six starting pitchers who made ten or more starts (Jeff Francis, Josh Fogg, Aaron Cook, Jason Hirsh, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Rodrigo Lopez), four had an ERA+ above 100, or better than league-average — with Hirsh at exactly 100 and Fogg at 97.

This season?  Seven pitchers have started five or more games at the break, and just two of those (Cook and Jimenez, of course) have been better than league average.  Cook going from good (116) to top-notch (129) helps, but Francis going in the opposite direction (114 to 81) has offset that.  Jimenez has seen little change (112 down to 109, in a bigger sample size.)  But the triumvirate of Fogg, Hirsh, and Lopez, who combined to make 62 starts in 2007 (roughly the equivalent of two rotation spots), posted ERA+’s of 97, 100, and 108.  That trio has been replaced by the likes of Greg Reynolds (68), Jorge De La Rosa (63), Franklin Morales (72), and Mark Redman (65), who have combined for 35 starts.  While Francis’s dropoff (possibly caused by an injury) is troubling, the real reason for the decline in quality starting pitching is right there.  Hirsh, Lopez, and Fogg combined to make a solid back end of the rotation, but with Fogg and Lopez out of town and Hirsh injured (and now, well, in AAA, possibly with lingering effects of the injury), the Rockies have had to go with a prospect who’s clearly not ready and a pair of fill-ins.  If the Rockies had a solid back end like they had in 2007, they would have been able to weather Francis’s dropoff.  Not so this season.

The bullpen gets a lot of heat because of the struggles of Corpas and now Fuentes in the closer’s role; but Fuentes had similar struggles in 2007 and Corpas’s dropoff is offset a bit by Taylor Buchholz’s transformation into a lights-out reliever.  Other than those three, Matt Herges and Ryan Speier have seen the fourth- and fifth-most appearances, and they’ve been as adequate in those roles as LaTroy Hawkins and Jorge Julio were last year.  The truth is that outside of Corpas, the 2007 bullpen wasn’t as great as it’s been made out to be, and certainly the Rockies have bigger issues than the bullpen (see: starting pitching, offense.)  The only thing I’d change here is moving Buchholz to the ninth inning, and the impending Fuentes trade should hasten that process.

As for the starting pitching — well, since Morales, Reynolds, and Hirsh are all working out various issues at AAA, and there aren’t a lot of more appealing options in the minors, there’s not much the Rockies can do this year.  For 2009, the Rockies could probably help things by acquiring a solid #2/3 guy and hoping Francis returns to form, and that one of the three of Morales, Reynolds, and Hirsh can serve as an adequate back-end guy.

I don’t see us making the playoffs again.  But some improvement in the second half would be helpful.  I don’t want to think that 2007 is a one-year blip in an otherwise sad history.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.