If I haven’t said it before, it’s a good time to be a Rockies fan. Not necessarily this upcoming season, but right now, this point early in the offseason.
A good portion of the reason I say this is because it is still mostly in dreamland. That’s true for every team, but with some big moves already taking place, dreamland isn’t so dreamy for all 30 teams. But the dreamland the mile high team occupies may be the dreamiest of them all.
The team showed solid improvement last season. Trevor Story burst onto the stage faster than most players ever had. His record, or at least impact, was dulled by the debut of Gary Sanchez later in the year, the impression Story left to start the season will last a long time in Colorado fans’ hearts.
Carlos Gonzalez is steadily rebounding after a downtime in his career. Charlie Blackmon looks to fully complete his offensive game after a breakout year at the plate. DJ LeMahieu won the batting title, though there were some controversies to go with it. Still, he was also a Gold Glove finalist, so he looks to be an all-around stud. And last, but certainly not least, is MVP candidate and one of the best players in all of baseball Nolan Arenado seems to only get better year after year, even though every year it looks impossible.
Still, the pitching hampered this team, and will likely be the thing that holds this team back year after year. But, the reason the hype is so real for this team at the moment is the fact that three young pitchers took serious innings last season and showed a lot of potential.
Tyler Anderson is the smallest name, but possibly the biggest results. Anderson worked to a 3.54 ERA last season, his first in the majors. He also did it in 114 innings, meaning it wasn’t just a couple fluke performances.
The second Tyler, Tyler Chatwood, finally returned from Tommy John surgery. He is starting to look like the pitcher the Rockies envisioned when they traded for him. He was flat at dominant on the road. However, his home/road split might be one of the worst ever in MLB history. He pitched to the tune of a 1.69 ERA on the road, but a 6.12 ERA at Coors Field. Every pitcher is going to struggle in Coors, but for a guy that plays half his games there, improvement is a must.
Finally, the lead dog in all of Colorado’s pitching talk, Jon Gray. Gray has the worst ERA of these three guys, sitting at 4.61 on the year, but he showed signs of being an ace for this team. He already has a franchise record with a 16-strikeout night back in September. He improved throughout the year and will likely continue his upward trend into the next season.
The Rockies were left without a manager after tensions between former skipper Walt Weiss and GM Jeff Bridich became too tumultuous to overcome. In his wake, the team hired Bud Black. The move, personally, caught me by surprise, but, before having game action as the team’s manager under the belt, he looks to be the right move.
He’s an experienced guy. Black managed a fairly poor Padres team for years, and was able to feign some results a couple years. So much so that he won the manager of the year award in 2010. He was also a pitcher in the big leagues, so he will be able to use his experience to guide these three youngsters in the right direction and possibly be the first manager to not screw over the team’s highly regarded pitchers.
Colorado’s looking to spend this winter too. That’s at least what their owner’s said. So, before anything of actual meaning happens, the future is blindingly bright for the Rockies.
