Some mile-high love for Colorado Rockies’ Nolan Arenado
Nolan Arenado is the entire package. The Colorado Rockies have to feel blessed, and he’s all theirs through at least the 2019 season. This year, the third baseman is making a strong case for the Rockies to enter long-term contract negotiations with his agent this offseason and extending his future in Denver well beyond that 2019 season.
The greater Denver area is typically a sports market overshadowed by the NFL and even the NHL and NBA in many regards before MLB gets any of the love. Despite a beautiful home ball park, the club has reached the playoffs only three times in their 21 years of existing, and it’s not looking good in their 22nd, either. The Rockies are 33-42 in 2015 — but they do have Arenado.
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As a 22-year-old rookie in 2013, Arenado burst onto the scene flashing his leather and arm from the hot corner in Colorado with elevated craft and exuberance . He won a Gold Glove in each of his first two seasons. An unforeseen injury would be the only thing preventing him from winning his third Gold Glove. Combined with plays like this one, Arenado has the third highest ultimate zone rating (UZR) of anyone defensively in MLB across all positions.
With his defensive play rarely coming into question, offensive critics of Arenado’s game are now being rapidly silenced in 2015. His 24 home runs are six more than his previous personal best over the course of an entire season, when he hit 18 last season. He surpassed Giancarlo Stanton over the weekend for the league lead in RBI and his 4.0 WAR is the eighth best mark of any position player this year.
It’s actually kind of disturbing to see how elite the talent levels are at third base this season. Arenado has grown his OPS from .706 in ’13 to .828 in ’14 to where it currently sits at .958 this year. Despite his surge in offense coupled with his defensive skills, he only ranks fourth in WAR at his position behind Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado and Todd Frazier. Be it a very marginal fourth, though.
Now of course, anytime a hitter’s name is mentioned in the same breath as the Colorado Rockies, the Coors Field affect comes into the conversation. Arenado separates himself from many past thin air stereotypes in that his home/away splits aren’t contrasted by eye popping numbers at Coors. His numbers this season especially, are just all-around eye popping.
In his career, Arenado has slugged 42 percent of his career home runs on the road and has an identical amount of doubles (40) at home as on the road. Juxtaposed to someone like Larry Walker who hit 58 percent of his 264 homers from 1995-2004 while with the Rockies at home, it becomes apparent Arenado is not at all phased by the park he plays in.
Similarly, Troy Tulowitzki has 120 career doubles at home compared to only 103 on the road in only three fewer games. But he also experiences a 50 point drop in his home/away (.325/.275) lifetime batting average. Arenado’s is not as devastating in that regard either, having hit .297 thus far at home compared to .263 on the road in his career.
There is evidence that he is adapting more efficiently to his home versus away surroundings than that of Walker or Tulowitzki as well. In 2015, Arenado has more away home runs (15 vs. 9), RBI (37 vs. 31) and the same amount of hits (41) in one fewer game played on the road. His batting average is .299 when not at Coors Field, while it sits at .287 from the batter’s box inside his more familiar surroundings. These are encouraging signs.
Despite Arenado’s sizzling 2015 pace, it’s likely that Colorado Rockies fans will not get to see him start at third base in the All-Star Game. Even if it weren’t for the host city’s third baseman Todd Frazier who is having a great campaign so far hitting .290-25-53, he’d still have to surpass the Cardinals’ Matt Carpenter and Cubs rookie Kris Bryant in less than a weeks time of voting.
None of that takes away from the 24-year-olds fantastic potential moving forward. With players like Tulo and Carlos Gonzalez constantly being attached to trade rumors, Rockies fans can seek solace in knowing that Nolan Arenado shouldn’t be going anywhere for quite some time.