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Colorado Rockies: Projecting the Starting Rotation

By Michael Francis

PHOENIX, AZ - SEPTEMBER 23: Starting pitcher Kyle Freeland #21 of the Colorado Rockies pitches during the bottom of the first inning at Chase Field against the Arizona Diamondbacks on September 23, 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona. The Rockies beat the Diamondbacks 2-0. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images)
PHOENIX, AZ - SEPTEMBER 23: Starting pitcher Kyle Freeland #21 of the Colorado Rockies pitches during the bottom of the first inning at Chase Field against the Arizona Diamondbacks on September 23, 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona. The Rockies beat the Diamondbacks 2-0. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images) /
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Colorado Rockies Starting Pitcher Kyle Freeland
(Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images) /

Kyle Freeland

Kyle Freeland was the talk of the Colorado Rockies for much of last season. The local kid blossoming into a star in front of his friends, family and neighbors made for a great story in 2018. Freeland ranked 16th in all of baseball last season with a 4.2 fWAR after pitching over 200 innings and allowing only a 2.85 ERA while pitching many of his games at Coors Field. Now the question becomes: can he do it again?

The short answer is probably not. Fangraphs currently has him projected for 2.4 fWAR in 195 innings pitched next season. I want to emphasize immediately that this is still a very good pre-season projection for Freeland. 2.4 ranks him as the 46th highest projected pitcher in baseball for the upcoming season. Freeland living up to this projection would certainly be a good thing for the Rockies and would certainly not knock them out of contention by any means, but why is the projection system not fully buying into Freeland for the 2019 season?

First of all, 2018 was just Freeland’s second full season in the big leagues and projections typically like to have three full seasons to work with. Freeland did also have some favorable luck a year ago. His BABIP, left on base percentage and home run per fly ball percentage were all better than average last season.

The projections see those statistics reverting toward the mean in 2019. Those projections do believe in his strikeout and walk rates from last season though, and thinks he should have another solid year. I would take the over on this projection however as I do believe that Freeland is about as comfortable as one can be pitching at altitude. While I don’t expect him to match his performance from last season, I imagine he will settle around 3 fWAR in 2019.

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