Colorado Rockies: Projecting the Starting Rotation

With no major additions to the offense or the bullpen this winter, it will be up to the rotation once again to carry the Colorado Rockies back to the playoffs.

The Colorado Rockies have had a great run the past two years under manager, Bud Black. They’ve made it to the playoffs in consecutive years for the first time in team history and are poised to make another run at the postseason this year. A team known mostly for its home ball park and its out of this world offensive environment was surprisingly carried by their pitching staff in 2018. The high-priced bullpen was up and down a season ago but the young starting rotation was outstanding.

After a winter of very little offensive additions, the team looks likely to be carried by the rotation once again. The bullpen might take a step forward from last season simply with positive regression, but with the loss of Adam Ottavino and no other replacements to speak of it has a definite ceiling. The offense should be better this year as well with some of the young guys coming up and contributing. However, don’t expect the team to make a major step forward at the plate either as their only true addition to the offense, Daniel Murphy, is essentially just a replacement for the loss of D.J. LeMahieu.

The rotation was excellent last season and may even be better this year. The Rockies had the eighth best starting rotation in baseball in 2018 with 15 fWAR, which was their third best mark in franchise history. Most of this success came from young starters, not to mention a down year from the incumbent staff ace, all of whom could realistically improve in 2019. Let’s take a look at these pitchers and see how they might turn out in the year ahead.

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.

German Marquez

German Marquez finished 2018 in spectacular fashion on his way to becoming one of the most exciting young pitchers in the sport. Marquez struck out nine or more batters in seven of his last eight starts in 2018, including nine punch outs in game 163 against the Dodgers. While Freeland received most of the hype last season, Marquez actually had a better season according to fWAR, ranking 13th overall with a 4.5. The projections see Marquez taking a bit of a step back as well in 2019.

Fangraphs still has Marquez projected at 3.9 fWAR this season which is the 13th highest projection in baseball so it’s actually not a step back relative to the rest of the league. Projections typically take a conservative approach, and it may be hard for a computer to fully buy into the massive improvements that Marquez made last season. However, all the reasons to be cautious about Freeland are the same reasons to be optimistic about Marquez in 2019.

Marquez was unlucky last season. There wasn’t anything crazy going on, but he did have a slightly higher than average BABIP, a worse than average left on base percentage, a worse than average home run per fly ball rate and he under-performed his expected weighted on base average by 20 points last season.

A 2019 season where Marquez duplicates his strikeout and walk numbers and actually has fortunate batted ball luck could put him in contention for the Cy Young award. Clearly I am very bullish on German Marquez for the coming season and I fully expect him to easily clear the 4 fWAR mark, and he may even push it above 5.

Tyler Anderson should be an exciting pitcher to watch for the Colorado Rockies in 2019. Anderson has consistently carried strikeout rates above 20% during his time in the majors while limiting his walk rate below 8%. These are good baselines to maintain when pitching roughly half of your games in the hitting paradise that is Coors Field, especially given his propensity to allow the long ball. Fangraphs projects Anderson to have a very similar season to Senzatela, projecting him for 1.9 fWAR in 155 innings.

While the projection is the same, Anderson has the higher ceiling of the two pitchers. Anderson projects to have a higher strikeout rate and has shown the ability to miss bats better than Senzatela to this stage in their respective careers.

Anderson’s biggest downfall is that he is a fly ball pitcher that pitches at altitude and he gives up a fair share of home runs. This issue limits his overall value but is something that could change year to year. If Anderson could have a season of good fly ball luck and limit some of those long balls, he could be in store for a big year.

However, it is hard to predict something like that, and I will play it safe like the projection and say that Fangraphs is just about spot on with his league average projection. Anderson will likely fill a similar role to Senzatela for the 2019 Rockies but it might be a flashier 2 fWAR with some great outing and some duds.

Jon Gray

Jon Gray might be the most fascinating pitcher in the rotation. After breaking out in the 2016 season and starting the wild card game in 2017, it appeared that Gray had carved out a role as the club’s ace and one of the better pitchers in the National League.

However, 2018 did not go according to plan for Gray, and he was even sent to the minors midway through the season to figure things out. Most of Gray’s issues were actually in his surface stats as the underlying numbers seemed to jive pretty well with his career norms. Because of this, Fangraphs actually has him projected for 2.6 fWAR which is even better than Kyle Freeland’s projection.

Gray was unlucky last season in just about every way. He allowed a high batting average on balls in play, he had a very low left on base percentage, he allowed a very high number of fly balls to carry over the fence and he under-performed his xwOBA by 28 points. All of this coupled with an actual increase in strikeout rate leaves the projection system optimistic for Gray’s 2019 season. The only real concerning aspects from the 2018 season were that his velocity did drop slightly, his walk rate rose by half a point and his ground ball rate went down a couple of points. His hard hit rate also increased in 2018 from 2017 which could be seen as a red flag.

I am in the optimistic camp for Gray. I think that even his 2.6 fWAR projection is modest and that he will join Freeland and Marquez as pitchers that pass the 3 win threshold with these three making a formidable playoff rotation should they make it. As long as Gray hasn’t let the altitude get to his head, I don’t see any way that Gray doesn’t bounce at least most of the way back in 2019 and he should be one of the big reasons that the Colorado Rockies will have a shot at the playoffs for the third consecutive year.

The Rest of the Bunch

Of course, no team is going to go through the entire season with only five starters in today’s game, so there will be others that make an impact for the Colorado Rockies in 2019 as well.

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Jeff Hoffman is the most tantalizing option outside of this five-man rotation. The former top prospect has struggled mightily to gain any traction in the big leagues.

However, after diminished stuff the past couple of years, Hoffman spent the winter working at Driveline to get his mechanics back in whack and seems to have done so with reports of his velocity being back up to 99 mph. A resurgent season from Hoffman could be a huge boon for the Rockies and their pursuit of the 2019 post-season.

Behind Hoffman are a slew of prospects that could see big league time in 2019. Yency Almonte showed good results out of the big league bullpen in 2018 and has had some success in AAA as a starter. Peter Lambert is a guy that had AAA time last season and could make meaningful starts for the big league club this season. Jesus Tinoco and Ryan Castellani are two guys that should start the season in AAA and could make some spot starts down the stretch or could even factor into the bullpen if needed. There is also Chad Bettis who is currently projected to stay in a bullpen role throughout the 2019 season, but he has had success as a starting pitcher in the past.

This group will be an exciting unit to watch in 2019 as the Colorado Rockies attempt to make it three straight seasons of post-season play. It’s not often that the narrative surrounding Colorado is its pitching, but that will certainly be the case this season. The team obviously has a few stars in the lineup with perennial MVP candidate, Nolan Arenado, but it will be their young starting rotation that gives this team a chance to make the playoffs.