Colorado Rockies: The franchise all-time bracket

The best teams in Colorado Rockies history are all… hitterish. Let’s take a closer look.

Since the franchise’s founding in 1993, the Colorado Rockies have been known for one thing. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been winning.

In the 27 seasons of its existence, the Rockies have led the National League in batting 15 times. Yet that steady attack has produced only one World Series appearance and just five post-season experiences. No Colorado team has ever won an NL West championship.

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Even at altitude, hitting only takes a team so far. It still has to pitch,

By performance, the most successful Rockies team was the 2007 club, which made the wild card and rolled 7-0 through the National League playoffs before losing to Boston in a four-game World Series.

It’s also the only Colorado team to reach the NLCS round. But the Rockies haven’t had many chances; the lifetime franchise record is more than 200 games under .500.

Aside from 2007, the other Colorado post-season entries are the 1995, 2009, 2017 and 2018 clubs…so they’re all in. But that still leaves three spots to fill in our eight-team bracket.

The cut won’t be difficult because only four other Rockies teams have even played .500 ball. Of those, the three best records belong to the1996, 1997, and 2010 teams, so they are the choices.

Aside from one Colorado-specific change, the format is identical to previous bracket challenges. Each matchup in the tournament is decided based on seven criteria. You can think of each as a ‘game,’ the winner of four games advancing. The seven criteria are:

1. Game 1: Regular season winning percentage.
2. Game 2: Post-season winning percentage
3. Game 3: Team OPS+
4. Game 4: Team ERA+
5. Game 5 (if necessary): Team WAR
6. Game 6 (if necessary: Fielding percentage above the league average for the season in question.
7. Game 7 (if necessary): The normal standard for Game 7 is Hall of Famers or likely future Hall of Famers. But the Rockies are such a new franchise that counting immortals isn’t likely to produce a result. So for Colorado, we’re substituting All-Stars as the deciding criteria.