Colorado Rockies striking out on Ryan McMahon gamble

Batting .205 with four home runs, 16 RBI, and 16 runs scored in 132 at-bats with a strikeout rate of 32.6 percent, Ryan McMahon has been an absolute disappointment for the Colorado Rockies so far in 2023.

After an atrocious first month of the season, the Colorado Rockies have won a surprising eight out of 10 games in the month of May to raise their record to 16-22. While they have gotten contributions from a slew of different players in their recent run of success, Ryan McMahon has been missing in action, which is not what the Rockies’ front office had expected when they signed him to a six-year, $70 million contract extension before the 2022 season.

When the Rockies made the move, I asked the question in this article with our affiliate Roxpile.com whether or not it was too soon to extend him.

He had shown a ton of promise and had the potential to hit .270 and hit 30-plus home runs, but there were always consistency questions and his propensity to strikeout. He was also under team control until after this season, so it was a gamble to lock him up before the Rockies needed to.

In fact, RyMac reminds me a lot of another former Rockies’ third baseman who also showed a bunch of potential early in his career. So let’s do a blind look at the two players’ season to season stats with the Rockies:

Standard Batting
Age	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB
22	17	24	19	2	3	1	0	0	1	0	0	5	5	.158	.333	.211	.544	39	4	1	0	0	0	0
23	91	202	181	17	42	9	1	5	19	1	0	18	64	.232	.307	.376	.683	72	68	0	2	0	1	2
24	141	539	480	70	120	22	1	24	83	5	1	56	160	.250	.329	.450	.779	88	216	14	1	1	1	1
25	52	193	172	23	37	6	1	9	26	0	1	18	66	.215	.295	.419	.714	80	72	4	2	0	1	0
26	151	596	528	80	134	32	1	23	86	6	2	59	147	.254	.331	.449	.779	98	237	14	4	0	5	2
27	153	597	529	67	130	23	3	20	67	7	3	60	158	.246	.327	.414	.741	97	219	7	5	0	3	0
28	36	142	128	15	26	9	1	4	16	1	1	13	49	.203	.275	.383	.657	69	49	5	0	0	1	0

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Standard Batting
Age	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GDP	HBP	SF	IBB
22	35	46	43	3	9	4	0	1	9	0	0	1	17	.209	.261	.372	.633	57	16	0	2	0	0
23	81	304	266	33	69	18	2	10	41	1	1	30	94	.259	.349	.455	.804	102	121	3	7	1	4
24	147	491	425	74	97	19	3	25	70	7	4	56	138	.228	.322	.464	.785	95	197	7	5	5	3
25	121	441	386	54	99	14	2	18	61	5	2	45	110	.256	.338	.443	.781	97	171	8	5	5	8
26	48	136	122	14	19	6	1	0	6	3	2	14	37	.156	.243	.221	.464	20	27	1	0	0	2

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

The first set of stats are McMahon’s. The other set is from no other than Ian Stewart from 2007-2011. Stewart showed a ton of promise in his first few seasons in Denver, but then completely fell off the table. Had the Rockies had signed him to an extension after one of those decent seasons, just imagine how costly that would have been to the future of the franchise.

The Rockies didn’t make that gamble then and it paid huge dividends as they were able to trade him to the Chicago Cubs in return for some guy named DJ LeMahieu and, of course, Nolan Arenado came up through the farm system to put a stranglehold on the position.

This time, the Rockies appear to have struck out and will be stuck paying McMahon millions for the next handful of seasons while contributing little. There’s plenty of time for him to turn it around with him under contract for so long, but it is not looking promising.

Next. Bold predictions for May for every NL West team. dark

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