A site seen too early in recent Rockies games
Going into the season most people were worried about the Rockies pitching. Those with half a brain new that Jeremy Guthrie was not an “ace”, not in the true sense of the word. Guys like Dan O’Dowd, George Frazier, Jeff Huson and anyone else who looks solely at wins, losses and ERA for a pitcher saw Guthrie’s 200 innings per year and were sold. How could he not succeed!? He pitches 200 innings a year and he will most certainly give the Rockies the stability they so desperately need at the top of their rotation.
And while we are speaking of spots in the rotation let’s be clear on one thing: Jamie Moyer is NOT the Rockies second best starter just because he started the second game of the season. He is clearly the team’s fifth starter and probably the first one out of the rotation when Jorge De La Rosa returns.
Back to Guthrie. Another prevailing thought was that Guthrie would certainly excel in the National League West after spending his most of his career in the big bat toting American League East. Against the Red Sox Guthrie has a 4.50 ERA in 19 games. Against the Kansas City Royals he has a 5.70 ERA in eight games. Against the New York Yankees Guthrie has a 5.15 ERA in 17 games. Against the Oakland Athletics he has a 4.66 ERA in eight games. Against the Chicago Cubs his ERA is 9.00 in two games and against Seattle his ERA drops to 3.72 in nine games. Sure in his one start against the San Diego Padres his ERA is a microscopic 1.13 but something tells me that goes up tonight. No matter the team, big bats or small, Guthrie is a pitcher who allows around four runs a game. About average.
Another stat that seemingly missed O’Dowd’s desk this year was ground ball to fly ball ratio. Guthrie is one of many pitchers O’Dowd signed this year that allows a lot of fly balls. News flash: Coors Field is a bad park to allow balls hit to the outfield. The home run parade Guthrie allowed earlier this week was a sign of things to come.
I think one of our brilliant readers, TroyF, said it best when referring to Moyer:
Moyer has to be so perfect even to be mediocre
I believe that same thought applies to most of the Rockies staff.
It definitely applies to Moyer and Guthrie. Sure each of them could pitch six or seven innings of one run baseball but don’t expect them to string together multiple starts of sub 3.00 ERA. After yesterday’s start by Drew Pomeranz the shine is definitely gone off this new toy. He was supposedly starting his motion early and giving the Diamondbacks large jumps on the base paths that led to multiple stolen bases and a balk. Not exactly the dominating performance – or even a solid performance – by the major piece received from Cleveland in return for Ubaldo Jimenez. To be fair the conditions were rough yesterday but the wind was blowing in and when Pomeranz gave up that shot to Chris Young in the first it was the start of a bad start.
That is 60% of the Rockies rotation that appears to be a question mark, at best, for the remainder of the season.
One of the bigger concerns for the team is the performance of Jhoulys Chacin. Going back to June 27th of last year Chacin has pitched 102.1 innings and allowed 53 earned runs for an ERA of 4.66. Chacin reportedly arrived at camp overweight and out of shape and his performance this year hasn’t dispelled any concerns that he lost his ability to pitch. So far in 2012 his hits allowed per nine, walks allowed per nine and home runs per nine are all way up. Pretty simple: Chacin needs to not allow as many base runners.
There is one bright spot in the rotation: Juan Nicasio. His last outing was awful, sure, but going back to last year prior to the incident in which he broke his neck he has shown the ability to control his fastball which is explosive. He has been hitting 95 mph or more on the radar gun with regularity and until his last start had not allowed more than three walks in an outing. Not allowing walks is certainly a good thing and he had issues doing so in his most recent start but it is not enough to be concerned.
If the offense cannot produce five or six runs a game (and I’m talking consistently produce runs, not 17 one game and 2 the next) the team will struggle. And as I wrote for this week’s power rankings on ESPN the bullpen is going to be out of arms by June if the starting rotation continues to fail to last more than five innings. Actually, five innings from a starter would be a treat after the past four or five games.
The San Diego Padres as a team are batting under .200 so far in 2012 and they are headed to Coors Field to play three games. It might be exactly what the team needs to get on track but I am not confident that Guthrie and Moyer can shut them down the first two games. In the third game on Wednesday I believe Nicasio continues to show his improvement and throws seven solid innings of baseball.
De La Rosa cannot return from the DL soon enough and guys like Tyler Chatwood, Guillermo Moscoso and Josh Outman are not the answer, just more of the same.
The Rockies are only one game under .500 early in the year and it isn’t time to panic but the outlook isn’t looking good.
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15 comments
1 ping
Montana Steve
April 16, 2012 at 10:23 AM (UTC -6)
Travis, you’re right that it’s too early to panic, but every single one of their wins has been of the comeback variety. It’s actually kind of exhausting watching the team play, because they’re always in early holes and that puts added pressure on the offense to perform. This simply isn’t sustainable. Does anyone else get stressed out watching the games, or am I just putting too much into it?
Logan Burdine
April 16, 2012 at 11:20 AM (UTC -6)
You’re not alone in that. I think I’ll write about this for tomorrow. ‘How to deal with the stress of watching the Rockies’
Travis Lay
April 16, 2012 at 12:30 PM (UTC -6)
It’s rough. Do the Rockies even have a guy on their staff that would be a good #2 on most staffs? I wonder where the Rockies pitching staff ranks among the other 30 teams? That might be a good post…
Eric Garcia
April 16, 2012 at 1:13 PM (UTC -6)
Fangraphs positional power rankings has them ranked 28, which seems about right. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/positional-power-rankings-starting-pitchers-16-30/
Travis Lay
April 16, 2012 at 1:18 PM (UTC -6)
Pfft…what does Fangraphs know??
…ya, 28 sounds spot on. I think the Padres have a better rotation, though.
CodenameDuchess
April 16, 2012 at 1:20 PM (UTC -6)
While recent history doesn’t suggest it an argument could be made for Chacin and I think Nicasio fits the bill from the tools perspective. Besides that, no, not even close.
Simone
April 16, 2012 at 1:16 PM (UTC -6)
Other than getting a healthy DLR back soon…what can the Rockies do to improve the rotation? Who’s available out there?
Travis Lay
April 16, 2012 at 1:19 PM (UTC -6)
Nothing out there. Starting pitching is a rare, rare commodity. O’Dowd had the right idea stockpiling pitchers this past offseason…he just went after the wrong types of pitchers (fly ball pitchers).
Travis Lay
April 16, 2012 at 1:52 PM (UTC -6)
ESPN has the Rockies 19th in baseball: http://espn.go.com/mlb/powerrankings. I actually think that might be too high!
Debbie Downer today…
jacob
April 16, 2012 at 2:20 PM (UTC -6)
I agree with just about everything here. However, i have hope for moyer because had he gotten any help his first to starts he’d be 2-0 and the man is a professional. He knows what it takes. And also i still believer pomeranz is going to get it together. Yes he had a rough start but the kid obviously has potential and personally id rather have him then ubaldo
Scott
April 16, 2012 at 6:51 PM (UTC -6)
Think it’s bad now, wait until they play a team that can hit. It’s going to get very ugly.
O’Dowd has absolutely no baseball IQ. Everything that has worked out has been pure stupid luck- he’s easily the worst GM in MLB.
Travis Lay
April 16, 2012 at 7:40 PM (UTC -6)
5 runs for Guthrie tonight and he isnt even through the fourth inning yet. 5 doubles already? Or 4. He just isn’t any good.
Montana Steve
April 17, 2012 at 8:05 AM (UTC -6)
Why does Guthrie still have a job? I didn’t even watch the game because I knew it would be ugly.
Scott
April 17, 2012 at 10:41 AM (UTC -6)
I don’t think Guthrie is a terrible pitcher. I think he could be a solid guy in the right place, Coors Field just isn’t that place.
In order for the rotation to have success in our park, it has to be filled with guys who keep the ball at the knees and get ground balls, or just flat overpower hitters. I think everyone knows that- except the people who choose the pitching staff
CUBUFFSPAC12
April 17, 2012 at 11:26 AM (UTC -6)
Simply put, the ROX have zero pitching. Even going into this year with Chacin gettting drilled in spring training and coming off the 2nd half of last year, it was obvious they were in big trouble. Even more concerning rather than pitching is their inability to score 3-5 runs a game consistently. It is more of the same, bang or bust on the basepaths and mediocre 4 or 5 starters littering the whole rotation. When DLR comes back, he’ll be 32 with a repaired elbow and even at his best he was a 2 or 3, which automatically makes him an ‘Ace’ of the staff. I do know that 70-75 wins is optimistic, but I could see this team losing 95-100 games easilty.
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April 16, 2012 at 3:23 PM (UTC -6)
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