This young man was the Rockies best starter in April
The first month of the baseball season is already past us. The Rockies are 4.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the National League West and the team’s first month was average (11-11 record) mostly due to very average (to below average) pitching. All too often the starting pitcher leaves the game before the sixth inning is complete and the bullpen is taxed because of it. Last night Jim Tracy ran Juan Nicasio out to start the seventh when he clearly should not have mostly because the previous games put a lot of work on the bullpen.
The team’s hitting has been great. The Rockies are tied for second in the National League in runs scored and only three runs behind the Atlanta Braves who lead the league. The team is in second place alone in team OPS and tied for third in homers. Michael Cuddyer started off hot and lately Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez have been huge for the team. And let’s not forget Todd Helton and his power stroke rediscovered.
After 22 games who is pacing the Rockies offensively and defensively?
Only Cuddyer and Dexter Fowler have appeared in all 22 games. Tulo leads the team in hits with 24 knocks and CarGo and all his free-swinging ways leads the team in base on balls with nine (which surprises me).
Cuddyer and Fowler both have 18 whiffs.
As for power CarGo, Fowler, Helton and Ramon Hernandez all have four dingers apiece and Tulo is chasing with three of his own. The Rockies lead the league in triples and CarGo and Tyler Colvin have two each. As expected Cuddyer is wearing out the large gaps at Coors field and has nine doubles on the season and even though Cuddyer only has two home runs he is still fourth on the team in slugging at .519. Helton (.552), CarGo (.539) and Hernandez (.526) are the three players ahead of Cuddy.
Despite 59 fewer at-bats Eric Young Jr. is tied for the team lead in steals with CarGo as each have four. I really wish EY2 would take hold of second base and while I don’t think his current on-base percentage of .400 is sustainable for him if he could get on-base regularly he is sure fun to watch on the base paths.
Of the players who qualify CarGo (.303), Cuddy (.296) and Tulo (.282) lead the team in batting average. The same three lead the team in on-base percentage (.376, .365 and .340 respectively).
As for the “individual” (team) stats CarGo leads the team in runs scored with 18 and RBI with another 18.
The pitcher’s stats aren’t as rosy.
The guy who didn’t even have a guaranteed contract going into Spring Training and the guy who is old enough to be many of the Rockies players father is the best starter on the team so far.
CarGo and Cuddyer have played a large part in the successful Rockies offense
After last night’s start Juan Nicasio tied Jamie Moyer for the most innings pitched on the team with 28 2/3. Moyer leads the starters with an ERA of 3.14 and if we do not include Guillermo Moscoso Moyer also leads all the starters in FIP (4.24). Drew Pomeranz leads the team in xFIP with a 4.25 mark (Moyer is second at 4.50). The fact that no starter in the Rockies rotation that has made at least two starts has an xFIP or FIP lower than 4.00 is a sign of things to come – mediocre to less than mediocre pitching.
Some good news is that both Jhoulys Chacin and Pomeranz are striking out over 8.5 batters per nine innings pitched. The bad news is that Pomeranz is also walking nearly 5.5 batters per nine innings. In fact, Nicasio and Moyer lead the starters with 2.83 walks per nine innings and once a pitcher gets around three per nine innings they start to walk on thin ice. Along with Pomeranz’s atrocious BB/9 rate Chacin (4.95) and Guthrie (3.70) are not very good either.
With a pitching staff that is average at best they cannot afford to allow as many free passes as they do.
Thankfully the Rockies bullpen has been very solid.
Rex Brothers leads the bullpen in FIP (1.39) with Esmil Rogers (2.37), Matt Belisle (2.95) and Matt Reynolds (1.95) also coming in under the 3.00 mark. Even when looking at ERA Brothers (3.00), Belisle (2.53), Reynolds (2.25) and Rafael Betancourt (0.90) all have good marks.
Of course while the sample sizes for everyone on the team are small the sample size for the relievers is really small.
Only four of the relievers has 10 or more innings pitched: Rogers (12), Josh Roenicke (12), Belisle (10 2/3) and Betancourt (10). With that being said both Brothers (13) and Rogers (12) are striking out well over 9 batters per nine innings but same control issues exist with these two as with the starters: they are both walking batters at a high rate (Brothers four per nine and Rogers three per nine).
After the performance of the bullpen on Monday night against the Dodgers I am quite a bit optimistic that the bullpen will provide very positive contributions to the team going forward – assuming they aren’t worn down by innings pitched due to lack of help from the starters.
Can Helton keep up the power? Will Nicasio continue to improve (shutting down the Dodgers was a nice start even if he did allow nine hits)? What about the rest of the rotation, can they pitch at all? Moyer will surely raise his ERA over the coming starts to match his xFIP but what about Pomeranz? Will Pomeranz develop into that #2 or #3 starter? Right now he looks lost at times.
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6 comments
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jaredean
May 1, 2012 at 10:53 AM (UTC -6)
excellent wrap of April…wow, CarGo is the walks leader? I had no idea!
Travis Lay
May 1, 2012 at 11:00 AM (UTC -6)
My thoughts exactly. All those swings and misses on ball way out of the zone and he leads the team in walks.
matt
May 1, 2012 at 3:16 PM (UTC -6)
500 is 500. Gotta love that. I like our lineup and it seems to be starting to click. Starting pitching is always and interesting watch until the bullpen arrives. Our defense has been the largest disappointment to me. I can’t remember so many balls over cargo and fowler’s heads and one hopping the wall. Tulo will regain his stellar defense but playing 500 ball in April is do able.
CodenameDuchess
May 1, 2012 at 3:56 PM (UTC -6)
When I start to think about it I’m pretty frustrated that EYJr is not our everyday 2B. I understand why but it is just disappointing. Your father was a MLB 2B and later a coach!! How are you not a rock star defensively? EYJr may not have much of an arm but he is an elite athlete and April has shown what that talent is capable of, if only in spurts. Just picture the amount of fastballs Cargo and Tulo would get if the pitcher had to worry about EYJr turning every single or walk into a triple within 2 pitches? Ugh!!!
As for April I am fairly pleased. Better defense and an extra hit here or strike out there and we could easily be 13-9 or 14-8 and I don’t know about the rest of you but I don’t see the Dodgers keeping up their pace. Besides Kershaw the pitching isn’t that scary and besides Kemp and Either the offense isn’t bringing much to the table. SD brings nothing to the table. It appears some of the other worldly pitching Arizona got last year (Collmenter, etc) has come back down to Earth. My biggest concern would be Mitch Krammer getting his shit together because the Giant offense looks to be a bit better than they have been the last few years.
Either way, clean up the errors, control the walks, and pray that DLR comes back dealing and I think this team will be competitive. Maybe not a true contender but maybe an 70% chance at 80 wins and a 30% chance at 90 wins?
jacob
May 2, 2012 at 11:54 AM (UTC -6)
I’m starting to come around on EYJ but thats cause he’s being used correctly finally. If he was to become an everyday player i think he’d regress and id go back to cussing him every play
Bucket
May 1, 2012 at 4:53 PM (UTC -6)
Being at .500 at this point in the season is better than Rockies fans could have hoped for after all that went on in the off season. It gives one “muted” hope that things will get better. Bad thing is that the Rockies are led by the second dumbest manager in the major leagues…witness trotting our Nicasio last night for the 7th inning after he got pounded in the 6th inning. Good thing the defense made some extraordinary saves and the bullpen came through bailing Tracy out…once again! On the bright side, at least Tulo didn’t break for the plate on the “contact” play the Rockies usually employ, where they’re out 99.44% of the time, thus killing any sort of rally. He must have taken a lesson from David Wright over the weekend. There’s always “hope”…even if that’s all we have…
Colorado Rockies stats review; 2 months down » Blake Street Bulletin
June 12, 2012 at 11:42 AM (UTC -6)
[...] a month of games I reviewed the individual team leaders early in May. This time I am going to look at how the Rockies rank in various categories as a team or by [...]