The Rockies and visiting teams have tried several run-prevention strategies at Coors Field over the years with little success, though ESPN’s Buster Olney (subscription-only column) suggests a novel idea — what if the Rockies and others used a fourth outfielder? The idea, which stemmed from a chat with Jake Peavy, would be a natural extension of the defensive shifts that have become more common in recent years. Here’s more from around the baseball world…
- Josh Hamilton and Chris Gimenez are both playing games in extended spring training, Rangers manager Jeff Banister told reporters (including MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan). Gimenez could start a rehab assignment as soon as Monday, as the catcher looks to return after being sidelined for a month by an ankle infection. Hamilton faces a longer road back to the bigs, as he’ll play in extended spring games for the next week and then some minor league action. Banister said the Rangers want to see Hamilton get around 35 plate appearances before considering a return to the MLB roster. Hamilton has battled left knee problems all offseason, and has already undergone two operations and a stem cell/PRP injection within the last eight months.
- The Rangers have a solid history of producing good young position players, MLB.com’s Phil Rogers writes, and Nomar Mazara is one of the most exciting of them all. The 20-year-old Mazara has made a huge impact in his first taste of big league action, taking a .378/.419/.514 slash line over 43 PAs into Saturday’s play.
- Melvin Upton is enjoying a good season and could eventually be a trade chip for the Padres, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes as part of a reader chat. San Diego would probably still have to eat some of the roughly $30.18MM owed to Upton through the 2017 season to make a trade work. That would still represent something of a win for the Padres and Upton, as his deal was though to be one of the worst in baseball at this time just a year ago. In two seasons as a Padres, however, Upton has regained some value by hitting .261/.334/.433 with seven homers over 292 PA and he also posted above-average defensive metrics in center field in 2015.
- Albert Abreu would be a much-hyped prospect in most farm systems, but he’s something of a hidden gem within the Astros‘ deep minor league organization. Baseball America’s Ben Badler profiles Abreu, a 20-year-old righty from the Dominican Republic who signed a $185K international deal in 2013. Abreu has a 5.11 ERA over 12 1/3 innings at high-A ball this season, though with very impressive peripherals (13.9 K/9, 4.75 K/BB rate, no homers allowed).
So basically with four outfielders at Coors, there would be a radical uptick in singles and a decrease in XBH for the most part, right? Having three infielders doesn’t really scream “run prevention” to me.
I would think that the idea would be to use that defensive alignment with a flyball pitcher on the mound or a flyball hitter at the plate. Think about Trevor Story, who hits basically everything in the air. It Might make some sense to move the shortstop into left-center for his at-bats.
Here’s a radical idea for the Rockies. Accept that runs are going to be scored and build the team around that idea. The Rockies cannot build their teams like the Dodgers, Giants, or any other team that plays in a pitcher’s park. Get a bunch of pitchers that are durable, have a thick skin and a short memory. Then build the offense up. Why fight it? Just steer into the skid.
BTW, the four outfielders idea is just asinine.
The problem is that pitchers don’t want to come to Colorado and the team has struggled mightily in developing them from within, in large part because their minor league teams play at altitude too. They tried tandem starts, which I thought was a good idea, but abandoned it quickly.
I think the 4 outfielder idea, which would be like a shift, only used for certain players, has merit.It would be better than what they’ve tried so far, which is basically nothing
Unfortunately, getting pitchers that are “durable” is going to be harder to do in Coors field, as the thin air increases recovery time. The Rockies have had the fewest pitchers pitch over 200 innings over the last 10 seasons, and it’s not even really close.
I can see the point, but you have to expect serious buy-in from the pitchers, and this is their career. You’d have to go to your minor league pitchers and say this: “We drafted you, you have no choice but to play for us for the next six years. Expect that you’re going to get hammered every time you pitch at home and hope that it doesn’t affect your value once it’s time for free agency.” That’s a lot of buy-in to expect from a kid who just wants one big payday in his career, right?
There’s not a great solution; even the “Blake Street Bombers” teams, that emphasized offense first, weren’t really that good.
Here’s a better one…….
Think outside the box. Let’s use the latest technology. Get some more Ivy League guys to oversee it. Clone the CF and SS. This will give the team 2 additional defenders!
I would think the Rocks management knows their shortcomings better than the rest of us do. They would love to get more pitchers but a very good FA pitcher is never going there based on what happened to Kile, Hampton and Neagle…..especially if you ever have a thought of being in the Hall of Fame one day. Colorado got lucky in 07 when they went to the WS. They might have everything fall into place again. But there’s going to be more losing than winning seasons there. Too bad because their fans are great and have supported them very well. Being a young pitcher in the Rockies system must be kind of depressing, though.
I would be very surprised to see Upton Jr. go but if Preller can clear even a little payroll and get a useful piece or lottery ticket prospect I would be happy. I would love to get some playing time for guys like Jankowski, Renfroe, and maybe Dickerson to see how they will perform with regular playing time in the bigs.
On top of having Mazara in the bigs, Brinson and Gallo are both on their way up. They will have a lethal offense for quite some time. And it seems like Jurickson Profar is now a nobody, who was once regarded as the game’s best prospect
If my name was BJ … I’d change it to Melvin Too!!! Haha
If I were the Rockies the 1st thing I would do is concentrate on findin OF all with the capability of playing CF and focus my offense around speed and contact hitters. Power at 1st and 3rd with a focus on defense up the middle. Gold Glove caliber SS/2B/OF. Develop those type of position players. No matter how good sn OF is with the bat if he can’t play defense and cover a lot of ground then they don’t get drafted.
Then focus the pitching staff with power bullpen arms that strikeout a lot of guys . And then have a guy in the bullpen that is capable of spot starting about 15-20 games a year and with that turn to a 6 man rotation a bunch of stretches during the year.
It seems like they’ve tried all these things, honestly. Last year’s defensive infield was Tulo, LeMahieu and Arenado. Those are elite defenders. Gonzalez is a good outfielder, as is Blackmon and Barnes. They still finished in last place. Getting an entire bullpen of elite fastball guys is probably easier said than done. Fastball spin is different at altitude – as is exit velocity and exit spin. Plus, Coors field has a massive outfield; even without the thin air a lot of balls are going to end up in the gaps regardless of the defensive alignment. These are all the pitfalls of playing at altitude, but there isn’t much the Rockies can do about it; if they could, they would have done it already, right? They’ve been a franchise for 23 years now and still have no clue how to build a team at altitude.
When the AAA Denver Bears were playing it was understood that the statistics would be wildly inflated for offense. Batters all looked good, pitchers all looked bad. Factor it in, ask the scouts that saw them play who had what skills. During the expansion talks in 1960, Denver was dismissed as a possible location as playing in the thin air wasn’t going to work. But the migration of people into the area in the 70’s raised the population to a level where ultimately MLB saw the money potential and went there.
Since the Rockies franchise was created, people have talked and tried every possible scheme to get over the high altitude / thin air issue. Pitchers balls don’t break as much to a point that more then a quarter of the breaking pitches they throw are hangers in other parks. The Rockies have tried power pitchers, tried freezing baseballs, have tried everything imaginable. In short – there was a reason the old Bears stadium was named ‘Mile High Stadium’. This is just the way it is and will forever be.
It would be interesting to talk to some top players agents and find out the names of quality pitchers available for the draft that made it known to the Rockies that if drafted by them, they would stay in college for a year and wait to see who drafted them next. I assume that many major league pitchers either have a clause in their contracts specifying that they cannot be traded to the Rockies, or have informal agreements with their teams not to be traded there. When Tracy Ringolsby retires, I hope he writes an open book about the situation in Denver, and how players, managers / coaches, and front office people tried to work around it.
Yeah, it does seem odd that the two guys the Rockies made big free-agent offers to – who actually accepted them – were not fastball first-guys (Hampton and Neagle). I think that regime somehow thought that breaking pitches might do better in that altitude, which seems counter-intuitive but they had data we weren’t privy to.
When they signed Kendrick last season – a soft-tossing junkballer, I just remember thinking: this isn’t going to end well. And it sure didn’t.
There’s also an interesting thing that people who analyze baseball are discovering – the Coors hangover effect. When Rockies players play on the road they tend to hit more poorly, even the players who are good; it usually washes out after a few games of a long road-trip, but its there.
This isn’t to say there aren’t “Coors creations”: Garret Atkins, Vinny Castilla, Dante Bichette, Brad Hawpe – these were just all bad ballplayers who never did anything before or after their time in Denver. But good players – Arenado or Tulo or even Todd Helton – did perform worse on the road during their time with the Rockies.
And Tulo is a .222 hitter after 60 games with Toronto. Castilla did have some decent seasons with Houston and Atlanta after leaving Coors, but he came back to Denver at age 36 and had a monster season again. Matt Holiday has done well for STL. It will be interesting to see how well Todd Helton does in the Hall of Fame voting. He had some sensational seasons the first half of his career but injures limited him the second half—-much like Don Mattingly, and he’s not in the HOF. Denver doesn’t have a player in Cooperstown I don’t see a player active today who might be there one day. Way too early to weigh in on Arendo, who had a breakout season last year and although he did hit 2 more HR’s on the road, his batting average away from Coors was almost 50 points lower and he drove in 20 fewer runs.