The Rockies announced that they’ve placed right-hander German Marquez and outfielder Raimel Tapia on the 10-day injured list. The club recalled lefty Phillip Diehl and righty Joe Harvey from Triple-A Albuquerque in corresponding moves.
Marquez is heading to the shelf with inflammation of his pitching arm, which will cut off a second straight impressive season for the 24-year-old. Marquez amassed 230 strikeouts and logged a 3.77 ERA over 196 innings last season, which helped the Rockies to the playoffs and earned him a five-year, $43MM contract extension in April. Neither the out-of-contention Rockies nor Marquez have reached that form in 2019, but he has nonetheless been formidable. Marquez has fired 174 frames of 4.76 ERA/4.06 FIP pitching with 9.05 K/9, 1.81 BB/9 and a 49 percent groundball rate.
Tapia’s down with a left hand contusion, but unlike Marquez, he hasn’t established himself yet. Through 393 plate appearances, the 25-year-old Tapia’s a .295/.326/.440 hitter. That looks good on paper, but with park factors in the mix, it only adds up to an 82 wRC+/83 OPS+. Tapia has also struggled to minus-4 Defensive Runs Saved and a minus-4.9 Ultimate Zone Rating in 746 innings divided among all three outfield positions this season. The package has been worth minus-0.5 fWAR, making Tapia one of the least valuable major leaguers of 2019 by that metric.
Rockies started the season with seven guys in their starting pitching depth chart.
Six (!!!!!) are now on the IL, including all of the original starting five. Antonio Senzatela (who actually was on the IL during the year but is sort of back now) watch your back. Absolutely friggin’ amazing.
Tapia has had a good year at the plate. He has the speed and is learning the strike zone this year, which is his first season of extended playing time. I have seen him make a few diving catches while playing all positions in the outfield. Perhaps his defensive metrics would improve if he stayed in center field only. I like his potential for hitting leadoff. Marquez has been a workhorse starter for three years and leads the staff in wins. He is a solid piece in the Rockies rotation. His injury opens the door wider for the Rockies to further audition their young minor leaguers and free agent pickups. We might as well look at everybody on the mound for the rest of the year, as the Rox continue to go into a tailspin. July and August has been a disaster-much like the Rockies bullpen.
Moving to the hardest defensive position in the outfield will not help your stats. He might have made some diving catches, but the could be a product of poor range. If he had gotten to the ball faster, he would have made a routine play. Remember, your eyes deceive you on defense, as Derek Jetwr was one of the worst fielders ever, but he looked great at short.
DRS/UZR are notoriously unreliable at Coors. Tapia’s instincts are a work in progress but his range is top-notch.
Again your eyes betray you on the field
Tapia has played flawless (no errors) defense in CF over his career. And he can cover some ground. Playing outfield defense at Coors is not easy. Plenty of space out there. Maybe the Rockies should bring back J. Chacin for pitching help. Milwaukee just cut him loose. Hey Yankee dude-how do you like LeMahieu?
Again, the worst thing they did for Coors field was move the fences WAY back. Homer’s there are going to be homers.
It’s all the bloop hits that fall
in because the outfielders are
so far back that cause all the damage. Move the fences in!
The Denver Bears never seemed to have a problem…..