A typical baseball season – and this holds true whether you’re a good team or a bad team – has wild swings of ups and downs. For no other team is this more true than an essentially .500 team – because while it ends at .500, very rarely does that team actually feel like a .500 team. Well unless you’ve been around the block a few times and know how a season like this goes. My point is that teams don’t usually trades wins and losses evenly. You’ll go through winning stretches and you’ll go through losing stretches.
So I feel kind of blessed to be writing at this particular moment, following back-to-back series wins against two of the better teams in the National League. On top of that, I get to feel pretty optimistic about this upcoming series, not because the Cardinals won series against the Dodgers and Cubs, but because they are facing the Colorado Rockies.
Now, they did lose a series to them just a few weeks ago, but even in the Rockies’ dismal season, I kind of give the Cardinals a break if they don’t win at Coors Field. It was also during a stretch where the starting pitching was the worst it’s been all year and you do not want to go to Coors Field when your starting pitching is at its worst, and I don’t care how bad the Rockies offense is. With all of that said, the Rockies on the road is another matter. The Rockies, historically, play worse on the road and that has been true this year too, although barely.
The Offense
It’s bad.
I guess I better expand, though that pretty much sums it up. They are dead last in wRC+ in baseball with a 79 wRC+. For some context, the entire team hits like Victor Scott. Just you know, without the defense and the baserunning.
Here’s the most succinct way I can describe the futility of the Rockies’ offense. When I look at the team offense on Fangraphs, I click on the team and it goes to a page of all the performers in order of fWAR. I noticed some names were not present that I knew were on the Rockies, and I realized there was a 2nd page and there are a truly shocking numbers of names who are below replacement level. 16 of them in fact. Not a typo. 16 position players have been below replacement level and all of them have gotten at least 30 PAs. Six of them have gotten over 100 PAs and the leader, Brenton Doyle, has gotten 385 PAs.
Not far behind is Michael Toglia. He’s not far behind in PAs, he is far behind in fWAR with -2 fWAR on the year. What Toglia and Doyle have in common is both had what seemed to be breakout seasons last year and then this year happened and their bats fell off a cliff. To be fair, Toglia was still a bad player last year, but he was above replacement and had a 98 wRC+. Doyle posted back-to-back seasons of +14 OAA, but this year it’s just +1 and his nearly league average bat became a 64 wRC+. Maybe the thing that sucks most about being a Rockies fan is that you can’t really trust someone who seems to break out.
Those guys getting a lot of PAs makes sense to me. Making less sense is Kyle Farmer who has -1.1 fWAR for his 254 PAs. But I’ll give them some credit. The oldest member of their lineup is Mickey Moniak, who currently has a 111 wRC+. He is 27, along with Doyle. I don’t trust Moniak’s breakout and his defense is not helping matters. Tyler Freeman is just a year young and has a 107 wRC+, but he’s replacement level because his defense has been that bad.
Ignoring the bench, everyone else is 25 or younger. This group, in my opinion, is led by Ezequiel Tovar, who was a good comp for a potential Masyn Winn extension as a primarily defense-led shortstop. Unless Tovar develops plate discipline, I don’t really think he has the potential of Winn offensively though. Nonetheless, he’s only played in 50 games due to an injury, and he has a 106 wRC+ so far. Some might argue they are led by All-Star Hunter Goodman, but his batting line at least looks very fluky. His xwOBA is .328 and his actual wOBA is .361. But he’s a catcher and I think that xwOBA would still play.
24-year-old Jordan Beck (and former 1st rounder) has a 112 wRC+ so far this year. 22-year-old Warming Barnabel seems to be their regular 1B and in just 14 games, has a 155 wRC+. 2023 5th rounder Kyle Karros mans 3B for them and has had a promising few games, but he has 3 total games in his MLB career entering this series. His projection is bad. 22-year-old Adael Amador has unfortunately been one of the below replacement hitters with a 43 wRC+ in 122 PAs. But honestly, this offense isn’t as bad as its season line, because they’ve gotten rid of a LOT of the below replacement guys (Jacob Stalling, Nick Martini, Orlando Arcia is on the IL right now).
Their defense has also been among the worst in baseball. They got rid of Ryan McMahon, their best defender (on paper), and as mentioned Doyle was among the best defensive CFers the past two years, and he’s probably still a good to great defender having an off year. Tovar is a good defender. But they also have had some atrocious defenders, possibly because of Coors Field. That includes Toglia, Freeman, Moniak, Farmer, and Beck.
Bullpen
This is going to be shocking, but the Rockies bullpen is also not very good. They are last in reliever fWAR among all teams. They are not last however in ERA, with that honor belonging to the Nationals’ bullpen. I don’t think anything I can say can be harsher than this: their best performing reliever recently got sent down by the Yankees. To be fair, Jake Bird had three bad appearances, but still. Not far behind is 24-year-old Juan Mejia, who has actually been legit good and is apparently splitting closing duties with Victor Vodnik. Their normal closer, Seth Halverson, is on the IL, although both Mejia and Vodnik have been better than him, so not real sure why he was their closer.
Good news for the Cardinals is the Rockies have one lefty in their bullpen and he’s not good. 2018 1st rounder Ryan Rollison has an 11.4 K% and 10.1 BB% with a 7.27 ERA. They also have Nick Anderson, who you may have totally forgot started the year in the Cardinals organization. I did not realize he was no longer on the Cardinals. He got called up after the deadline and has a 9.64 ERA. They have someone named Dugan Darnell, who has a 2.84 ERA but a 13% K rate and lots of groundballs. I think Anthony Molina will probably be in the bullpen, and he has a 9.22 ERA in 13.2 IP. This is pretty bleak.
Monday
Chase Dollander (6.68 ERA/5.96 FIP/4.92 xFIP) vs. Miles Mikolas (5.11 ERA/4.90 FIP/4.68 xFIP)
I do not like this matchup. Part of that obviously has to do with Miles Mikolas, who is perfectly capable of getting shelled by anyone. It does feel like he should be able to handle the Rockies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t. He seems to either get rocked or have a good start with no in between lately. Dating back to June 10th, Mikolas has either allowed 2 ER or less or 5 ER or more.
But another part is that Dollander is like a legit pitching prospect. Numbers aside, his stuff is for real. He was drafted 9th overall in 2023 and entered this season as the 12th best prospect in baseball. Is he likely a good pitcher right now? But the typical issues a prospect like him initially faces is consistency, which means he will still likely show flashes of his potential. If he shows it tonight, Cardinals could have trouble scoring.
Tuesday
Kyle Freeland (5.53 ERA/4.46 FIP/4.30 xFIP) vs. Matthew Liberatore (3.98 ERA/3.69 FIP/4.24 xFIP)
You can see how the worst teams sometimes beat the best teams purely by how the pitching matchups lineup. I’ve shared my reservations about the first game, and in the second, Freeland’s only real notable trait is that he’s left-handed. And well sometimes that happens to be enough to shut down the Cardinals’ offense. It is in fact, usually enough.
I’m less worried about Liberatore, although he might be prone to throwing less than 5 innings in preservation of his future if his stuff doesn’t necessarily look sharp.
Wednesday
Austin Gomber (6.52 ERA/5.95 FIP/5.50 xFIP) vs. Michael McGreevy (4.40 ERA/3.42 FIP/4.32 xFIP)
Hey another lefty! What the hell. Gomber isn’t as good as Freeland and the Cardinals already hit Gomber (5 ER in 5.2 IP), so I’m actually less worried about this one. Plus Gomber seems, at this point in his career, like a reliever masquerading as a starting pitcher. His numbers the 3rd time through the order are horrendous. He has allowed more homers than he has strikeouts when he faces hitters the 3rd time and has allowed 14 earned runs in just 8 IP.
McGreevy against the Rockies feels like a pretty good matchup. His control will serve him well against a team who tends to chase and doesn’t take a lot of walks.
I never go into a series expecting a sweep and this one is no exception. But if they win the first two, then I’ll feel pretty good about the chances at a sweep.
