Rockies Year in Review: Carlos Gonzalez

Here at Rox Pile, we are starting a player review for each and every player that suited up in a Colorado Rockies uniform this season. This series will be going all the way up until Dec. 15 with player profiles posted every day.

Today, we are featuring Rockies right fielder Carlos Gonzalez.

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Carlos Gonzalez accomplished something that he’s never done before; he played in 153 games. This is his second year in his sever year career where he played in 145 games or more (2012). CarGo has other-worldly talent but has always struggled to stay on the field. There’s ‘healthy CarGo’ and ‘banged-up CarGo’; two alter-egos occupying the same body. Banged-up CarGo was around more than Rockies fans would like, and it looked like he would stick around for a third straight year. Luckily, healthy CarGo showed up and showed up in a big way.

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The two halves contrasted against each other paints the only picture necessary to see how well he played over the last three months. An OPS below .700 is at replacement level; an OPS over 1.000 is MVP-like. That’s how well CarGo played over the last three months; like an MVP. That’s how good a healthy Carlos Gonzalez is. Sadly, his first three months were a challenge. After spending 2013/14 adjusting his mechanics to accommodate injuries, 2015 was bound to start with some hiccups but once he figured it out, he was among the best in the league.

Win Probability Added is a statistic that measures the impact a player has on any given game. The statistic is situation-specific and follows the Win Expectancy chart. Essentially, for every action that a player makes during a game – an at-bat, baserunning, fielding chance – affects their WPA that game. It’s an alternative to WAR that takes each situation into account. Over the first 75 games, Gonzalez had a cumulative WPA of .706. Over the rest of the season, CarGo accumulated a 3.453 WPA; almost three and a half wins over half a season.

We still don’t know if Gonzalez will play another game in a Rockies uniform – he’s the center of attention at the Winter Meetings for GM Jeff Bridich – but we do know how talented he is. CarGo will make an impact somewhere in the 2016 season.

Overall Grade: A-