Rockies Year In Review: Matt McBride

The next installment in our player review series is Matt McBride.

Poor Matt McBride. He is the red-headed stepchild of the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, the one who always got mentioned last in news of the trade and probably the one we expected the least out of. We were probably right not to expect much, but he’s the only one from that trade who is still in a Rockies uniform. Let’s hope we’re not saying the same thing about Jesus Tinoco in four years.

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McBride is the very definition of “utilityman” and has played three defensive positions with the Rockies. He’s serviceable at each, which is a skill. His career UZR is just below 1.00., and he routinely saves right around one defensive run a season. It’s nice to have a guy on the bench who can come in for just about anyone. But his bat definitely leaves something to be desired.

After bouncing back and forth a bunch from the minors these past few seasons, McBride got the call in August of 2015 and struck out in his first at-bat. It took him six games and eleven at-bats for him to finally collect a hit. Ultimately, he only managed 7 hits in 42 tries. He doesn’t have a ton of strikeouts, though, so he’s making contact. His BABIP in 2015 was .167, which is really bad, so he did run into some rotten luck. He actually hit a decent number of line drives percentage-wise, but placement is everything with those. And he hit a lot of fly balls, too, but a lack of power meant he never went for extra bases. McBride has not hit well for power throughout his career; his best ISO in the majors was .258 with the Rockies last year, when he hit 2 home runs in 21 games.

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Every year with McBride, it’s a small sample size, but that in itself is telling. He just finished his age-30 season, and he’s been given fewer than thirty opportunities to start a game in three major league seasons. The Rockies clearly don’t see him as someone who can contribute beyond emergency depth, but that’s okay. Every team needs a few warm bodies who can be available when needed, and that’s who McBride is for this team. In that sense, he did his job. But because we are in the business of winning baseball games around here, the best I can do is pass him.

Overall Grade: C