Grading Charlie Blackmon’s 2014 Season

Sometimes it’s tough to take what you see with a grain of salt. That’s how it was with many Colorado Rockies fans in April, both with the entire team and more specifically with Charlie Blackmon. In April, Blackmon was dynamite. He hit .389 in the month of April, slugged five homers, stole seven bases, and had an OPS of 1.076. His Fangraphs WAR through the first month of the season was 1.4, among the leaders in baseball.

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We knew he couldn’t keep up that torrid pace, because nobody can hit like Blackmon hit in April, but forgive Rockies fans for believing we were witnessing a breakout in Charlie Blackmon‘s age-28 season.

That, of course, is not how it turned out. Since the beginning of May, Blackmon has been worth zero WAR. That’s not a typo; after performing like an elite player through the first month of the season, Blackmon has been no better than replacement level. Among players with equal plate appearances, only James Loney, Nick Markakis, and Ryan Howard, and Curtis Granderson have been worse. That means that 39 of the 43 players who have more plate appearances than Blackmon have been more valuable.

The offensive drop-off has really been shocking. In May, Blackmon’s OPS was .712. But it gets worse. After May, Blackmon’s OPS was sub-.700 every month except for July, culminating in a .566 OPS through 45 September at-bats.

In all, he is slashing .263/.308/.388 with 12 homers and 20 steals in 485 plate appearances since the start of May. It’s safe to say that he has cost runs for the Rockies. On a normal team, that slash line is not great but certainly isn’t terrible. This isn’t a normal team, though: given their pitching and home park, the Rockies need more out of everyday starters, especially in the outfield.

But just as it isn’t fair to look at Blackmon’s first month on its own, it also isn’t fair to look at the last five months in a vacuum. When you look at the season as a whole, a clearer picture of Blackmon emerges. His .758 OPS is serviceable but less than you would expect out of a starting outfielder. His wRC+ is 94, or 6% below average, mostly because that stat adjusts for home park.

It looks exceedingly likely that Blackmon is a product of Coors Field. He has 12 of his 17 homers at home, and has a .898 home OPS. On the road? He has half as many extra base hits and an OPS of just .595. Whereas fellow young outfielder Corey Dickerson has had success on the road as well as at home, Blackmon has not, which is not a good sign.

So he’s been below-average offensively, and putrid since April. What, then, has kept him in the lineup all season to the point that he leads the team in plate appearances by a wide margin? Well, it probably hasn’t been his defense. Blackmon has been fine defensively in center and right, but nothing special. His defense is serviceable, but it’s not the key to his value.

It looks exceedingly likely that Blackmon is a product of Coors Field.

It’s clear that the reason Blackmon has played so much over guys like Drew Stubbs and Dickerson is his April performance. The fact that he’s an all-star certainly helps, as does the fact that he doesn’t really do anything badly on the surface.

So what should Blackmon’s final grade be? His April means something, but it obviously doesn’t means as much as the last five months of the season. His consistency is meaningful, especially in a season when the Rockies have lost so many of their best players to injury (you don’t want me to list them); Blackmon’s been healthy and available all season long. It’s important to reiterate that he has 80 more plate appearances than Justin Morneau (second on the team), with that number set to widen after Morneau’s recent injury.

When weighing all the factors, from Blackmon’s decent defense to his durability to his all-star appearance (okay, maybe the all-star appearance doesn’t mean that much), it seems like a fair grade for Blackmon would be a solid B. It’s not what we were hoping for in April, when he seemed en route to an A+ season, but Blackmon definitely had a valuable role on this team.