Rockies Rumors: Dillon Gee And The Big, Fat, Dumb Mistake the Rockies Keep Making

Rumors are that the Colorado Rockies could be trying to trade for Dillon Gee. That is not a good thing.

Earlier today, several outlets including ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin reported that the Rockies are very interested in New York Mets pitcher Dillon Gee. Now, on the surface this appears to be a good trade for a club looking to rebuild its rotation into a serviceable unit.

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But, looking into the idea of Gee pitching for the Rockies reveals he’s far more than a back-end starter potentially entering his most valuable years; Gee is a problem at Coors Field and he represents a worrisome concern that the Rockies still do not understand how to target a successful pitcher for their ballpark.

For one thing, Gee is home run liable. Over the course of his career, he has given up just over one home run per nine innings (1.04) and has a 10.7% home run to fly ball ratio that is heavily weighed down by an out-of-character rookie campaign that saw his FB/HR drop under five.

That’s also pitching half the time in Citi Field, where home runs go to die, by the way; those numbers become increasingly worrisome when you place him in Coors Field. For another, his velocity and K/BB ratio isn’t high enough to even hope he could avoid trouble in Coors. There’s nothing about Gee that fits.

Bridich came out as an opponent to the school of thought that Coors Field requires a “certain kind of pitcher” this past week at the Winter Meetings and certainly, he has a point. Of the most successful pitchers in Coors Field history, only Aaron Cook truly was a ground ball pitcher and only Ubaldo Jimenez was a flame-throwing strikeout pitcher.

But there’s a difference in recognizing that Coors may be a beast that can be conquered several ways and blatantly poking a circus lion to see if he’ll bite you.

It’s a frustrating history lesson the Rockies refuse to learn. Remember Guiellermo Moscoso? Just that reliever the Rockies acquired in 2012, blatantly ignoring his 0.98 HR/9 in Oakland, only to watch it balloon to 1.44 in Coors and forcing the beginning of the end of the once good Rockies bullpen.

How about Josh Outman? Or half the pitchers the Rockies have acquired since 2009? It’s not that, they’re fly ball pitchers, it’s that they’re home run prone and they all failed in Colorado. Every. Single. One.

So why do the Rockies keep making this mistake? I’m all for grabbing players when their value is low and squeezing production out of them, but you have to play to your strengths. It’s not just that the Rockies can’t figure out what type of player succeeds on their roster it’s that they choose players that blatantly don’t fit.

The club is filling round holes with square pegs and wondering why the water still breaks through. The problem with O’Dowd wasn’t that he made mistakes: every GM does, you can’t get every single player right. But you can’t keep making the same mistake and wondering why it keeps failing. That’s where O’Dowd lost his job. That’s the thought process the Rockies must abandon.

There isn’t one type of pitcher that can succeed in Coors, but there’s definitely one type of pitcher that can fail.

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