Colorado Rockies: Who Was the Most Improved Player in 2016?

The Colorado Rockies improved their record by seven games from 2015 to 2016 ending the season with a 75-87 record. The team certainly could have finished the season with a more impressive record but their record plummeted in the month of September. The September record of 11-16 was their worst winning percentage in any month of the season.

The contributions that the rookies made towards success has been well documented, but the improvements of the core group of talented position players also played a major role.

Here on Rox Pile, we have already debated who we think deserves the MVP title, so I want to delve into the battle for most improved player.

Charlie Blackmon

The big change for Blackmon came in terms of his ability to hit for power. As mentioned above his home run total increased by 12. He lowered his at bats per home run from 36.1 to 19.9. This showed in his slugging percentage, which rose over .100 points from .450 to .552. Blackmon’s ability to draw walks stayed about the same and the rise in his OBP from .347 to .381 was due mainly to an increase in batting average.

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Also impressive from Blackmon was his ability to put together solid at bats … and make the pitcher work. He increased his pitches per plate appearance from 3.98 to 4.08, which is .25 better than the league average. Chuck also saw added to his line drive percentage, which sat at 35 in 2016, 12% over the league average of 23.

The power surge this year was coupled with a decrease in number of stolen bases. Charlie had 43 stolen bases last year compared to only 17 this year. His successful stolen base percentage also went down from 77 to 65%, explaining the 30 less attempts.

The advanced stats placing value on Blackmon also show improvements. His WAR according to baseball reference was 4.4 in 2016, much higher than 3.2 in 2015. Fangraphs saw Blackmon similarly with a WAR of 3.9 in 2016, an even larger increase compared to the 2.1 value he compiled in 2015.