Colorado Rockies: Grading and Analyzing the 2016 Rotation

TYLER CHATWOOD: 2016 GRADE B- (fWAR 2.1)

Tyler Chatwood embodied the classic tale of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Well, its baseball equivalent anyway. As an illustration, Chatwood was the best pitcher on the planet when he was away from Coors field. In 13 games started, Chatwood collected eight wins and posted a league-high 1.69 ERA. Tyler’s success on the road was namely due to the fact that opponents hit just .189 against. Pitching in front of the home crowd was a complete 180.

In 14 games started at Coors, Chatwood put up a pedestrian 4-8 record with an ERA of 6.12. In brief, those numbers just aren’t going to cut it. Despite an eye-popping ERA at home, Chatwood won a career-high 12 games and posted a 3.87 ERA.

In the end, it’s going to be hard for Chatty to improve on his impressive road performances, a few things will need to happen if Denver hopes to host a postseason game for the first time since 2009. Firstly, he’ll have to provide more than just four quality starts at home. Specifically, Tyler will need to improve his command. In total opponents hit .303 against him at Coors. It appears walk were not an issue, but rather he caught too much of the plate.

Seeing that the Rockies intend to compete in 2017, Tyler Chatwood is going to be a big factor if Rocktober is to be a reality. The lineup is playoff ready at the current moment, but staff development is going to be instrumental. The exciting part of all of this is that all at the age of 27, Chatwood, Anderson, and Bettis are just now entering the prime of their careers.