Five Bold Predictions for the Rockies in the Second Half

The Rockies’ outfielders, with the obvious exception of Charlie Blackmon, who will be starting in center field for the National League All-Star team in Miami tonight, have struggled (particularly Ian Desmond and Carlos Gonzalez). They both have spent time on the DL this year with injury as Desmond is currently on the DL and Gonzalez just came off the DL (as discussed here).

Desmond has only played in 57 games thus far and he’s only had 12 extra base hits (including five home runs and six doubles) with 26 RBIs. He is hitting .283 but his on-base percentage is fairly low (.321) and his slugging percentage has dropped off significantly compared to 2016 (.446 down to .388). This is part of the reason that his OPS+ had also dropped 30% from 104 to 74.

Gonzalez’s puzzling season was chronicled a few days ago in this article. In 74 games and he’s only had 19 extra base hits (13 doubles and six home runs) and 22 RBIs. He’s only hitting .221 with a .299 on-base percentage and a .338 slugging percentage with an OPS+ of 57.

This is a fall from grace from 2016 as he had 25 HRs, 100 RBIs, 174 hits, 42 doubles, a .298 average, .350 on-base percentage, a .505 slugging percentage, and a 111 OPS+.

Some potential acquisitions could be J.D. Martinez of the Detroit Tigers, Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Marcell Ozuna, and Christian Yelich, each of the Miami Marlins (all of these players have been in at least one of these three articles.)