Parallels between 2018 Colorado Rockies and 2015 Kansas City Royals

As we begin to enter into spring training, the Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Nationals, and Los Angeles Angels are sitting in the top five in terms of team payroll 2018, according to Spotrac. It is almost hard to fathom how the Colorado Rockies are genuinely going to compete for a World Series against teams that are spending approximately $44M+ more than themselves in a season. It’s not out of the realm of possibility though…

As we take a look back through recent history, it’s hard not to draw parallels between the 2015 Kansas City Royals and the 2018 Colorado Rockies. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” a quote, often attributed to American author Mark Twain, which I think is fitting when comparing teams from different times. So, let’s get into how the ’15 Royals and ’18 Rockies rhyme.

In 2015, the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets in five games to win their second World Series in franchise history. Once again referring to our buddies over at Spotrac, they achieved this rare feat while spending just over $132 million, which was $4 million short of the league average that season. It is slightly comforting to know that a team within recent history has won a World Series on a league-average team payroll.

In 2018, the Colorado Rockies have a team payroll of $127 million (as of this writing), with a league average of $119 million this season. However, it does not matter if you have a ton of it, or not enough of it, money alone will not win or lose ball games. We have seen this time and time again. It is all about the front office’s ability to put talent on the field, and the manager’s ability to draw up a blueprint for that talent to succeed.

The Royals made it through the regular season to a World Series trophy by focusing on clutch hitting, sterling defense, and most of all, an absolute lock-down bullpen. Sounds familiar, right? I lived in Kansas City during the years the Royals made a couple of runs at the postseason. I can safely tell you that Ned Yost was not highly regarded as a game manager by writers, talk-radio hosts, or the fans. Yost, like any other manager, had his fair share of woulda-coulda-shoulda’s. He was often berated for being so quick to go to the bullpen at the slightest sign of trouble. Yet, looking back, it wasn’t like he could lean on the Royals below-average starting pitching. They were ranked 22nd in the regular season with an ERA of 4.34, according to FanGraphs.

Colorado Rockies

His near religious choice to bring in Ryan Madson or Franklin Morales to get out of jams in the sixth inning, Kelvin Herrera pitching in the seventh, Wade Davis setting-up in the eighth, and finally for Greg Holland to come in and slam the door closed in the ninth changed the pitching landscape. Teams with sub-par starters changed how they looked at the value of relief pitchers, and their ability to impact games. Just take a look at how Dave Roberts with the Dodgers, A.J. Hinch with the Astros and Terry Francona with the Indians all manage their pitching corps.

Colorado’s starting pitchers aren’t terrible by any stretch. It is quite the contrary. The reasons for inconsistency of Rockies’ pitchers are going to be very different from those of the Royals. Rockies feature a pitching staff with no player over the age of 28. There are going to be a few bumps in the road as the young Rockies starting pitching staff matures and develops. Colorado’s General Manager, Jeff Bridich, has foreseen this, though. Knowing that that the Rockies have a chance to compete, it appears Bridich followed along with Dayton Moore’s and Ned Yost’s blueprint by aggressively building one of the toughest (if not the toughest, according to yours truly) bullpens in Major League Baseball.

Much like Yost in ’15, Bud Black will have the ability to keep his pitching staff on a short leash, and then, at the sight of trouble, send opposing offenses through the meat-grinder that is the Rockies bullpen. The Rockies will have their fireman reliever with Chris Rusin to work through tough multiple innings, Jake McGee, Adam Ottavino, Mike Dunn, Scott Oberg and the rest of relief corps for specialty and match-up appearances, and Bryan Shaw to setup for closer Wade Davis. It’s also worth noting Davis was an important cog in that World Series winning Royals’ bullpen.

You know the funny thing about baseball, though? It does not matter how good the pitching is, a team can only win games if they score more runs than their opponents. Jokes aside, Colorado’s offense isn’t prolific by any stretch. When a small to middle market team devotes upward of $50 million to its bullpen, there just isn’t enough cash left to sign a top-to-bottom killer line up, like a Yankees or a Dodgers team. While I imagine the Rockies probably will not attempt as many sacrifice bunts as the Royals did in 2015, the best way to compare the two offenses is to look at the production from 2015 Royals and 2017 Rockies.

Statistics Courtesy of Fangraphs

Now, the statistics are going to be a tiny bit misaligned because of the whole designated hitter versus pitcher hitter. However, taking the pitchers’ stats out of both teams’ lines seem to be slightly more apples-to-apples. What are we concluding by looking at the batting like totals for both these teams? Well, neither is particularly killer top-to-bottom. These stat lines aren’t wildly different in terms of what is produced overall, either. In order; Alcides Escobar, Ben Zobrist, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Kendrys Morales, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Alex Gordon and some mix of below-replacement level players was the most-used lineup during the regular season in 2015, according to Baseball-Reference.com. It’s clear that the Royals relied on quality at-bats, speed, and aggressive base running … which is pretty unconventional for an American League team these days.

As stated earlier, what each offense produced in their given season is almost a wash when compared to each other. However, I think the Rockies are a little better suited for a postseason run than the Royals were. They aren’t as one-dimensional either. Looking at the at the stat line, the Rockies actually did a little better job relying less on luck and more about getting on base. Obviously playing with less speed, the Rockies relied on power to produce offense. With Bud experimenting this spring; it’s anyone’s guess what the line up will look like. Personally, I think, in order, Ian Desmond, DJ LeMahieu, Charlie Blackmon, Nolan Arenado, Gerardo Parra, Trevor Story, Ryan McMahon, and Chris Iannetta will probably get the most usage this season.

This projected lineup will feature some pop from Blackmon, Arenado, and even a little from Desmond, if he bounces back. Your quality at-bats will come from Blackmon, Arenado, LeMahieu and Parra, all of whom are coming off career, or near career, best in batting average. Story, and the addition of Iannetta, will provide some streaky power at the tail end of the lineup. With first base in question, we’ll just call McMahon a wild card that could go either way. The Rockies will even feature a little bit of speed and aggressive base running.