Colorado Rockies: Who’s the leadoff man in 2018?

Ian Desmond

Now, calm down before getting your feathers ruffled. Hear me out, Ian Desmond in the leadoff spot is a good idea to think about. Now, I know everyone goes to last year, but Desmond didn’t really get to have the season he intended to due to injury. Because of that, I’m going to talk about his stats from the previous season when he was healthy. Desmond had a .285/.335/.446 slashline with 22 homers and 86 RBI. He was also an All-Star in that 2016 season while with the Rangers. When Desmond is healthy, he puts up solid numbers and I have no doubt he’ll have a bounce back year.

Even though his Spring has been pretty rocky (pun intended) he halted talks on his ability to perform after his two home runs in one game. He also has been much better in the past week as, entering between March 15th and 22nd, he is 6-for-14 (.429 AVG), with both of his home runs and all three of his RBI’s on the spring thus far. Desmond is currently healthy and looking to really show Colorado what he’s got.

I wouldn’t worry about Ian Desmond entering the 2018 season. The reason why I believe he can be the leadoff man is do to the fact that he’s not a power hitter, like Blackmon, and he’s not a speed demon like Tapia. He’s a good contact hitter as he did have 178 hits in 2016 and 93 (in 95 games) in 2017. Having a man like Desmond come through with nice clean hits in the beginning of games is a nice way to get runs on the board early. The Rockies would have a stacked lineup behind him.

Ian Desmond, in my opinion. is an out of the box choice though when you really think about it should be considered a strong possibility as the leadoff man.