Colorado Rockies: Are they picking chemistry over offense?

The Colorado Rockies have been dealing with a lot of woes. Whether it’s from the offense or the pitching it’s not a pretty sight to see. The team still stuck in neutral (or in some cases, going backwards), it’s time we look back and find the root of the problems. The very first one that we should be looking at is how the Rockies picked chemistry over offense.

The 2018 season for the Colorado Rockies has been a whirlwind thus far. However, reasons for that may have first started in the off season. So with that, let’s time travel back to March when rumors of Carlos Gonzalez coming back were going around. Many, like myself, have come to the conclusion that the re-signing of Cargo was simply to keep players happy, as the front office probably had a specific player’s morale in mind, that being Nolan Arenado.

I understand that the Colorado Rockies always want to keep players happy, especially those that have contributed to the team as much as Arenado. This will probably also go into the the fact that Nolan Arenado has only a couple more years left on his contract as well. That’s all good and fine, but re-signing CarGo really cut into the projected roster of the Rockies.

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In a few ways, it was admittedly a real toss up about who would be placed where defensively before CarGo came back. However, once he did come back, Gerardo Parra went back to left field. This put Ian Desmond right back at first with Ryan McMahon on the bench to really embrace bench for an extended time. Thus moving onto not being able to give more playing time to Mike Tauchman or having space for David Dahl or Raimel Tapia.

If you just look at Gonzalez’s stats he’s playing exactly the same as he did last season for the Colorado Rockies. CarGo has a slashline of .218/.264/.386 with only 4 home runs and just 15 RBI.  It shouldn’t be a cceptable to have a player that didn’t play good last year get re-offered a contract only to play the exact same in 2018. It appears at this point in the season the Rockies are really valuing a clubhouse full of familiar faces over the fresh ones. As this continues to go on, it will most likely dictate how they do the rest of the season.

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The Colorado Rockies have the opportunity to go with a youth movement. They have some seriously talented young players that are just wasting away in Triple-A because they don’t want to bench or move guys down that aren’t playing good baseball. While those same guys continue to do well in the minors, the Rockies will have to struggle with some players just for the sake of keeping them to have a happy clubhouse.