Colorado Rockies: German Marquez is getting Coors’d

The Colorado Rockies pitching staff is having one of its finest seasons. With a shift in attitude to approaching altitude, local boy Kyle Freeland has captained bullpen coach Darren Holmes‘ philosophy, “Coors Field doesn’t eliminate success. Coors Field eliminates the weak.”

Freeland, like most of the Colorado Rockies pitchers in 2018, has seemingly not only figured out Coors Field — and the challenges that come with pitching at altitude — but has eliminated the park from even being a valid excuse.

The same has not been true with German Marquez. The 23-year-old righty is having phenomenal season with just a small stain … his home starts haven’t been as dominant as his road ones.

It’s key to note before getting into this that the numbers for Marquez as a whole are very good and his road starts have been elite, which is part of the reason is just decent home starts even stand out.

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That said, Marquez has a 7-3 record with a 2.89 ERA on the road and a 4-6 record with a 6.42 ERA at home. The biggest peripheral standout beyond that is a walk rate per nine that increases with elevation from 2.44 to 3.79. Part of that is that he’s walking more batters — obviously — while the other part is that he’s not going as deep into his starts at home, lasting only 5.1 innings rather than the 6.1 innings when he is out on the road.

But going back to the walk thing which would stop this whole story in its tracks, his walk rate is only three percent higher at home and his ball to strike ratio is essentially the same so that’s not really a viable answer.

So what is it? Let’s take a look.

Given that Marquez has an elite curveball, that makes sense that his walk rate is slightly higher in Denver. He relies on curveballs to get many outs and a curveball is most effected by the mile high elevation.

But that’s not actually it. His expected weighted On Base Average (xwOBA) is virtually the same between home and road for his curveball. His stuff is playing everywhere and the addition of a better slider and change up actually has him bordering on elite away from Denver.

Tony Wolters verried this as well calling his curveball “plus-plus” and saying that it plays everywhere.

Marquez’ hard hit rate at home is 38.5 percent with an average exit velocity of 89 mph. On the road, it’s 37.1 percent with an exit velocity of 87.7 mph exit velo. So that doesn’t show what’s happening either.

Instead, what’s happening can be shown in where the ball is ending up and not even how it’s being hit.

Marquez hasn’t pitched the same amount at home or road but based on the two graphs below you can see that he’s given up far more flares and burners at home (top) than on the road (under.)

This was detailed in his last start at Coors Field where Marquez allowed 10 hits, most of them of the weak variety. Those flares and burners are falling more and that explains why his .381 to .246 BABIP, depending on the location of the hill he takes. A better way to put it is his WOBA is 66 points higher than his XWOBA in Denver and 25 lower outside the Centennial State.

German Marquez, he’s being Coors Field’d to death. That helps to explain it … but the funny thing is, even with that and a pretty high ERA in comparison to his Colorado companions, there is still a pretty good pitcher hiding inside Marquez.