Colorado Rockies: How to avoid repeating the ’18 NLDS in ’19

Win the division.

The Rockies had to take a long, arduous road to Milwaukee before they even got a chance to play in the NLDS. Much has been made about them playing three games in three cities, in three different time zones over three days, but that really does have an effect. Especially when all three are high-stakes games and one of them goes a full 13 innings in a visiting ballpark.

By the time they found themselves at Miller Park, the Rockies looked like they had lost all their energy. They could have avoided this debacle if only they had won their division to begin with. One more win during the regular season and it would have been the Dodgers who would have had to face off against the Cubs while the Rockies kicked back in Denver and waited for the Atlanta Braves to come to town.

Had the Rockies won the division, the NLDS could have shaped up very differently. They would have stayed home after beating the Washington Nationals at Coors Field in the final game of the season and hosted the Braves, the team with the worst regular season record in the postseason.

Freeland and Marquez would have been ready to go for games 1 and 2 at home where Colorado has played as good as any team in baseball. One more regular season win and we could be talking about the Rockies advancing to the National League Championship Series right now.

Instead, they had to play a road series against the NL’s top seed after facing off against the team with the second-best record in the NL in the Wild Card Game, also on the road.

Fix first base.

I’m not the biggest anti-Ian Desmond guy out there. He managed to put together a 20-20 season and he logged 88 RBI, good enough for third-most on the team. He had a few huge hits that resulted in wins when we needed them the most. He provides veteran leadership, postseason experience and an important clubhouse presence.

Desmond also put together a memorable number of empty at-bats. He strikes out too much and hits so many soft ground outs it drives the Rockies’ faithful mad. In 2018, he posted a poor .236 average to go along with a cringe-worthy career-worst .307 on-base percentage. Desmond’s performance isn’t the reason the Rockies got swept. No one could hit this postseason. It’s not his fault. But in the postmortem of the 2018 season, he stands out for three reasons.

First, he’s getting paid way too much. I know that point has been exhausted ever since his signing was announced, but he is the highest-paid player on the team and he just posted an underwhelming 83 OPS + (with 100 representing league average), which is actually an improvement from last season’s career-low mark of 72. As the Rockies look to make additions this offseason or retain/extend current stars like Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu, and Adam Ottavino, that $70 million looms even larger.

Second, the bottom of the order needs to produce better than it did this season, and Desmond is the most talented hitter in the lower third, so a portion of that responsibility lies on him. In 2017, position players hitting in the 7-9 spots in the order hit .246, contributing to a record-setting RBI season from Charlie Blackmon at the top of the order. In 2018, the bottom third of the Rockies’ lineup hit just .221, a significant drop off.

Desmond isn’t the sole solution to the struggles of the bottom third of the lineup just as he isn’t its sole cause. But he is an important contributor to both.  In the end, the Rockies need to do more than just get Desmond going. They need a corner outfielder or two (hopefully David Dahl cemented his role as an everyday guy at the end of the season but, unfortunately, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to not see him in the Opening Day lineup in 2019) and probably a catcher. We can hope the Rockies will address those areas this offseason.

Lastly, the Rockies need more production from first base. This is an offensive position that needs to produce more than a 83 OPS+. There is an argument that lower production from first base is acceptable because Trevor Story‘s MVP-type offense (.291 AVG, 37 HR, 108 RBI, 27 SB) from a typically less-productive offensive position offsets Desmond’s lacking production.

That approach works fine for a .500 team, but the Rockies can do better than that. Winning teams don’t look at a great shortstop as an opportunity to settle for less offense from other positions. Instead, they look at it as a chance to have a great hitting shortstop in addition to a great first baseman.

Ian Desmond still needs to pick up his on base percentage significantly, but otherwise, his offense would be acceptable if it was coming from a bottom-third corner outfielder. Does that mean the Rockies finally give Ryan McMahon an opportunity to be the everyday first baseman? Or do they go after another first baseman on the market?

Either way, they need to fix first base.

Don’t get intimidated.

For all intents and purposes, the Rockies’ season ended in the sixth inning of game 3 when reliever Scott Oberg got called for a very unusual, run-scoring balk after dropping the ball on the mound.  He followed that up by allowing another run on a wild pitch.  Any sliver of hope the Rockies had was gone.  The nerves we had detected under the surface came bumbling out in an ugly display for the final tortuous innings of one of the worst playoff series in Rockies’ history.

As non-existent as the Rockies’ offense was in the Wild Card Game, the team walked into Chicago like they belonged there and they left having proved it.  Contrarily, the Rockies looked intimidated the entire NLDS.  The Brewers are a very good team, but the Rockies earned a spot in the postseason just the same and they needed to come to grips with that.

If the Rockies are going to see postseason success they need to understand how good they are.  They need to play like they belong there.  Instead, the Rockies played like they were lucky to even get in.

A mark of a good team is being able to play when the lights shine the brightest.  They did it in Chicago, now they need to keep that game plan for every difficult match-up in the postseason.  They can’t get intimidated–no matter who they play.  If they do, they will lose.  Game 3 may have shown us once and for all the real reason the Rockies got swept.  Playing scared never results in good baseball.  You need to play confident in order to see success in the playoffs–and the Rockies did not do that against Milwaukee.

If the Rockies address these issues, not only will they return to the playoffs in 2019, they will do so with a legitimate shot to make a deep run.