Colorado Rockies Quick Hits: Black, Desmond, Shaw, Murphy

With spring training workouts well underway, Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black and some Rockies players have spoken to the media recently on their 2019 outlooks.

This morning,

had a press conference this morning with the media and spoke on a few different things. One of them was on

. Per

, Bud Black confirmed the belief that many had this offseason that the first base experiment with Desmond is over and he will primarily playing center field with some left field occasionally. This also means that

Charlie Blackmon

will move from center field and likely to left field.

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Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post spoke to Rockies reliever Bryan Shaw and Bud Black for this article yesterday about his outlook on 2019. Shaw said that “[l]ast season stunk” but he expressed confidence that he will be the pitcher that the Rockies thought they were signing last offseason. Bud Black, as the season went on, removed Shaw from high-leverage innings and left him off the postseason roster. He said that the focus “was on some delivery consistency that he’s worked on,” including working on his “release point, where hand positioning needs to be repeated and consistent.” Black added that Shaw’s mechanics “got a little bit out of whack” Black thinks that with those changes, “we’ll see the difference.” Shaw discounted the “Coors” factor as he said that the hits and home runs he allowed “were hits in any ballpark and…were home runs in any ballpark.” The Rockies need him, and other relievers, to step up as a result of Adam Ottavino leaving to go to the Yankees especially if they plan on contending in the NL West.

New Rockie Daniel Murphy spoke to the media, including Patrick Lyons of BSN Denver, about a few things but one thing of note was his thoughts on the starting rotation. Murphy said, per Lyons on Twitter, that the Rockies starting pitching is “[r]eally underrated” particularly “with the kind of year [Kyle] Freeland had [last year].” Per Lyons in another tweet, Bud Black said in regards to the Rockies starting rotation that “it looks as though who’s going to be in our five-man rotation, we can make the case that four of those spots are pretty secure.” Those four spots would be going to Kyle Freeland, German Marquez, Jon Gray, and Tyler Anderson. For the fifth spot, I would think that it will either be Chad Bettis or Antonio Senzatela but there are a few other options that the Rockies have.

Next. 3 reasons why the 2019 Colorado Rockies won’t make the postseason. dark

Our own Kevin Henry will be reporting from Scottsdale at Rockies spring training camp for the next few days as more happens in Scottsdale. Games are, thankfully, only a little over a week away.