Colorado Rockies: The four most disappointing players of 2019

Let’s just say that 2019 didn’t exactly go as planned for the Colorado Rockies.

After two straight playoff appearances, the Colorado Rockies were expected to be back in the hunt for a third straight year. They were not expected to finish 71-91, a distant 35 games out of first in the NL West and 18 games behind the second Wild Card.

Any time a collapse like this happens it’s tempting to point fingers and cast blame… so let’s do just that. These are the four players that most disappointed Rockies fans this season as well as a bonus player who broke a lot of Colorado hearts in 2019.

Kyle Freeland

2018 Kyle Freeland had one of the best seasons for any Rockies pitcher ever. He went 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA and an eye-popping 8.4 WAR. This led to a well-deserved fourth-place finish in the Cy Young voting, the best finish for a Rockie since Ubaldo’s magical 2010 season.

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2019 Kyle Freeland, on the other hand, just plain stunk. It’s not even fair to call what happened “regression,” because Freeland had never been this bad. “Total collapse” comes a lot closer to capturing the rolling disaster that was Freeland’s year.

The Denver native finished with a 3-11 record, 6.73 ERA, and a counterproductive -0.8 WAR. His walk rate rose, strikeout rate plunged, and he gave up 2.2 HR/9 — an unsustainably high mark, even in this homer-happy season.

Freeland also had two separate DL stints, for blister issues and a groin strain, respectively, and faced the ignominy of a brief stint in the minor leagues. Quite the fall from grace for a player that looked poised to head the Rockies rotation for years to come.