Colorado Rockies: The 3 scariest things that can’t happen in the offseason

With today being Halloween, in the theme of the day, we thought that we would think of a few scary situations that the Colorado Rockies cannot afford to have this offseason.

The 2019 Colorado Rockies season did not end as they hoped it would when the Rockies broke from Spring Training in Scottsdale, Arizona. In fact, they regressed by 20 games by their overall win-loss record.

So with that, the Rockies will need to see some major improvements out of some key players if they plan on contending in the 2020 season.

Here’s our top three scariest things that we hope not to see this offseason.

No starting pitching acquisitions

Heading into 2019, most people (myself included) thought that the Colorado Rockies strength would be their starting pitching.

But with a massive regression from Kyle Freeland, a minor regression from German Marquez, and the last six weeks of Jon Gray‘s season being wiped out due to injury, it ended up being one of the biggest weaknesses of the team.

In fact, by starter ERA, the Rockies were dead last in the majors with a 5.87 ERA. That was nearly a quarter of a run worse than the next worst teams (the Angels with a 5.64 ERA).

While I personally wouldn’t expect Freeland to be as bad as he was in 2019, it would be absolutely asinine to expect that he post numbers like he did in 2018. Even if he, Marquez, and Gray all pitch really well, you can’t pitch with three starters for the entire regular season.

You can in the postseason (the World Champion Washington Nationals showed us that on Wednesday night) but you can’t in the regular season.

The Rockies would have to turn to two of these potential options for their fourth and fifth starters.

• Chi Chi Gonzalez (2-6 with a 5.29 ERA (5.64 FIP) in 14 games (12 starts))
• Tim Melville, who was just outrighted to Triple-A Albuquerque (2-3 with a 4.86 ERA (6.63 FIP) in seven starts)
• Antonio Senzatela (11-11 with a 6.71 ERA (5.44 FIP) in 25 starts)
• Peter Lambert (3-7 with a 7.25 ERA (5.97 FIP) in 19 starts)
• Jeff Hoffman (2-6 with a 6.56 ERA (6.80 FIP) in 15 starts)

Not a particularly glowing list to choose from. Lambert has the best potential to be a good rotation piece of these five but it’s obvious that he was not fully ready to be in the majors.

And this is the best case scenario for the Rockies. What if Freeland struggles like he did in 2019? What if Marquez regresses again? What if Gray has lingering leg issues?

In other words, the Rockies MUST trade or sign starting pitching to contend in 2019. If they don’t, they will likely not be in contention.

Also, this ties in with another topic that we will discuss later.