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

Raimel Tapia of the Colorado Rockies — DENVER, COLORADO – MAY 30: Raimel Tapia #15 of the Colorado Rockies runs to second base after hitting a double in the first inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field on May 30, 2019 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

They won’t acquire some position player depth

The Colorado Rockies problem for much of their franchise’s history has been that while they have major superstar positional players, they do not have any talent behind them.

The Rockies of this era, yet again, falls in this territory.

They have Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, Charlie Blackmon, and David Dahl (when healthy). Who do they have after that?

Not much.

Offensively, there were only two players on the entire 2019 Rockies who hit better than league average besides those four guys. They were Sam Hilliard (136 OPS+ in 27 games) and Yonder Alonso (101 OPS+ in 54 games). Their next best offensive player was Ian Desmond.

He hit .255/.310/.479 with an OPS+ of 88.

Daniel Murphy and Ryan McMahon were right on his heels as they both had an OPS+ of 87.

Here’s the numbers for the other players.

Team Batting
Rk	Pos	Name	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
1	C	Tony Wolters*	121	411	359	42	94	17	1	42	36	68	.262	.337	.329	.666	64
6	LF	Raimel Tapia*	138	447	426	54	117	23	9	44	21	100	.275	.309	.415	.724	74
Rk	Pos	Name	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
10	UT	Garrett Hampson	105	327	299	40	74	9	8	27	24	88	.247	.302	.385	.686	66
11	C	Chris Iannetta	52	164	144	20	32	10	6	21	18	54	.222	.311	.417	.728	75
12	1B	Mark Reynolds	78	162	135	13	23	7	4	20	22	57	.170	.290	.311	.601	47
13	CF	Yonathan Daza	44	105	97	7	20	1	0	3	7	21	.206	.257	.237	.494	22
15	IF	Pat Valaika	40	86	79	11	15	5	1	4	7	34	.190	.256	.316	.572	38
17	MI	Brendan Rodgers	25	81	76	8	17	2	0	7	4	27	.224	.272	.250	.522	29
18	1B	Josh Fuentes	24	56	55	8	12	1	3	7	1	20	.218	.232	.400	.632	49
19	C	Drew Butera	16	49	43	6	7	3	0	3	4	14	.163	.229	.233	.462	13
20	C	Dom Nunez*	16	43	39	4	7	3	2	4	3	17	.179	.233	.410	.643	51
21	LF	Noel Cuevas	1	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	-100

Not everybody is going to be a good hitter (e.g. Tony Wolters) but if they are at least good defensively, then they at least bring something to the table. However, Wolters was the only player of this group that had more than one Defensive Run Saved.

With that, as a team, they had an OPS+ of 87. Not everybody can be a perennial MVP candidate, but it is fair to ask for mid-level talent. The Rockies had very little of that. Don’t believe me?

By bWAR, outside of Arenado, Story, and Blackmon, not a single Rockies position player had a bWAR higher than 1.5 (Ryan McMahon). Outside of those three, the rest of the Rockies position players had a bWAR of -2.7.

The World Champion Nationals had five guys with a bWAR between 1-3 (and three players with a 4.0 bWAR or higher). The AL champion Astros had 11 position players with a 1.0 bWAR or higher. Even the 2018 Rockies only had three position players in that category. The 2017 Rockies had four.

It should be obvious now: the Rockies secondary position players need a major upgrade.

And that would partially come if our overarching third topic actually happened.

They won’t acquire some position player depth

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