The reasons why the Colorado Rockies can still win in 2020

It was one of the most one-sided efforts of the year. Despite entering the season with so much promise, a 12-0 loss at Coors Field in the final game of the season put a punctuation mark on a very disappointing season that saw a championship favorite miss the playoffs entirely. But one short year after this humbling season, the Washington Nationals won the World Series.

Why are Colorado Rockies fans (and it seems perhaps the front office) so quick to dismiss a roster that months earlier the baseball world thought could bring Colorado its first World Series Championship? Yes, 2019 was an abysmal season, but it was also a season in which everything went wrong.

How many teams would survive losing their entire starting rotation? None. That doesn’t mean other teams would have plummeted as spectacularly as the Rockies did, but you can’t expect the team to lose all five starters for a significant portion of time again in 2020.

I understand rotation issues certainly weren’t the Rockies’ only issue in 2019, however, let’s remember that just one year ago this team forced a game 163 with the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers for the division crown. The idea that the Rockies’ can’t compete with the Dodgers is a self-fulfilling prophecy that must be purged from the team culture.

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And while it may sound ludicrous that a 91-loss team can challenge one of the best teams in the sport, the Rockies are not a 91-loss team. Yes, that was the numerical record of losses the club suffered in 2019, but the team is not built to lose 91 games. There is far too much talent on this roster for that to happen for a second year in a row.

Last year was an aberration and the front office needs to work harder to make that clear to the fans and the players. If that’s not how they see it, they should have spent this offseason putting the team’s superstars on the auction block, though I believe that would have been a mistake. It took years to build this roster … and it’s arguably still the most talent-packed roster in team history despite last season’s collapse. The team needs to go into 2020 full-tilt, no holds barred, and give it all they have. If 2019 repeats itself, they can blow it up at the deadline and bring back the greatest prospect and draft pick haul since the Houston Astros rebuild.

Some will be rightfully skeptical of the idea the Rockies can bounce back in 2020. While I’m not saying they will win the World Series, or capture the division crown, or even make the playoffs, I do think this roster can still win, and, in baseball, anything can happen. So here’s a look at the team’s pitching and offensive outlook for this season and an explanation of why the Rockies can still win in 2020.