Colorado Rockies: Is the 2020 lineup as empty as the offseason has been?

Everyone wanted to jump on the 2019 bullpen and starting rotation (with plenty of merits). But I would like to conjecture that the offensive decline had just as much to do with it. There have been Rocktober’s built on a makeshift rotation when coupled with a high-powered offense/top tier defense.

Playing half your games at Coors Field should never leave you with offensive rankings like this:

2018;

• OPS: 6th
• OPS+: 26th
• BA: 6th
• SLG: 5th
• HR: 8th
• SO%: 23rd
• HR%: 3rd

2019;

• OPS: 9th
• OPS+: 26th
• BA: 6th
• SLG: 6th
• HR: 15th
• SO%: 26th
• HR%: 9th

As you can see, the 2019 Colorado Rockies lineup was worse in every meaningful statistic when compared to 2018. But to me, the most telling is the drop in Home Run percentage from 3rd in all of baseball in 2018 all the way down to 9th.

This coupled with a 1.3% spike in strikeout percentage doomed this team regardless of who was on the mound. This may not sound like much, but the change in K% from 2018 (22.6%) to 2019 (23.9%) is a difference of 106 strikeouts. They did hit 15 more home runs in 2019 than 2018 improving their HR percentage by 0.2 percent.

The problem is so did EVERY other team as has been well documented (0.2% is actually tied for the least amount of improvement by any team from 2018 to 2019).

So during a year where every single power record was set other than the single-season HR record, in a park that is a mile above sea-level, their power numbers regressed, while simultaneously hacking at air more often, led to a margin for error a below-average and injury-riddled pitching staff could not overcome.