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

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Now I am not here to just destroy our beloved Rockies. I am also here to show some silver linings.

The brightest of them is Sam Hilliard, he has the ability to have the same type of overall impact Carlos Gonzalez had on the 2009 Rockies lineup as the key piece of the Matt Holliday trade that offseason. Albeit in a small sample size (87 plate appearances), Hilliard slashed .273/.356/.649/1.006, leading the team with a 136 OPS+.

During his cup of coffee late in the year, Hilliard was first or second in every major advanced offensive metric per Baseball-Reference. If Bud Black goes against his tendencies and replaces Ian Desmond with Sam Hilliard, and Hilliard replicates this type of production, you have an upgrade in OPS+ of 48 points.

Last year was also essentially Ryan McMahon’s rookie season. If he can make a similar year two jump akin to Nolan Arenado (a jump from 81 OPS+ to 115) you would add 2 more All-Star level hitters to this lineup.

Couple that with Daniel Murphy returning to his career norms of a 115 OPS+, you would have one of the deepest lineups in baseball. Again though, that is A LOT of “if’s”. In a 162-game season, with so much randomness mixed in those 6 months, standing pat and assuming major improvement from half of your everyday starters is asinine.

Yet here we stand, even with the added time to sort things out as the COVID-19 virus has put the sports world on hold, in the same place they ended 2019 at 71-91. In case you wonder why there was no mention of Tony Wolters, his 64 OPS+ and 0.1 oWAR truly do not deserve mention, especially in hopes of a positive value at the plate.

So even though there is the hope of a turnaround in 2020 for this lineup, if you are a betting man, don’t. There are more warts festering in this lineup than the entirety of Hocus Pocus. Who wants to bet on that sequel?