Colorado Rockies: NL West Preview Series – Arizona Diamondbacks

Welcome to my National League West preview series, where I’ll be breaking down the series history and key offseason moves for each division rival of the Colorado Rockies.

Before I begin, I want to clarify that I’ll be looking at each team since the beginning of 2017, when the Colorado Rockies’ current contention window, as well as current core, began. I’ll kick things off with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Of the four other teams in the NL West, Colorado has the most even head-to-head record with the Diamondbacks over the last three seasons. A quick search on Baseball-Reference.com shows that the Rockies sit one game over .500, with a 29-28 record, in that time against the snakes.

Arizona was one of the most active teams on the trade and free-agent market during the offseason. The club signed free agent starter Madison Bumgarner to bolster a rotation that was worth 11 fWAR and posted an ERA of 4.23 in 2019, per FanGraphs. The team also whiffed 8.74 hitters per nine innings, the 12th-highest mark in MLB.

Bumgarner, entering his 12th year in the Major Leagues, is still only 30 years old and remains one of the more effective hurlers in the game. His 3.2 fWAR season last year was his most valuable since 2016 when he posted a mark of 4.3.

He also provides proven playoff experience and success (his incredible one run in 21 innings showing in the 2014 World Series) for a clubhouse desperate for a deep postseason run. In all likelihood, the North Carolina native will slide into the top spot in the Diamondbacks rotation.

As a comparison, Colorado’s starters performed considerably worse than Arizona’s even before the addition of Bumgarner, finishing with just 6.5 fWAR and a 5.87 ERA that was the worst in baseball by more than 0.2 runs.

The Diamondbacks also made a couple moves to shore up an offense that finished in the bottom half of the league in 2019 if you look at park-adjusted wRC+. Their mark of 94 signified a below-average offensive unit by six percent, and their team on-base percentage, .323, ranked 16th in baseball.

General Manager Mike Hazen addressed the obvious need in this area by trading for Pirates center fielder outfielder Starling Marte, and signing catcher Stephen Vogt and outfielder Kole Calhoun to Major League free-agent deals.

https://twitter.com/Dbacks/status/1221903299755929601?s=20

I expect Vogt and Marte to have the largest impact on their new club. Vogt, who appeared in 99 games with San Francisco last year, provides a sizable offensive improvement over Alex Avila behind the plate.

The former Giant bested Avila’s .774 OPS with his .804, and according to Baseball-Reference, was 11 percent better than league average by OPS+, while Avila finished with a league-average mark of 100. Vogt didn’t play in the majors in 2018 but from 2014 through 2017, his OPS+ was 103. Avila’s OPS+ from 2014 through 2018 was 94.

Vogt also brings valuable experience working with Bumgarner in his lone season with the Giants. He was behind the plate for four of Bumgarner’s 34 starts and was excited to hear that his new club had landed the southpaw when the news broke, according to Jake Anderson’s story on ArizonaSports.com.

“We’re comfortable with each other. We know each other very well since we spent a year together in the clubhouse and talked about pitching in between starts, just different things like that.”

Marte and Calhoun join a solid outfield group, including Tim Locastro, Ketel Marte (no relation to Starling), and David Peralta. Overall, the D-Backs outfielders produced an fWAR of 11.0 in 2019, tied with the Mets for 8th-best in baseball.