Colorado Rockies: Would you take the over or under on wins?

Unless your name is Jeff Bridich or Dick Monfort, your over/under for the 2021 Colorado Rockies win total probably doesn’t start at 90 games.

If you were around for the last 30 years (or really in the last 30 seconds), you’d know that if the Rockies don’t lose less than a hundred games, it will be a miracle. The Rockies have never lost 100 games in the history of their franchise. It’s not for a lack of trying though with a history of Todd and the Toddlers in 2002, or in 2012 when there was a four-man pitching rotation that panned out just as effectively as that sounds. The year 2022 doesn’t bode much more success for this club.

But Rockies brass somehow topped the worst moments in league history last month, trading arguably the best player in franchise history in Nolan Arenado for absolutely nothing and gave the St. Louis Cardinals $50 million for the privilege. At least when Rockies fans were upset in 2008 when they traded Matt Holliday, CarGo and Huston Street came to Denver and made the playoffs in 2009. Now all fans have is a message that players on one of the worst rosters assembled in baseball on top of one of the most underwhelming farm systems in MLB need to step it up. By comparison, Rockies management make Dinger and the Tooth Trot look more of a competent  collective to run an organization.

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So what do the win estimates look like for the Colorado Rockies in 2021?

That all leads us to the Rockies having the second-worst odds to make the playoffs in 2021. According to Betonline, the Rockies’ expected win total for this season is 63.5 games. The only one to “beat” Colorado for the dubious honor for the worst in baseball is the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have been rebuilding for more than half a decade. The Pirates number at 58.5 is the fourth-lowest according to the site since 2005. To rub salt in the wound, the Dodgers have a 103.5 win total, which is projected to be the most according to the site since the same year. At least the Pirates have a history of winning at some point with five championships under their belt.

No one needs a reminder how terrible it’s going to be at 20th and Blake for quite some time. And if we can somehow cope with the heartache, that might be one of the best things that ever happens to this franchise. Kiz in The Denver Post has a great Op-Ed on this point. The only thing that will change the minds of the Rockies management is if people aren’t showing up at Coors Field. That won’t happen this year. The moment we are allowed back to Coors Field, fans will show up in droves to the best bar in Denver. To get change, the Rockies will need to lose 100 games in multiple seasons for the effects to show up in the Monforts pocketbooks. Only then, maybe (and it’s a big maybe) will they take winning seriously.

Honestly good for Nolan. I hope Chuck, Trevor, and the Gray Wolf all get paid next offseason for playing well and admirably in a tough situation in 2021. That’s about as much as we can hope for. This team is good about every seventh year of every decade it’s been in existence. Larry Walker won MVP in 1997 in an above .500 season just a couple years off from a playoff run. In 2007, they went all the way to the World Series. In 2017, they had their first playoff game since and was the beginning of their first back-to-back playoff appearances.

For the Rockies management telling the fans that somehow they are looking to compete when they are the only team to not guarantee any money to any free agent this offseason, here’s to looking forward to 2027. At best.