Colorado Rockies: What are the 25 best seasons by Rockies aged 25 or under?

15) Todd Helton’s 1999 season (Age 25 season)

Like his 1998 season, Helton’s 1999 season is another one that WAR seems a bit suspect and that’s partially because of the poor defensive metrics for the time but part of it is because 1999 was the season with the most amount of offense in any year in the sport since 1930 (2000 is the only season that has surpassed it since).

Since the Great Depression, only one MLB team has scored 1,000 runs in a season and that was in 1999 when the Cleveland Indians scored 1,009 runs. The average MLB hitter’s slash line was .271/.345/.434.

As for Helton, he played in 159 games and he had 185 hits, 39 doubles, 35 home runs, 113 RBI, walked 68 times, struck out 77 times, and had a slash line of .320/.395/.587. He had an OPS+ of 122 but only had a WAR of 2.9. That WAR wouldn’t even make this list if we just considered WAR but with those offensive numbers, Helton’s 1999 season definitely deserves to be on the list and not in the bottom few selections either.

14)  German Marquez’s 2020 season (Age 25 season)

German Marquez could have been higher on this list for his 2020 season had it been a full season but as we all know, it was only 60 games, which hurts him. After all, we’ll never know whether or not players played as they did for 60 games or if they would have continued it for 162.

However, since it’s only 60, if you just look at totals, no season from 2020 would pale in comparison. So, with that, we took the middle ground on it.

In 2020, Marquez went 4-6 with a 3.75 ERA. He had 13 starts (which led the league) and 81 2/3 innings (which also led the league) as well as a 140 ERA+. His 3.28 FIP and his record suggest that he was even a victim of the Rockies poor offense. He also cut his home run rate in half but his walk rate and strikeout rate each got a little bit worse compared to 2019.