What if the Colorado Rockies had not traded Nolan Arenado to the St. Louis Cardinals?

Nolan Arenado was good on defense in 2021 but not as good as he was with the Colorado Rockies

So determining how many runs having Nolan would have saved if he was with the Colorado Rockies, we yet again look at the individual players on the rosters and determine the gained DRS for the team.

Unfortunately, Nolan’s defense suffered (by his standards) in 2021, with a fielding percentage of .974 and a DRS of 6.

It’s difficult to consider how he would have done in Colorado defensively because fielding is just different at Coors. Pitchers rely heavily on ground balls rather than strikeouts, giving Nolan more opportunities to perform.

Because of this, I am reluctantly choosing to port his numbers from 2016, when he had an almost identical Fielding percentage with a DRS of 13. The way the math works out is that the Colorado Rockies would have had roughly 11 more DRS if Nolan Arenado was the man starting at 3rd Base.

So what does this all mean? Does each run equate to a win?

Do the Rockies win 49 more games? No, of course not. That’s not how baseball works. The best way to see how this roster shift would work is by taking the Pythagorean Win-Loss from the new runs for and against.

For those uninitiated, the Pythagorean Win-Loss formula that Baseball-Reference uses works as such:

(Runs for)^1.83 / ( (Runs For)^1.83 + (Runs Against)^1.83 )