What pitchers the Colorado Rockies should sign, according to analytics

The offseason is finally in full swing and, while the CBA drama is due to dominate headlines, there are plenty of free agents available for the Colorado Rockies to sign.

Considering the Rockies failed to resign the excellent Jon Gray before the season ended, the team needs to solidify their rotation more than ever. Simply signing someone like Michael Pineda might look like a good signing for anyone with basic statistical knowledge. However, if we look further into the analytics, he doesn’t quite have the skills that would characterize success at Coors Field.

What analytics can help determine if a pitcher should be good for the Colorado Rockies and at Coors Field?

Well, Coors Field has the biggest outfield in Major League Baseball, and, while its advantages have been overblown, they work in both directions. Pitching works differently at Coors, focusing on keeping the ball out of the outfield by all means necessary is critical. The Coors outfield is simply too hard to defend. With that in mind, we know we should look at analytics that focuses on keeping the ball low and out of the air.

For this study, I looked at Ground Ball Rate (GB%), Hard Hit Rate (HH%), Home Run Rate (HR%), and Strikeout Rate (K%), weighing them in order of importance at Coors Field. With that in mind, I have ranked every free-agent starting pitcher on the market in order to determine the pitchers with the highest potential to do great at Coors Field. So first off, how did the current Rockies free agents do?