The Colorado Rockies should use 7 starting pitchers. That’s right. 7

How would the Colorado Rockies make this work?

It’s simple to put this squad together. Look at the potential starting rotation for the Colorado Rockies and choose the 2-3 pitchers with the most even home/away splits (unless they are generally bad). This will act as your core rotation. They are the pitchers who will almost always pitch in their spot in the rotation no matter where the Rockies play.

After you have your core rotation set, look to round out your rotation for Coors Field. These are your high groundball percentage, low fastball spin rate pitchers that aren’t really built for much outside of Coors Field pitching. I’ve talked extensively about what makes pitchers work at Coors in my previous pitching articles. Keeping that ball out of the massive outfield is the absolute priority. We know what to look for at this point but if you don’t, this article by Rox Pile’s Tyler Paddor examines it in depth.

Boom. Home rotation is set, but they are only effective at Coors Field, so who should make up the road warriors? Easy, do what works everywhere not in Denver, something that Dick Monfort has tried and failed at for a very long time. High strikeout, high spin rate. Think pitchers like Wade Davis and Bryan Shaw before they were on the Rockies.

But I’m sure you are wondering, if there are more starting pitchers, there must be fewer relievers, right? Well yes, but your off-series starters can be used as bullpen arms as needed. They are getting large amounts of rest, anyway. The days of the long reliever for the Colorado Rockies would be over.

It also provides easy opportunities for spot starts and through schedule manipulation (because you have so many starters on the roster) no pitcher would have to pitch on short rest. The facsimile of a five-man rotation would still exist, but seven pitchers would carry that role, four of them simply would swap places every Home/Away stand.