3 Rockies position players who have struggled the most so far

While it is certainly too early in the season to put much stock into anything, it's never too early to look at who has struggled the most through the first five games of the year. I am going to exclude any pitchers from this list as writing about their struggles in their first games of the year feels unfair (count your days, Kyle Freeland). It is no secret that this season so far has been a tough one for the boys in purple, but let's take a closer look at which position players have had the worst starts to the season through the first week of the year.

The former MVP has looked complete overmatched

I am sure that this comes as no surprise, but the player who has clearly struggled the most in 2024 is the Rockies highest paid player; the one who was supposed to be the replacement for Nolan Arenado, and the one who is not very good at doing research on which baseball teams are good and which ones are not: Kris Bryant.

Ever since signing his seven year, 182-million-dollar contract in 2022, Bryant has been without a doubt one of the worst valued contracts in baseball history. After hitting .233 with 10 homers in 2023, it is looking so far like Bryant will be lucky to come close to those numbers in 2024. It is very clear that Bryant is in a self-imposed 'baseball Hell' in Colorado and has nobody to blame but himself. The choices for him were to play your way out of Colorado by being so good that another team will look to add you at the deadline or play your way out of Colorado by being so bad eventually the team will have no choice but to Russell Wilson him into oblivion. It looks like he's going for the latter.

Hitting a crisp .000 with eight punchouts, and one run scored (hang the banner). Bryant has been truly abysmal and doesn't look very interested in improving on those stats as it looks like this is going to be another long year for the former MVP.

A former top pick hasn't been able to translate hot spring into the regular season

After hitting .354 in Spring Training, second baseman Brendan Rodgers has been another slow starter for the Rockies in 2024, batting .120 in his first 25 at bats of the season. This is another case where some time lower in the lineup might be what he needs to get going, but alas, there are not many hitters aside from Ryan McMahon who can be justified in moving up in the lineup. It appears Rogers will stay hitting second behind Charlie Blackmon.

Having this entire list be the two through four hitters says a good bit about the Rockies start so far. While there is still plenty of time to right the ship, Rodgers is probably the biggest question mark about the kind of production we will get from the righty, as he recently recovered from a shoulder injury that sidelined him for much of the 2023 season, a season in which he hit .258 in the 46 games he played. There isn't much doubt that Nolan Jones will turn it around, and frankly there isn't much hope that Bryant will turn it around, but Rodgers remains a mystery in terms of exactly what kind of big leaguer he is, hopefully the former first round pick will finally have his breakout season in 2024, but at least this far, it has not looked like that will be the case.

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