The Assessment
After dissecting the Rockies organizational situation in preparation for our project, it became instantly obvious that no combination of regression back towards a better mean, continued growth from younger players and improved health from the core performers is likely to move this 66-win club into contention.
While the Rockies overall offensive slashline of .276/.327/.445 looks like something to work with, their homefield context masks how poor their hitting actually was, and probably is – an abysmal .229/.279/.357 on the road.
Bad as this is, it’s a bright spot in comparison with the pitching performance which was at or near the bottom in ERA, WHIP, strikeouts, walks allowed, hits. And this was not an artifact of the no-so-pitching-friendly confines, with all of those numbers also being at or near the bottom away from Coors Field.
Not surprisingly with these two problems, the club finished with a 21-60 mark on the road and little indication that this combination of players would be likely to significantly improve that situation.
Complicating matters is the financial situation of the Rockies. I, like many of my fellow project participants, needed to take off my fantasy baseball hat and try to grasp the totality of the Rockies real-life picture.. Despite a 2.6 million attendance figure, the Rockies face a number of revenue challenges. They are not in danger of going broke, but they have one of the worst naming-rights deals in the league and a poor local television deal which extends until 2020. This means they are unlikely to have more money to spend in pursuit of immediate success any time soon, despite the Monfort’s willingness in past years to expand the budget if they are in contention.
The “Solution:”
The elephant in the Rockies contract room are the two contracts of their star players. Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez, who take up more than a third of this project’s budget for years to come ($36+, $37+ and $40+ million in the next three seasons). Gonzalez has averaged 105 games played for the past three years and just over 2.2 fWAR. Tulo has done better on the fWAR side, garnering 11.8 over the past three seasons, but averaging less than 90 games played.
So one option was to keep CarGo and Tulo and attempt to put together better players surrounding them in the hopes that they show better health. This option seems unlikely considering the amount of work needed on the pitching side and the need to cut budget. And the other option was to move them for a less expensive set of players going forward, while contracting enough talent now to keep fan interest.
“A Man, A Plan and a Car Crash”
I made three trades, one short of the maximum.
Troy Tulowitzki for Michael Pineda and Martin Prado
Carlos Gonzalez and Wilin Rosado for Shelby Miller, Oscar Taveras (who tragically passed away just after this trade), Almedys Diaz and Peter Bourjos
Eddie Butler for Joe Mauer and $10 million per year of his contract.
And signed as free agents.
Francisco Rodriguez
Jed Lowrie
Alex Rios
I exercised a $1.5 million buy-out on Brett Anderson who had a $12-million dollar club option. and re-signed him for $6.1 million, saving $4.4 Million.
I also made two minor non-roster invitations
David Hernandez
Jesse Crain
The following three players are on the 60-day DL
Tyler Chatwood
Boone Logan
Brett Anderson
“Analyze that”
Even with the tragic death of Oscar Taveras I am fairly happy with the process. The team’s 2014 fWAR for this roster is essentially equivalent to what the Rockies produced last season and for significantly less money both short and long term. In each of the positions that were weakened, (C, SS and OF) we have serviceable replacements (Jed Lowrie, for example, has posted 7.9 fWAR over the past three seasons compared with Tulowitzki’s 11.8 but for $12 million less per year) and the organization has multiple highly-rated prospects at these positions, including at double- and triple-A.
The positional additions that were made focused mainly on upgrading the OBP and a rough average places the team OBP in the .340’s which is sufficient to be competitive.
Adding Shelby Miller and Michael Pineda to a rotation which already has the Coors-friendly Jorge de la Rosa, Brett Anderson and Jordan Lyles would give the Rockies an above average staff. Adding Francisco Rodriguez instantly makes the bullpen more credible. I am not a huge fan of Rodriguez, but 44 saves and a sub-1.00 WHIP along with a hopefully improved Rex Brothers makes the back end look almost solid.
I think the team, as constructed could be a .500 team this season and with some luck could be in the wild card discussion.
Individual Salaries
Colorado Rockies
Would love to hear any comments, criticisms or other feedback. And I’d be happy to chat in more detail about either my decisions or the Rockies real situation.
Cheers!
great trade with the yanks for pineade and prado the rockies need to finally realize in real life that they need to get out of this contract some how
Thanks AJ!
sorry man i tried writing my opioion but for some reason this website wont let it go threw its saying that i already wrote the comment which is impossible cause no one wrote a comment yet someone should tell the boss at mets 360 that they gotta fix the commmenting section on mets360 because you guys have great articles but the comment section is horrible half the time this website wont let me write wat i want to say. even if a comment was already said they should still show every comment
Could’ve got alot more for Tulo. Take the Mets, could they have landed him for just Wheeler and Murphy?
Big contract, but one of the few that deserve one due to the nature of his position, talent, production, and consistency. Injury could be an issue, but still should net more than Pineda(who is even more injury prone) and Prado.
But that’s just my opinion.
I appreciate the opinion Sean. And I agree. The thing about it is that the Mets probably could not have accepted th contract under their own budget. And we had essentially one day prior to the FA market for trades, and I was afraid that with the size of the contract the money would be spent in the FA market before I could move him.
Definitely concerned on Pineda’s health, but the reports have been good and his contract was ML minimum (just over 500K) and under team control compared with Tulo’s $20 mill until the end of time.
Tulo has only played over 122 games in 3 of his 8 seasons and averaged less than 90 the past three campaigns. Plus his highest fWAR was an excellent 5.9, but taking up 1/5th of my entire payroll for **maybe** 5. 9 seemed a little dicey. His career away from Coors is really good, but not actually great .274/.349/.469 vs. Lowrie’s .261/.330/.411 (he’s played only 4 games in Coors and more games in pitcher-friendly Oakland, than hitter-friendly Fenway).
Now obviously if Tulo shows up and is consistently healthy over the contract, it looks bad. You’re almost certainly right on this, but I just wanted you to know the specific reasoning.
Steve, I appluad your approach as it takes guts to tear away popular pieces, but if you replace them with effective pieces, it makes the team better.
My opinion is that Tulowitzsky and Gonzalez are just not reliable pieces. However, why did you make the Mauer deal? Since you have Morneau and traded Rosario, he will now be your catcher? Can he still catch? Won’t he now break down due to age and the rigors of catching? That is why the Twins took him from behind the plate.
Also, you say how your bench has players that can play well on the road to take the place of those guys that cannot. Brian Joura made a good point: How about just get a bunch of speedsters everywhere and play the speed game on the road and at home?