2024 Team Previews: Colorado Rockies
Going through all 30 teams, looking back at 2023 and ahead to the 2024 season through a fantasy baseball lens.
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Rockies Intro
Another horrible season for Colorado with a 59-103 record. It was another classic year in Coors Field as the Rockies easily led the league in ERA at 5.72 (second place was the Athletics way down at 5.51). That was fully expected, what was less expected was how much they would struggle on offense. They finished just 18th in runs scored despite the Coors Field advantage.
The Rockies are probably going to have to be a top five team in run scoring to ever make noise, and they are a long way off from that.
There were fewer relevant Colorado fantasy hitters this year than I can ever remember, and certainly there wasn’t anyone close to relevant on the pitching side, as they seemingly have just stopped even attempting to find decent pitching. And maybe it’s just a lost cause for them having such a brutal pitching environment to deal with. It’s really hard for young pitchers to get a foothold, and they are the last place any free agent pitcher wants to end up - so it’s not really fair to knock the front office for that.
But everything I just said there has its inverse true for hitters. Colorado should be a pretty desirable place for middle of the pack free agent bats to come to, especially on shorter-term “show me” deals. But it didn’t happen for them this past year, and it’s not looking likely to be any better in 2024. But there are a few hitters we should cover, so let’s get into it.
Hitters
Nolan Jones
Age: 25
Pos: 1B/OF
He began the year in AAA but was with the Major League team in time for June, and he played nearly every day after that.
AAA: 187 PA, .356/.481/.711, 1.193 OPS, 23% K%, 17.6% BB%, 12 HR, 5 SB
MLB: 424 PA, .297/.389/.542, 926 OPS, 29.7% K%, 12.5% BB%, 20 HR, 20 SB
That’s a collective 32 HR, 25 SB season. Sure, it came in very hitter-friendly environments (the PCL and then Coors Field), but he’s in a Rockies uniform again next year so those environments will persist. And this is the kind of guy we want for roto fantasy baseball - homers and steals!
That’s very nice dot placement on Jones. The power is quite believable as well as he posted a barrel rate above 15%, but naturally it came with a low contact rate, which we will talk about.
Let’s show the percentiles while we’re getting all of the plots down.
It’s not a stud profile by any means given the strikeout problem and the higher ground ball rate (44%), but there’s nothing here that is impossible to overcome. And credit where credit is due - Jones was a very useful fantasy player in 2023 with all of this going on. In fact, he was one of the most valuable fantasy hitters in the league down the stretch.
I am trying my best to not create smaller samples to make my point, but with young, inexperienced hitters, sometimes I think it can be of some use.
May-July: 33.3% K%, 68.5% Contact%
Aug-Oct: 27.1% K%, 67.8% Contact%
So that’s a very significant difference in strikeout rate, but it did not come with a corresponding change in contact rate. There was no approach change here either, as his swing rate stayed basically the same in both samples (42%) and his chase rate didn’t improve either (26%). So it’s quite possible/likely that he’ll settle into the 30% K% range next year, which does hurt a good bit. That plus the fact that he didn’t consistently lift the ball puts a fair bit of risk on him, especially since he’s not going to be in a good lineup.
One other thing to note is the very high .396 BABIP (.401 if you use FanGraphs’ calculation). With someone with this power and speed playing in Coors, you expect a high BABIP (the Rockies team BABIP was .321 last year), but we absolutely should not expect anything near .400 - so there’s regression to be accounted for there.
The main point here is that I want to draft players that can hit homers and steal bases, and Jones’ age and home ballpark certainly help his cause. Add in the Coors batting average boost and Jones is definitely someone who should be on our radars even with the elevated ADP heading into drafts.
JA Projection: 605 PA, 84 R, 28 HR, 84 RBI, 18 SB, .268/.354/.501, .855 OPS
Ryan McMahon
Age: 29
Pos: 3B/2B
The only other hitter in a Rockies uniform that came close to fantasy relevance was McMahon, who did this:
627 PA, .240/.322/.431, 23 HR, 80 R, 70 RBI, 5 SB
A 150 R+RBI season with 20+ homers and non-zero steals (although five was basically zero this year) is nothing to completely skip over, and McMahon’s ADP is likely to hit a new all-time low as he inches closer to 30 years old in a lineup that profiles to be bad.
McMahon is going to be one of these guys where we should just trust the projections and take what the draft gives us. If he falls far enough, he’ll be a quite good if unexciting pick. These are the kinds of players you really benefit on. Nobody wants them in your draft, so they often fall multiple rounds past where they probably should given their projections. McMahon is solid enough, slashing .246/.326/.431 with 66 homers and 18 steals over the last three seasons while being in the lineup consistently. That’s useful, so I don’t advise scratching him off your lists - he’ll probably be a really nice value in drafts in 2024.
JA Projection: 570 PA, 68 R, 23 HR, 71 RBI, 6 SB, .258/.340/.462, .803 OPS
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