I love the Colorado Rockies. They are my team and they always will be. But wouldn't it be nice if I could enter a season believing they had a chance to make the playoffs, let alone win the World Series? Since that memorable and miraculous run to the Series in 2007 (and devastating loss to the Red Sox), the Rockies have returned to the playoff once, getting sent home by the Phillies in the first round.
While Cubs fans may think this is an incredible track record, I want more. I understand the Rockies have only been around since 1993 and that these things take time. But allow me to offer up a few concerns about Colorado Rockies baseball.
The ESPN 500 was released over the past couple of weeks, revealing a panel of ESPN experts' top 500 rated players in Major League Baseball for the upcoming season. Troy Tulowitzki was ranked at eight, and Carlos Gomez was ranked at 46. Do you know what the next highest rated player was? Mark Cuddyer at 150. Only the Padres, Pirates, Astros, Mets, Mariners, A's (and we've all seen Moneyball, so that explains them), Twins, and White Sox (who had a starter in Adam Dunn bat .159 last year) had less players in the top 150 than Colorado. Even the Oriole's, who recently lost to a community college baseball team, reached three players in the ESPN 500 before Colorado did.
I love that Colorado plays fundamentally solid, team baseball. However, they need a supporting cast around Tulo and CarGo, and that starts with the pitching staff. There are simply too many question marks on the mound for the Rockies to feel any amount of confidence as Friday's season opener approaches. Will Jeremy Guthrie be the ace the Rox believe him to be? Will Jamie Moyer's 80 mph fastball be countered by his craftiness? Will Jhoulys Chacin improve on the potential he showed us last year? Can the bullpen buckle down when things get tight? Only time will tell, and all of these things are completely feasible, though it seems improbably that the pitching staff will turn into one the Phillies or the Giants will envy any time soon.
Colorado cannot afford to take the field playing 2 versus 9 baseball and expect to win. Now that is a little extreme, but in a lineup where not many people are familiar with the names past Tulowitzki, Gonzalez, and an aging Todd Helton, it sometimes feels like the reality.
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