Colorado Rockies
 

"The Rockies can't pitch.  That's why they'll never win."  That has been the prevailing theory for the history of the franchise.  The thin air makes everyone a great hitter, but would make even Walter Johnson (career ERA of 2.16) look like Jeff Johnson (career ERA of 6.47).  At least, that's how the theory goes.  Actually, that's half right.  Decent hitters tend to look like great ones in Colorado, but the bad ones still look bad.  The pitchers suffer from the inverse.  Decent pitchers tend to look bad in Coors Field, but the good ones will still be good, despite a higher overall ERA.  So the Rockies simply needed to stock up on decent hitters and good pitchers.

Offense

Because the mile high altitude causes the ball to travel farther, run scoring is much easier at Coors.  The Rockies have led the NL in run scoring in every year but one of their existence.  That doesn't necessarily mean they had a good offense though.  In fact, for much of their history, the Rockies have been among the worst in the league at scoring runs on the road.  But when your ballpark inflates run scoring by over 50%, you get those kind of results.

That said, GM Dan O'Dowd and his front office appear to have figured out the secret to scoring runs at home and on the road: line-drive hitters.  Hitters who loft the ball for easy homers in Colorado often finding themselves lofting easy fly ball outs on the road.  Line-drive hitters, though, take full advantage of the larger outfield in Colorado for extra base hits with the occasional liner going over the fence.  On the road, the same contact has a better chance of falling in for a hit.  So the trade off is that the Rockies will score slightly fewer runs at home, but much more on the road.

To that effect, the Rockies traded for third baseman Jeff Cirillo and second baseman Todd Walker last year.  Cirillo was a fan favorite in Milwaukee for his hitting, but was overlooked by the major media because he didn't hit many home runs.  He still doesn't hit many home runs, but last year his doubles output increased by almost 50%, thanks to Coors' large outfield.  Walker was being made a permanent resident of Tom Kelley's doghouse in Minnesota when he was liberated by a mid-season trade.  In 1996, just two years out of LSU, he smacked around AAA and major league pitching to the tune of a .328 batting average, 47 doubles, 28 homers and 117 RBI.  Now that he's in Coors, he could very easily see a return to that kind of production on a regular basis.

Todd Helton won the sabermetric triple crown last year, leading the league in batting average, on base percentage and slugging percentage.  Granted, Coors helped him out a lot last season (he hit .391 and slugged .758 there), but he was a pretty good hitter on the road as well.  He's entering his peak years and because he plays 81 games a season in Coors, will probably produce numbers comparable to the best first basemen in the majors.

In 2000, Larry Walker suffered through another injury plagued year in a career marred by injury.  This year, however, he came into spring in the best shape of his career and hopes that he can play through most of the nagging injuries that always seem to find him.  For his career, he's been 3 runs per game better than the average player.  If he can stay healthy, for 130+ games, he'll be better than that.

Ben Petrick will battle for playing time with veteran Brent Mayne behind the plate.  Petrick was probably the best hitting catcher in the minor leagues the last few years, but Mayne, who is slightly above average in that respect, is likely to get the nod as he is far superior defensively.

Neifi Perez will man shortstop.  Noted for his defense, he's actually emerging as a half-way decent offensive player.  His walk rate and   slugging percentage were up from the previous year, and he managed to keep his strikeout rate steady.  He probably won't ever be as good as Barry Larkin offensively, but there is definitely potential to be above average.  Juan Uribe, a widely unknown prospect before last fall's Arizona Fall League, will push him for time in the next few years if Perez doesn't improve.  Uribe impressed everyone with his defense and bat control and should turn into a solid major leaguer.

Last year, the Rockies signed Tom Goodwin and Brian Hunter to patrol centerfield.  Any offense they provided was a bonus.  They were there to keep the number of extra base hits down.  The plan worked except for the fact that Hunter and Goodwin, while being a luckstone for the defense, proved to be a lodestone on an offense that could not afford any easy outs.  This year, the job of patrolling center will go to rookie Juan Pierre.  Like Goodwin and Hunter, he has excellent speed to cover the vast expanse of the Coors outfield and to steal a number of bases.  Unlike them, he has a halfway decent eye at the plate and projects to be a fairly decent leadoff hitter, getting on base better than 36% of the time.

The Rockies also brought on Todd Hollandsworth and Ron Gant to platoon in left field.  Neither guy is good enough to play everyday, but as a righty-lefty combination, they should provide adequate production down in the order behind Walker, Walker, Helton and Cirillo.

If Larry Walker can stay healthy, there's no reason that this offense won't lead the NL in runs scoring by a wide margin.  However, for them to be effective on the road, they'll have to get better production out of Gant/Hollandsworth than those two have offered over the last several years.  Larry Walker's good health will be crucial to that end as well.  RATING: 60 (rating the talent, not the results).
 

Defense

There was a time when Larry Walker was the best right fielder in the game.  But a few elbow and shoulder surgeries later and some guy named Guerrero coming into the league, he'll just have to be content with being above average.  Speaking of above average, Cirillo, Helton, Mayne, Gant, Hollandsworth and Perez all rate as above average defenders.  Todd Walker is not particularly adept in the field at getting to balls or making the plays.  Pierre has a reputation for having good range but that wasn't clearly demonstrated in last year's numbers.  The Rockies have a solid defense.  RATING: 60
 

Starting Pitching

The Rocks spent a lot of money this offseason on starting pitching.  Their biggest signing was acquiring tough lefty Mike Hampton.  Hampton's stuff is, well, unimpressive.  In fact, it's downright pedestrian.  But he's a smart pitcher, mixing his selections well and hitting his spots.  And he refuses to give the hitter anything to drive.  He's the starting equivalent of the Mets' John Franco.  He also fields his position brilliantly.  The Rockies think he'll be able to pitch well in Colorado because of all these factors, but as importantly he keeps his pitches down and changes speeds well on all of his pitches.

They also spent a lot of money on lefty Denny Neagle.  This one doesn't make as much sense.  If there were a picture in the dictionary next to the "flyball pitcher" entry - OK, there isn't one... I checked... I'm writing Webster to complain - it would be Denny Neagle's.  Over the past 3 years no pitcher in baseball has given up more flyballs than Neagle.  Unless the Rockies somehow figure out a way for him to pitch almost all his games on the road, this move could backfire.  Could?  OK, will.  Balls travel about 10% farther through the air at Coors, so the idea is not to let the balls get in the air.  Neagle is a guy who makes his living getting pop-ups and harmless flyballs, but what looks like a pop-up here sometimes go out of the yard.  He may not do it this year, but in one of the next 5 seasons - the Rocks signed him for 5 years - Denny Neagle will break Bert Blyleven's major league record of allowing 50 home runs in a season.  And like McGwire did with Maris' record in 1998, he won't just break it.  He'll obliterate it.  On the plus side, Neagle has a pretty decent track record and with "Colorado average" run support, could be a valuable innings eater.

For the past three years, Pedro Astacio has been unquestionably the Rockies best starter.  In fact, he has been the best starter in franchise history and might well keep that honor even after he and Hampton retire.  His overall numbers don't look that great with the Rockies - an ERA of 5.50 over the last three years. But what he's done on the road - an ERA of 4.11-  is very respectable.  Back to Neagle just a bit... Pedro Astacio is a good groundball pitcher.  For every fly ball he gives up, he induces 1.55 ground balls.  Over the past 3 years, Astacio has surrendered an AVERAGE of 36 homers a season.  How many will a pitcher who gives up twice as many fly balls end up with?  Anyway, Astacio, who is usually among the league leaders in strikeouts, might well finish in the voting for the Cy Young award if he were pitching anywhere else.

Brian Bohanon and power lefty Ron Villone will compete for regular work in the 4th slot in the rotation.  Bohanon, also a port-sider, is a highly average innings eater.  Like Hampton and Neagle, Villone was acquired this winter.  While he's not as extreme as Neagle, he is also a flyball pitcher.  Except he throws harder.  So the batters don't have to make as solid a contact for the pitch to leave the yard.  Puzzling choice.

At sea level, the Rockies pitching should be pretty decent.  Not great mind you, but good enough to keep them in games.  At home, if the new guys are mentally prepared for the occasional shelling - and we're talking 10 earnies in 3 kind of shelling * - then the Rockies starting staff should be stable enough for a run at the division title.  RATING: 55

(* - baseball slang for 10 earned runs in 3 innings worked, which is gives an ERA of 30.00)
 

Bullpen

The Rockies relief corps was surprisingly effective last year.  Five pitchers (Mike Myers, Gabe White, Jose Jimenez, Bobby Chouinard and Jerry DiPoto) posted ERAs under 4, a remarkable accomplishment considering the environment.  Jimenez, the closer, throws a hard sinking fastball that's tough for hitters to elevate and a fine changeup.  He's the prototype reliever for pitching in a gravity challenged environment.  Myers is the team's lefty specialist and occasional set-up man.  Over the last 3 years, left-handed batters have only managed a feeble .155 batting average off him.  Gabe White had quite a pedigree as a minor league prospect in the Expos system but never quite lived up to that promise as a starter.  He kicked around with a few organizations until finding his niche as a reliever in Colorado.  How improbable is that?  That's like coming into a prestigious occupation after being unemployed... in Greenland.  Chouinard will start the season on the DL with a sore shoulder.  DiPoto retired due to a bulging disk.  Manager Buddy Bell will try to patch those two spots with a collection of future journeymen: Kane Davis, Joe Davenport and Horacio Estrada.  Two other intriguing possibilities are Craig House and lefty Tim Christman.  House' bizarre delivery generates enough power for him to throw 100 mph.  Christman is almost as impressive, striking out 220 batters while walking 60 in 162+ innings in his minor league career.  If Bell can find 2 solid relievers out of that bunch, the Rockies bullpen will be the deepest in the NL West. RATING: 60
 

Management

Buddy Bell does not have a reputation of being a brilliant manager.  He's still pretty old school, when it comes to filling out a line-up: the leadoff guy has to steal bases.... it doesn't matter if he gets on base or not.  Those kind of things.  However, his handling of the bullpen last year was either brilliant or lottery lucky.  I suspect the man knows bullpens.  At least, that's what I'm giving him credit for.  He does get careless with pitch counts occasionally, but the Rockies don't have any young starters to be concerned with so it's really not an issue this year.  GM Dan O'Dowd came over from the Indians organization where it's clear he learned a lot from John Hart.  Like Hart, he signed his good young players to long term contracts, both to keep them out of the free agent pool and to minimize off-the-field distractions.  O'Dowd carefully and scientifically studied the effects of the high altitude and used that information to orchestrate a plan to optimize it's benefits and minimize it's detriments with the kinds of players he's brought in.  With a few notable exceptions, he's executed the plan well.  He's a smart guy and there's little question that he will continue to tinker with it in a positive direction.  RATING: 55
 

Conclusion

There's a pretty good team that plays in Colorado, and I'm not just talking hockey.  The Rockies are above average in all phases of the game and have the fewest question marks of any team in the division.  Or at least, they have the best answers to the questions so far.  Larry Walker's good health is paramount, but if he plays 130+ games, the Rockies will be tough to outscore.  If Denny Neagle and Ron Villone can handle the thin air, then their pitching staff is tailor-made for success over a 162-game schedule.  If not, the Rockies don't have anything close to a replacement this year.  But with Hampton, they'll have 30 or so fewer games where they have to wonder, "Is 10 runs enough?"