SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Predictions are rolling in for the 2023 major league season. For your Colorado Rockies, doom and gloom is the nearly universal forecast.
Consider:
• Jayson Stark, the Hall of Fame baseball writer for The Athletic, surveyed a panel of 29 executives, former executives, coaches and scouts. Of those 29 experts, 25 said that the Rockies were the least-improved team in the majors. Keep in mind that the Rockies lost 94 games last season.
• Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA rankings have the Rockies finishing 64-98 and in last place again in the National League West.
• Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projected standings have Colorado going 66-96, and Szymborski, often a harsh critic of the Rockies, adds in his FanGraphs blog post: “Projected at the bottom (of the) division, to the surprise of practically no one who doesn’t work for the Colorado Rockies, are the Colorado Rockies.”
• ESPN’s spring training power rankings place the Rockies 26th out of 30 teams, down from 24th at the end of last season.
For the record, this beat reporter predicts that the Rockies will be slightly improved from last season. I figure a healthy Kris Bryant is worth a few more wins and right-hander German Marquez has got to be better.
So make mine 69-93.
Not surprisingly, closer Daniel Bard’s forecast is much sunnier than mine or any of the other nattering nabobs of negativism.
On our latest “On the Rox” podcast, he told me that he would not have signed a two-year, $19 million contract to stay with Colorado through 2024 if he didn’t believe in the club’s direction.
“And I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t love the people I work with,” Bard said. “That’s the core players, the coaching staff, (manager) Buddy (Black). It’s just a good group of people to come to work with every day.”
Bard, who’s never been an excuse-maker, offers the following counterpoints as reasons why the Rockies’ will upset the naysayers in 2023:
• “Last year, we had a handful of key players have down years, all in the same year,” he said. “If you add that up, you end up with a last-place team, and that’s unfortunate.”
• He absolutely believes that Colorado’s starting rotation, which posted a 5.22 ERA last season, the second-highest in the majors, will be much improved.
“I look across our roster and it’s really easy to see spots where there can big improvement in guys, without a lot of guys,” he said. “The starting rotation, it’s clear, is going to be better.
“It’s not absurd for all of those guys to knock a run off their ERAs from last year, and I think if that happens to three or four of them, you are talking about 10 or more wins, easily, just from that group.”
• Bard also believes the bullpen (its 4.82 ERA was the worst in the majors) will be better, despite the loss of set-up man Carlos Estevez.
• “I think that 10-5 wins, hopefully more, is well within reach of this (team),” he said. “Baseball is a crazy game. You look at the San Francisco Giants. They went from 107 wins in 2021 to end up with (81) wins last year, with basically the same team, minus one or two guys. Crazy stuff happens and it can go both ways.
“Preseason projections are what they are. You guys have to put them out. I would too, if I was in your shoes. But our job is not to read them but to go out and play.”
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