The 2018 Colorado Rockies are a confident bunch. That’s been the No. 1 takeaway the staff at Mile High Sports who have traveled to Spring Training and back has reported upon their return to Denver.
Coming off an 87-win season and a trip to the playoffs, this club believes it can do even better in 2018.
It’s an overwhelming sense of confidence that our writers who have covered the team during Spring Training in years past have not seen previously. And for good cause.
Colorado has two legitimate MVP candidates in Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon, Gold Glove talent in DJ LeMahieu and Gerardo Parra, a bullpen that projects to be one of the best in the National League, and a starting rotation brimming with talented young arms unafraid to pitch at Coors Field and hungry to prove their breakout 2017 season wasn’t a fluke.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the Rockies are not only gaining the attention of local media types but also those within baseball circles. Manager Bud Black is seeing it in the conversations he’s had outside the organization.
“From my viewpoint, last year was I think a year of getting to that point where we’re noticed by the league and noticed by people who follow this game that that’s a good team,” Black said on Saturday ahead of his team’s Cactus League game with the Milwaukee Brewers. “I’ve heard it from a few different scouts that they love our young starters. I’ve heard it from other players that, ‘Hey, you guys have got a great ‘pen’. You know, our position player group is ‘this and that.'”
The players are hearing that, too, specifically from the media.
There’s seldom an interview conducted at Spring Training this year where players aren’t asked about the big expectations for this club. With so much returning talent in the lineup and a bullpen that had $100 million pumped into it, it’s understandable why the Rockies have to answer questions about not only competing for their first NL West title but even for a World Series this year.
Yet for all that optimism surrounding the Colorado Rockies in 2018, there is the cold, hard reality that they compete in a division that sent three teams to the playoffs last year and boasts the reigning NL pennant winners, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not only do the Dodgers, Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks return as playoff teams from 2017, the San Francisco Giants have reloaded with talent across the roster — and it’s an even-numbered year, so the Giants should by all accounts bounce back from their near-100-loss season last year and at least be a disruptor in the division.
Black, a 15-year player and 10-year manager at the MLB level, has the difficult task of keeping his team confident while not becoming overconfident based on expectations and last year’s success.
“That’s nice to hear,” Black continued, speaking about the praise his team is getting. “Now we’ve got to do it on the field, out between the lines. Where last year I saw it from the outside that this could happen, but there had to be a belief from our players that we could do it. I think they gained early confidence because of the start we got off to, and that’s a good thing. I think that’s the goal that [General Manager] Jeff [Bridich] envisioned and that was the goal that the coaches and I envisioned — what we can become. Now we just have to do it.”
Bridich has a long-term plan where the club can be competitive year after year. Black is doing his part to help execute that plan.
“We have to do it this year and hopefully do it next year, and do it the year after that, where every year we’re talked about in the conversations of a good, solid team,” Black continued. “Last year was a big first step for us in a lot of ways.”
With that step comes the continued questions about how good this team can be in 2018.
So far, those questions have been met with overwhelming confidence from this young roster.
Four of the team’s starting eight are still under team control (even if only for this final season). Every pitcher in Colorado’s starting rotation is still under team control.
So how does Black keep his team from becoming over-confident? From spending too much time celebrating last year’s success?
“We talk about last year in context, about what happened,” Black said, “but we also talk about last year that it’s over. Every year is different. We have to think about what we have to do now — today.”
That day-by-day mindset was crucial to the Rockies’ success in 2017, and will be paramount to improving on it in 2018.
One of Black’s favorite sayings — one he reiterates day after day with the media — is “that’s baseball.”
In this context, baseball is a game where yesterday’s (or last year’s) results can’t influence today’s outcome. Nor should expectations for tomorrow.
The Rockies are a confident bunch; there’s no doubt about that.
If they hope to fulfill those lofty expectations the local media and the surrounding baseball world are putting on them, they must contain that confidence within what they’re doing day by day. The rest will fall into place when they do.
