It should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying even the tiniest bit of attention that the 2024 Colorado Rockies are not a good MLB team.
After losing 103 games in 2023 and making minimal changes in the offseason, it was incredibly clear that it was going to be another long and bumpy ride for the boys in purple this summer.
Those seeking to reach beyond the yelling-at-a-brick-wall tactic of calling on Dick Monfort to sell the team and refusing to have any other conversation, have likely noted that a rebuild has been long overdue and losing games is a part of that.
A look across town at the Denver Broncos – who just had to cut a fan favorite and team stalwart for nothing while simultaneously trying their best to absorb a terrible QB contract – shows a similar debate raging about the virtue of trying to win but falling short versus accepting losing in the now to aim for winning in the future.
Meanwhile, the Rockies refuse to use the word “rebuild” but that doesn’t change the fact that the moves of GM Bill Schmidt have been consistent with one.
But regardless of whether you support this strategy, or whether or not the Rox are executing it well, the fact remains that the end result is a product on the field that is painfully brutal to watch.
It’s not that they’re losing. It’s how.
The clearest symbol of it is Kyle Freeland, a beloved Denver native who has been well above the league average throughout his career but has been obliterated in his first two starts to the tune of a 27.00 ERA.
He has long been the heart and soul of this team and how he has looked in the early going is exactly how the team has felt.
Of course on the offensive side (using both definitions of that word) has been Kris Bryant who has two hits and 10 strikeouts so far. It’s hard to be much worse than that at the plate. Like with the team, we’ve all seen Bryant struggle the last two years and most weren’t expecting much from him this season… but not this.
The one that probably hurts the most for the people who refuse to abandon this team despite, well everything, is the poor play of Nolan Jones.
Certain metrics (especially his K rate) suggested a sophomore slump may be in the cards for him. He is suddenly the only star bat on the team. He is the guy opposing pitchers are preparing for. And he looks lost at the plate. It’s early and baseball is all about the adjustments.
But once again the bad is worse than even most doomsayers would have predicted as Jones also looks lost in the field, committing multiple ugly errors.
This has been true across the diamond where a team who was supposed to have one huge bright spot (lots of Gold Glove candidates) has been awful on defense.
This is my 12th season covering this team and I’ve spent much of that choosing to highlight silver linings because I believe good stories on bad teams are still worth telling.
And it has never been more challenging to find those silver linings.
Ryan McMahon has started out nicely. Victor Vodnik has been fantastic out of the bullpen. Michael Toglia has looked good in limited time, and Elehuris Montero appears to have improved his process at the plate. That’s all I got.
They were supposed to be bad. But it’s hard to accept, and even harder to watch, games that are over in the first few innings while each part of the team fumbles.
The pitching is bad. The hitting is bad. The defense is bad.
We are still in very small sample size territory so as atrocious as it has been, there is still reason for patience.
In my opinion, the decision to focus on a youth movement for the future was the right one and one that will ultimately usher in a better era. But in the moment it has maybe never been harder to actually watch the team play baseball games.
In many ways it feels like it has to get better because it can’t conceivably get worse.
Because it can’t stay like this forever, right?
Right?
