Top five starting pitchers in Rockies history
Pitcher's stats are different in Denver
With a nod to my friend Jeff Cohen – co-host of the Baseball & BBQ podcast, I am going to take on writing about the top five starting pitchers in the history of the Colorado Rockies. This is going to be a challenge. I did one on the Mets already and that was too easy.
Um, where do you start?
This is year 33 in Denver for the Rockies. They joined the National League the same year as the Florida, now Miami Marlins. While there’s a stark contrast in the two teams’ fortunes over the year with the Marlins winning two World Series within their first 11 years and the Rockies making (and losing to the 2007 Boston Red Sox) in the other series. But most baseball fans will find it easy to conjure up a bunch of Marlin hurlers who excelled and would create a good discussion on the top five starters in their history. The Rockies, not so much.
It's not entirely the altitude, but mostly
The Mile High city is a major deterrent for humans that throw baseballs for a living. There are two things that make pitching in Denver more difficult than in any other MLB city. Besides the altitude where the ball carries farther (which it does at 7.5% further), the difficulty is in effectively spinning the baseball, because the thin air affects the spin. Baseballs spin/break about 82% less in Denver, which takes away a vital part of a pitcher’s arsenal. But it’s not just spinners, like curveballs and sliders, that are affected. Pitches with backspin, (think fastballs), drop about four more inches on average compared to sea level due to something called the Magnus Force.
Then there’s the Coors Field effect which somewhat surprisingly is not only about home runs. Coors Field annually produces more triples than almost any other ballpark in MLB and is known as the most hitter friendly park overall.
Pitchers avoid pitching for the Rockies as if it’s a plague
Good MLB pitchers have been unwilling to choose to pitch in Colorado. Lefty starter Mike Hampton is the most notable free agent pitcher to sign what was a big contract with the Rockies. That was in 2001. It did not go well. Hampton is also the last free agent pitcher to sign a big contract with Colorado.
The top five Rockies starting pitchers is…debatable at least
In terms of pitching WAR, the highest Rockies pitcher career bWAR is 18.9. You would not expect pitchers to have high bWAR pitching half their games in Denver so that’s not a great measure.
My lineup:
#1 – Ubaldo Jimenez. This was a bit easier than I expected mostly because Jimenez leads Rockies pitchers in a bunch of career categories like WHIP, Hits per 9 innings, ERA (3.66 career ERA for Colorado is far better than any other) and adjusted ERA. Jimenez also leads in bWAR.
#2 – Jon Gray. Gray came up with the Rockies in 2015 and posted a winning record (53-48) as a Rockies pitcher. He’s the career leader in Ks/9 innings and was as reliable a starter as any in Rockies history. Gray got a big free agent contract, but it was with the Texas Rangers, not the Rockies.
#3 – Jorge De La Rosa. When De La Rosa joined the Rockies in 2008 coming over from the Kansas City Royals where he had mixed results, he immediately was the ace of the rotation. He pitched nine years in Colorado and owns the most pitcher wins in team history and is second on the list for innings pitched.
#4 – Aaron Cook. The righty pitched 10 of his 11 MLB season in Colorado and is the leader in innings pitched with 1,406.1 for Colorado. He deserves combat pay at the least! Cook is second in complete games (to Pedro Astacio’s 14) with 11 and is third in pitcher bWAR (17.1) in team history.
#5 – Kyle Freeland. A current Rockies rotation member, Freeland shows up to pitch every fifth or sixth day, and for the most part has done that in every one of his nine seasons with the team. Freeland is second in bWAR, fifth in ERA, third in innings pitched, and has started more games than any other Rockies pitcher. He edges out fellow rotation mate German Marquez because Marquez gets injured more frequently.
Just missing my list is the already mentioned Pedro Astacio, as well as Jason Jennings, Jhoulys Chacin, and Jeff Francis.
Pitching in Colorado is a unique challenge in MLB and good pitchers feel they will hurt their market value trying to defend what will always be comparatively worse stats than those outside of Colorado. Bringing in groundball inducing pitchers like what Kyle Freeland has been doing, appears to have the best chance for ‘success’, whatever that looks like in Colorado. The Rockies need to be a run scoring machine and for most of the recent past, have not been, and that’s just another reason why they dwell in the cellar of the NL West.
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and now Substack.com.