Without Arenado, struggling offense needs spring reboot
One sunny morning during spring training 2016, Rockies second baseman DJ LeMahieu was taking batting practice. Catching coach Rene Lachemann stood behind the cage, yelling instructions.
“Runner on second, move him to third!” … Man on third, drive him home!” … “Swing away! … Let’s see some of that power, Frenchy!”
LeMahieu obliged with a tour de force of situational hitting.
“Atta-boy, Frenchy! You just might make it in this game after all,” Lachemann bellowed.
LeMahieu ended up hitting .348 and winning the National League batting crown that season. Both men are long gone, with LeMahieu now starring for the Yankees in New York. But the elements of that drill — plate discipline, batto-ball skills, an unselfish approach — are staples of the game.
As former Rockies manager Jim Tracy would no doubt say, it would behoove the Rockies to embrace LeMahieu’s approach during spring training 2021.
The Rockies’ offense has been in a bad place going on a fourth season.
How bad has it been? Even though Colorado nearly won the National League West title in 2018, its team batting average of .256 was the worst in franchise history, and its .322 on-base percentage was the second-worst. And, in the division playoff series against Milwaukee, the Rockies scored 2 runs in 3 games.
There were slight improvements in 2019, but the slide continued in 2020.
The Rockies hit .257 (secondlowest in team history), posted a .311 on-base percentage (worst) and a .716 OPS (worst).
“We have a lot of room for improvement, especially over the last few years, as a team offense,” said shortstop Trevor Story, one of the few bright spots in 2020 when he hit .289 with an .874 OPS, led the Rockies with 11 home runs and topped the National League with 15 stolen bases.
“There have been some good individual performances but we have to do the little things right,” Story continued. “We have to move runners over, those sorts of things. We kind of have to play oldschool ball because I don’t think we are going to outslug many other teams — especially losing Nolan. That’s going to hurt.”
Nolan, of course, is slugging third baseman Nolan Arenado, who was traded to St. Louis. The loss of Arenado leaves a huge hole in the middle of the Rockies lineup, even though Arenado hit a career-low .253 with a .738 OPS as he battled a sore left shoulder last summer. More concerning, Story is slated to become a free agent at the end of the season and his future in Colorado is uncertain.
“Without Nolan, we are going to have to play more small-ball and really be aggressive on the bases,” Story said. “I think we have good team speed, so that could be to our advantage. But we have to get better situationally. That will be a focus early in camp and something we will talk about when we get there.”
Ryan McMahon, Arenado’s likely replacement at third, and young outfielder Sam Hilliard, will use spring training to hone their skills at the plate. A major problem for both last season was their high number of strikeouts. McMahon regressed from 2019, his average dropping from .250 to .215, while his strikeout rate rose from 29.7% to 34.2%. Hilliard launched six home runs in 105 atbats, but his .210/.272/.438 slash line and 36.8% strikeout rate led to limited playing time.
“I think, as a team, we needed to play smarter baseball,” McMahon said. “We have to string at-bats together, concentrate on team atbats. We can’t go up there just trying to hit homers.
“I think, especially with the ballpark we play in, we have to go up there and control our at-bats a little better. I’m somebody who definitely falls in that trap; trying to go up there and swing for the fences. So having more team-oriented at-bats, up and down the lineup, will really help us out.”
A deep dive inside the numbers reveals the extent of Colorado’s offensive woes.
Despite playing half of their games at the hitters’ paradise known as Coors Field, last season the Rockies ranked 25th in the majors in on-base percentage, 22nd in home runs (63) and 18th in OPS, and they finished 12-18 at home.
According to FanGraphs, the Rockies’ walk rate was only 7.1%, tied for last in baseball with Detroit. Despite manager Bud Black’s goal to cut down on swings at bad pitches, Colorado’s chase rate was 33%, fifth-worst in baseball.
The Rockies also ranked last in hard-hit percentage (pitches with an exit velocity of 95 miles per hour or higher) at 31.6%.
A more obvious weakness has been Colorado’s poor clutch hitting. The 2018 squad posted a .259 RISP average, fifth-worst in team history.
The 2020 Rockies hit .248 with
RISP, second-worst to the 2011 team (.245). Arenado (.175) and Story (.207) both struggled to produce when it mattered most.
Charlie Blackmon, who started off sizzling hot only to go cold, was still Colorado’s most consistent run producer, batting .303 overall, .258 with runners in scoring position and .321 with two outs and runners in scoring position. His 42 RBIs led the team.
“Some of our young players didn’t progress like we’d hoped, we had some guys (who) had down years and we didn’t really hit in the clutch,” Black said at the end of the season.
Back in December, Black said: “We’ve always said that the core group — Nolan, Trevor, and Chuck hit right in the middle of our order — they’re the guys that make us go. But for us to be the team we want to be, it’s going to take Raimel Tapia, Garrett Hampson, Ryan McMahon, Sam Hilliard, Josh Fuentes and whoever else makes our club to get us back in contention where we were a couple of years ago.”
With Arenado gone, that’s an enormous challenge.
Ryan McMahon is not taking over for just anybody. “RyMac” is not stepping in for Wally Pipp, for goodness sale. He’s taking over the Rockies’ third-base job from eighttime Gold Glove winner Nolan Arenado, who was traded to St. Louis, unleashing the wrath of the fans and signaling a baseball apocalypse in Colorado.
With spring training on the horizon, McMahon, just 26, is trying to keep it all in perspective.
“I’m not looking to replace Nolan, because no one can,” McMahon said. “I mean, he’s going to end up as the best third baseman to ever play the game. So
I’m not going to compare myself to Nolan.”
Pipp, for those who need a history lesson, was one of the best power hitters of baseball’s dead-ball era, but he’s best remembered as the man who lost his starting role to Lou Gehrig at the beginning of Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.
The gregarious McMahon is no Iron Horse, but I predict that he will become a solid player at the hot corner.
Will he keep you on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next breathtaking play, the way Arenado did? Nope. Will he gobble up the slow roller and make the impossible barehanded throw? Occasionally. Will he snare the ball down the third-base line and fire a strike to first? Sometimes, but not with the flare or frequency of Arenado.
But McMahon will get the job done. His natural position is third base, not second, and he’ll feel more comfortable over there than at second. He’s got a quick
first step and good instincts.
“I’m not intimidated by what’s next,” he said. “If I go out there and try to be Nolan, I don’t think I’m going to have a lot of success. My goal is just to be the best Ryan McMahon I can be. And I think Nolan made me a better third baseman just by watching him.”
There is no way to sugarcoat McMahon’s 2020 disappointing season. He admits he got into some bad habits and started chasing pitches. The more he pressed, the more he struggled.
He struck out 66 times in 193 plate appearances, a 34.2% clip that was sixth-highest in the majors among qualified batters. His .215 batting average and .295 onbase percentage were the worst of his first three full seasons in the majors.
Those numbers, of course, need to be tempered by the reality of the 60-game season. And he did flash power. His nine homers were second on the team to Trevor Story’s 11, and he also had six doubles and a triple.
And keep in mind that McMahon hit 24 homers and drove in 83 runs in 2019, though his .250 batting average was disappointing.
It’s not a stretch to say that McMahon has become one of the most popular players within the Rockies clubhouse, not just because of his upbeat personality, but because he’s embraced the work ethic established by Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story and Arenado.
“‘RyMac’ is one of my favorite people to be around, for sure,” Story said. “He’s a close friend of mine. He’s got the highest ceiling of any young player that I’ve seen in a long time. With a little more consistency on the offensive side, he can take that next step and he’ll be a good player in this league. He can be an all-startype player.”
McMahon doesn’t know about all of that, but he’s not shrinking from his opportunity.
“I think I can surprise some people with the things I can do,” he said.