Before Opening Day 2025, Rockies owner Dick Monfort made this comment:“The infield, quite honestly — and if you like defense, (and) I like defense — will be the best defense, maybe in the history of the game.” That was, at the time and now, an amusingly optimistic exaggeration.
The thing is, the basic sentiment wasn’t outlandish.
The Rockies, for all their faults, had been a good defensive club for years at that point. The outfield rostered two-time defending Gold Glove winner Brenton Doyle. The infield
had defending shortstop Gold Glove award winner Ezequial Tovar and four-time third base Gold Glove finalist Ryan McMahon. Defense was arguably the one feature of the Bill Schmidt era of the Rockies that the major league team actually excelled at.
Now that the Bill Schmidt and Bud Black era of Rockies baseball has ended, so too has the notion that the best aspect of the team is it’s defensive prowess.
After their wild four-error game against the Padres on Tuesday night, the Rockies had committed 20 errors in July. This brought their season total to 71, tied for third most in the majors. By contrast, the Rockies committed a total of 82 and 81 errors in the entire 2024 and 2023 seasons respectively.
This penchant for making egregious enough mistakes that they end up recorded as an error, however, doesn’t tell the full story of the Rockies glovework. It’s been a couple of decades since errors were viewed as the primary statistical indicator of defensive performance, and looking at other metrics does paint a slightly rosier picture.
- The Rockies -6 Outs Above Average rank 18th in the majors.
- Their 20 Defensive Runs Saved is the 14th most in the league.
- The teams -12 Fielding Run Value is 5th worst.
Overall, while the the Rockies are by no means a good defensive team, they are getting to enough balls to arguably only be a bit below average defensively this year. The team’s collective range has provided a baseline of non-memorable outs, which are often overwhelmed in retrospect by the sheer volume of defensive gaffs that get tagged as errors.
This isn’t to say that those defensive mistakes are not a problem — they absolutely are. It’s just that the team may not be as defensively incompetent as it seems from the recent eye test.
What’s more, the Rockies worst defensive players happen to be the players most likely to not be on the team after the trade deadline passes.
Of the Rockies bottom five performers in Outs Above Average, all are potential trade candidates in the upcoming August 3 deadline. All of Mickey Moniak (-1), Troy Johnston (-2), Edouard Julien (-3), Willi Castro (-3), and Tyler Freeman (-6) could, realistically, no longer be on the Rockies within a week’s time.
The players most likely to remain with the team for the remainder of the season are among the best defensive options currently on the roster. Players like TJ Rumfield (5 OAA), Cole Carrigg (1), and Kyle Karros (1) are likely to remain with the team through at least the end of the season.
This combination of factors means that it’s possible that we have already seen the worst of the Rockies defense this season. The defensive floor of the roster could very well shift upwards depending on how exactly the trade deadline pans out.
The timing of this decrease in fielding performance does raise the question: Is this a result of the front office and coaching staff turnover this past offseason?
The previous regime made defense a clear focus in roster construction. Given how quickly Bud Black moved Elehuris Montero off of third base at the start of 2023, for example, it would be hard to imagine him having continued to run Julien out at second base if he were still in charge.
The Paul DePodesta-led front office came in mainly focused on increasing the club’s optionality instead of focusing on addressing one specific facet of the game. Their offseason acquisitions included Rumfield, who has been a great receiver at first base, but also the aforementioned Julien who has been less than spectacular at second.
The front office has not completed enough transactions yet to say for sure how much they value defensive talent in comparison to the previous regime, but the few current signs that exist point in that direction. This all will make the looming trade deadline even more interesting as it will provide more data points into the player traits the current front office values.
For our collective sanity, let’s just hope that the collection of poor defenders likely to be on the move represent the low point in terms of Rockies glovework.
On the Farm
Triple-A: Albuquerque Isotopes 9, El Paso Chihuahuas 7
Jake Brooks started the game and pushed through five average PCL innings in which he gave up five runs. The string of relievers that came in after Brooks, however, shut down the Chihuahuas’ long enough to bring to let the lineup tie the game in the seventh inning and force an extra inning. John Brebbia took the ball in the bottom of the tenth and was able to hold the lead despite giving up two runs (one earned).
At the plate, five of the nine players in the starting lineup were on base at least twice. No hitter showed off more for the Isotopes than Brenton Doyle who, in this rehab start, collected three hits including a double and a home run. Hitting just behind Doyle, Sterlin Thompson (No. 13 PuRP) also managed three hits including a double but instead of a home run he added a walk to his line.
Double-A: Hartford Yard Goats vs. New Hampshire Fisher Cats
Postponed due to rain. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Friday.
High-A: Vancouver Canadians 5, Spokane Indians 3
Lebarron Johnson Jr. started the game but only managed to get through four innings due to a relatively high pitch count (71) and a lack of effectiveness (4 runs). Austin Emener, Dylan Crooks, and Isiah Coupet all entered the game in relief and were able to hold the Canadians to only a single extra run over the final four innings but the damage was already done.
Spokane failed to drive the ball over the course of the night and didn’t earn a single extra base hit. The few runs they did score came as a result of singles (seven), walks (four), and stolen bases (two). Easily Spokane’s MVP of the game was centerfielder Cameron Nelson who was on base three times, stole a base, scored a run, and drove another in.
Low-A: Ontario Tower Buzzers 12, Fresno Grizzlies 3
The most notable thing about this game is that the starting pitcher for the Tower Buzzers was Blake Snell on a rehab assignment. Whenever you have an MLB quality pitcher on rehab in the low minors it acts as both an exciting event for the opposing team but also a learning opportunity. When the rehabbing pitcher happens to be a multi-time Cy Young award winner the lesson is generally just to understand how to remain humble.
The only Grizzlies batter to record a hit off of Snell during his four innings of work was Roynier Hernandez who managed a line drive single in the first inning. Otherwise, Snell was perfect through his limited appearance and collected nine strike outs.
The pitching side for the Grizzlies performed more notably poorly than the lineup given the context. Angel Jimenez started the game and only lasted two and two third innings before being replaced by Manuel Olivares who got hit harder than Jimenez had been. By the time Olivares allowed an additional five runs in his single inning of work the game was essentially over.
Rockies players, coaches trying to remain present amid trade rumors | MLB.com
It’s trade deadline season. Everyone reading this already knows that. It’s all anyone in the baseball world wants to talk about. Cole Bradley over at MLB.com talks to many of the Rockies players at the center of trade talks about how this incessant swirl of rumors impacts them. This is very worth checking out in order to remind yourself that these players are real tangible human beings whose lives are impacted by the decisions that will be made over the next couple weeks.
The Alluring Mediocrity of Tomoyuki Sugano | Baseball Prospectus ($)
The 2026 season of Tomoyuki Sugano has been oddly complicated to assess given his solid surface stats and awful predicative metrics. Last week Purple Row’s own Skyler Timmins took a stab at explaining what has led to Sugano’s season and yesterday Bradley Woodrum did the same over at Baseball Prospectus. Specifically interesting in the context of this article, one of the key components Woodrum points to is Sugano’s superb fielding not being accounted for in his pitching metrics.
Tyler Freeman, Outside of Time | Baseball Prospectus ($)
Just in time to align with my own dissection of poor Rockies fielding, Patrick Dubuque of Baseball Prospectus puts Tyler Freeman’s misadventures in right field under the microscope. Dubuque muses on Freeman’s obvious athletic pedigree and hitting prowess before explaining how confounding it is to witness him attempt to play a position that has clearly never quite clicked for him. It’s worth a read, especially as further analysis of the overall picture of Rockies defense.
Arizona Complex League Rockies cap record-setting season with first title since 2021
| MLB.com
In case you hadn’t heard, the ACL Rockies won the Arizona Complex League Championship on Tuesday evening! Check out the above for a quick recap of the teams fantastic season and championship series. The MLB Rockies may still be losing a lot but there are signs to be optimistic about in the lower minors.
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