Welcome to the 2025 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2025. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.
No. 4, Kyle Freeland (1.4 rWAR)
It was a tough year for the Colorado Rockies, to put it lightly.
But nobody took it harder than Kyle Freeland.
The Denver native started off fairly strong through his first two starts, but then started to get hit hard. Over his next 12 starts from April 8-June 11, Freeland allowed 51 runs on 87 hits across 61 innings. He gave up eight home runs with 15 walks and 47 strikeouts.
The kicker, though, is that only 39 of those runs were earned. Freeland started the year with a 1-8 record and 5.13 ERA through his first 14 starts. As Evan Lang wrote on May 26, lack of run support was a storyline for Freeland through the early goings.
However, it turned out that Freeland was suffering from lower back stiffness, which landed him on the injured list on June 15. He would stay there until June 27. In his first start back, though, Freeland threw four innings against the Milwaukee Brewers and allowed six runs (all earned) on eight hits with a home run, three walks and two strikeouts on 67 pitches.
For the remainder of the season, Freeland only had one game where he gave up unearned runs – the September 10 matchup against the Los Angeles Dodgers where he allowed four runs (one earned) on nine hits with one walk and five strikeouts in the 9-0 loss.
In total, Freeland led the rotation in starts (31), innings pitched (162.2), hits (193 – narrowly edging Antonio Senzatela), unearned runs (15), strikeouts (124), and WHIP (1.42). He ranked second in earned runs (105), home runs (22), and ERA (4.98). But that’s all to be expected considering he made the most starts.
In September, Freeland identified the biggest challenge of 2025 as “getting everyone going in the same direction and pulling that rope to the direction that we want to be in, which is winning ballgames on a consistent basis and completing ballgames night in and night out.”
He also leaned on his family during the challenging season, which helped him stay grounded.
“It was a very hard season,” he said.
“In seasons like this, you lean on quite a few people. You obviously lean on your teammates and your coaches, but your family is always going to be there to lean on. Your parents are going to be there to lean on in seasons like this where you struggle as a team and struggle individually – and it’s really tough and it weighs on you a lot of times, hearing what people have to say, seeing what people are saying, and stuff like that. It gets to you.
“So I use my wife (Ashley) a lot to lean on,” he continued. “She has understood this game and how tough it is for the time that we’ve been in this game. She’s a big person I lean on, and I lean on my dad a lot. He’s the guy who taught me the game of baseball. He’s the one person that I could go to and talk to about what I’m struggling with.”
But in the midst of the struggles, Freeland also identified some personal successes.
“Personally, I had a couple spurts this year early on in the season – I came out of came throwing the ball extremely well,” he said. “And then right after the All-Star Break, I had a little stretch where I felt really good throwing the ball, and I was in command, in control. The game a couple weeks ago against San Diego at home, throwing eight innings, that’s probably the biggest highlight of my personal success this year.”
Like many members of the 2025 Rockies, Freeland dealt with a lot of challenges. But looking ahead to 2026, Freeland will be a key member of the rotation. Assuming Antonio Senzatela remains in the bullpen, he will be the only veteran in the rotation and the only starter from the entire Bud Black era of Rockies pitching. With a revamped coaching staff and front office, he will serve as a bridge between the old pitching philosophies and the new, while continuing to serve as a mentor for the young pitchers.
Hopefully he can regain some form, and inch his way back to the 2018 Kyle Freeland that the Rockies have been hoping he’ll return to.
