Tuesday Rockpile: ZiPS and the 2025 Colorado Rockies

Colorado Rockies news and links for Tuesday, January 7, 2025

With the holidays in the rear-view mirror and baseball players preparing for Spring Training, it’s probably time to turn to FanGraphs 2025 ZiPS projections for the Colorado Rockies.

Dan Szymborski’s projections merit the refined baseball fan’s attention, and I always appreciate the fact that he gets the Rockies. That is, he understands how they work, but Szymborski’s analysis is never “lol Rockies.” Instead, he considers the big picture, taking seriously a team that should perhaps take itself more seriously.

Szymborski’s ZiPS prologue

I want to begin by quoting at length from the introduction because it provides an interesting spin on the Kris Bryant contract. I have bolded the sentence that stands out:

Are the Rockies a good team? No, they are not. Are the Rockies even a middling team? Again, no. But things may slowly be getting better. Colorado will still have a lousy offense in 2025, but you can at least see the light at the end of a (very) long tunnel, most obviously when looking at the lineup. No one would confuse the Rockies with the Rays in terms of the cleverness with which they construct their roster, but the utter disaster that is the Kris Bryant signing does appear to have to had some kind of effect on their organizational decision-making. Since the start of 2023, they’ve done some very un-Rockies things. Jumping on the opportunity to snatch up an upside player like Nolan Jones isn’t something this team would have done in the late 2010s. The old Rockies would have found a way to play a mediocre veteran over Ezequiel Tovar, and there’s no way Brenton Doyle would have been given anywhere near enough rope to stick around for a possible breakout. Can you imagine past Rockies teams being patient with fringy prospects like Michael Toglia, giving an opportunity to a veteran journeyman like Jake Cave, or releasing Elias Díaz, a veteran catcher who made the All-Star Game the year prior, to find playing time for a prospect? Now, it hasn’t all worked out, but it at least represents some movement away from the strategies that slammed the competitive window of the last good Rockies team closed. You can’t get out of a hole until you stop digging.

We have focused — and rightly so — on the problems of Bryant’s contract: It created a financial burden for the Rockies at the same time the team lost guaranteed television revenues; he has not been a productive player; and he failed to become the face of the franchise or provide the organization with any significant identity after Nolan Arenado broke out of Denver.

But Dick Monfort is not one to overspend his budget, and to paraphrase Plato, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Unlike Szymborski, I see this shift less as philosophical and more driven by financial need.

But whatever.

Anything that gets the kids playing is a good thing.

And with that, to the details.

Here’s a graphic representation of where ZiPS sees the Rockies in 2025:

FanGraphs

How do the position players look?

Better. A little. Maybe.

Brenton Doyle and Ezequiel look to continue as the Rockies leaders in 2025. To be more specific, ZiPS projects Doyle will slash .252/.303/.423 with 19 home runs, 29 doubles, and 22 stolen bases. By comparison, in 2024, those numbers were .260/.317/.446 including 23 home runs and 31 stolen bases that, combined with his elite defense, were worth 3.7 fWAR. So ZiPS expects Doyle to continue to be good but slightly less good than he was last season.

As for Tovar, ZiPS projects he will slash .264/.297/.453 with 23 home runs, 39 doubles, and seven stolen bases. In 2024, he slashed .269/.295/.469 with 26 homers and six stolen bases, ultimately worth 3.7 fWAR.

The numbers for Doyle and Tovar, then, are remarkably similar with both remaining elite defensively.

ZiPS also sees Nolan Jones bouncing back some, though he will not be as outstanding as he was in 2023. For ZiPS, Jones is projected to slash .261/.353/.434 with 14 home runs and 23 doubles. That’s better than last season but not awesome. (By contrast, in 2023, Jones slashed .297/.389/.542 with 20 homers and 20 stolen bases and a cumulative 3.8 fWAR.)

For Ryan McMahon, a slight revival is in the projections as well. According to ZiPS, McMahon looks to be worth 2.6 fWAR (up from 1.9 in 2024) with a .245/.326/.418 slashline that includes 21 home runs. (He hit 20 homers in 2024.)

Photo by Todd Kirkland/MLB Photos via Getty Images

As for Michael Toglia, ZiPS envisions him slashing .226/.307/.428 with 25 home runs and worth 0.4 fWAR. I’m taking the over on that one as I think ZiPS undervalues his power (he hit 25 homers in 2024) and defense.

In short, there is some improvement for the Rockies, but this will not be a contending team. (And as for Kris Bryant, ZiPS projects a .243/.328/.382 with eight home runs in 308 plate appearances.)

How are the prospects?

There’s some interesting news here. ZiPS is very high on Kyle Karros (no. 14 PuRP; projected 0.9 fWAR), Cole Carrigg (no. 12 PuRP; projected 1.1 fWAR), and Ryan Ritter (no. 19 PuRP; projected 1.8 fWAR).

Photo by Norm Hall/MLB Photos via Getty Images

It is less so on Zac Veen (no. 4 PuRP; projected -0.1 fWAR), Yanquiel Fernandez (no. 5 PuRP; projected -0.5 fWAR), and Benny Montgomery (no. 16 PuRP; -1.1 fWAR).

What are the pitching projections?

In 2024, the starting pitching staff was worth 4.0 fWAR; in 2025, ZiPS projects that number to be 6.5 fWAR (without Cal Quantrill). So that is, overall, an improvement. Clearly, it’s difficult to project where Germán Márquez and Antonio Senzatela will be given they are returning from Tommy John Surgery, but ZiPS projects them to be positive additions if not barn burners.

Consider, then, the other starters who did not miss significant time in 2024 due to injury.

Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Ryan Feltner was worth 2.4 fWAR in 2024, so ZiPS projects a significant downturn for him in 2025 (19.9% K%; 1.7 fWAR). Kyle Freeland is projected to be worth 1.0 fWAR (compared to 0.9 fWAR in 2024, which would mean a slight improvement) while Austin Gomber is projected for 0.9 fWAR in 2025 compared to 1.2 fWAR in 2024.

I tend to think ZiPS is undervaluing the rotation, especially in terms of Feltner and Gomber, but not remarkably so.

In terms of prospects, ZiPS projects Chase Dollander (no. 1 PuRP) with 108.IP (21.2% K%: 89 ERA+), Carson Palmquist (no. 10 PuRP) is 107.0 IP (21.5% K%; 90 ERA+), and Sean Sullivan (no. 7 PuRP) with 102.7 IP (16.3% K%; 88 ERA+).

As for the bullpen, ZiPS sees an fWAR of 0.9 with Victor Vodnik (20.9% K%; 0.3 fWAR) the most valuable. In this, I think ZiPS is undervaluing the bullpen, especially Luis Peralta and Seth Halvorsen, though given the youth of some of the relievers, it makes sense there is little data to work with.

Closing thoughts

Clearly, these are all projections though Szymborski’s model has generally a good sense of what’s happening.

But if ZiPS is right, Rockies fans should expect some movement in a positive direction.

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On the internet

This came through my Bluesky feed a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it was worth discussing.

I’m going with “Trust the data more” and “stop chasing bad pitches.”

I’m eager to read yours in the comments.

This week in AI

If you’re looking for offseason baseball, there’s an AI network on Bluesky you can use for streaming not-real games.

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Stat of the Week: 2024 Year-End Awards | SportsInfo Solutions

It comes as no surprise that Aaron Judge would earn the SIS the “Hard Hitter Award” for the third consecutive year, given that he recorded a hard-hit ball on 48% of his batted balls. And the runner up? That would be Michael Toglia, who had a hard-hit ball on 45% of his batted balls. (You can all but hear the author’s astonishment when reading this section.)

But wait. There’s more: “The leading team was the Braves, who had a hard-hit ball in 35% of their batted balls, a smidge ahead of the Orioles, Phillies, and Rockies, all at 34%.”

Perhaps things are looking up at 20th and Blake.

Dodgers top list of 2024’s most valuable sports team sponsorships I The Big Lead

A few weeks ago, Joelle Milholm gamed out possible sponsorships for the Colorado Rockies. J.P. Hoornstra shows just how valuable those MLB sponsorships are.

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