Colorado Rockies news and links for Wednesday, April 2, 2025
The 2025 season is off to a Rockie (see what I did there?) start for Colorado. Through the season’s first four games, the Rockies are 1-3 heading into Wednesday. Now, that record does not indicate the end of the world, but as we know, a record is only the title of the story that lies beneath it.
The bullpen has certainly had its fair share in the losses, but their follies are enhanced simply because the Rockies’ offense is once again slower than molasses out of the gate, telling a tired tale that fans of the team have sadly come to expect.
Back on March 10, Evan Lang covered the bad offensive trends on display in spring training for the Rockies. Now that regular season games are now being played, what trends have carried over?
Well for starters, strikeouts are still running rampant.
The Rockies have struck out 44 times in their first four games, which is tied for sixth-most in the league with the Baltimore Orioles and Miami Marlins. However, their 30.8% strikeout rate is the second-highest in baseball behind the Washington Nationals who have struck out 32.4% of the time in their first four games at the time of writing.
Strikeouts have been a major problem for the team over the last couple of seasons. In 2024 the Rockies, along with the Seattle Mariners, led all of baseball with a 26.8% strikeout rate. They also set a franchise record with 1,617 strikeouts, surpassing the previous record of 1,543 set in 2023. In fact, since 2019 the Rockies are fifth in MLB and second in the National League in total strikeouts at 7,936. If the Rockies don’t end up slapping “5280” on their new City Connect jerseys, that might be a more poignant number.
The irony is that the Rockies spent the offseason and most of spring training preaching the need to put the ball in play more. They made a concerted effort to make the coaching process simpler by reducing their hitting coaching crew to just two coaches. They brought in the likes of Thairo Estrada, Kyle Farmer, Nick Martini, and Tyler Freeman while carrying Sean Bouchard on the Opening Day roster because they all had good bat-to-ball skills.
However, Estrada is on the injured list and the inclusion of the other players hasn’t exactly solved the problem that permeates from the regulars in the lineup. Michael Toglia leads the team with eight strikeouts, Ryan McMahon has six, and Kris Bryant is 0-for-10 with five strikeouts. There have been some promising improvements for Brenton Doyle and Ezequiel Tovar thus far, with just five total between the two of them, but the plate discipline as a unit is still lacking.
The Rockies’ seven walks are the fewest in baseball to begin the year. That mark is pretty standard for the free-swinging team trying to put the ball in play. But how are those efforts going so far?
As you would expect, not well. The Rockies have the highest swing rate at 55.6%. However, the team has a 72.8% contact rate per Statcast, which is the third lowest in baseball. When making contact the team has a 44.9% ground ball rate which is middle of the pack, a 25.8% line drive rate which is third highest, and a 29.2% fly ball rate which is the second-lowest in the league. Their .295 Batting Average on Balls in Play is about league average, but the severe lack of power when the team does make contact is glaring.
At their current rate, the Rockies are going 66.50 AB/HR. Obviously, that will even out at the season rolls on, but it points to the fact that the offense is having a lot of trouble when it does manage to make contact with the ball. Sure there is bad luck involved with some deep fly balls or hard-hit liners that end up in a glove, but it all cycles back to the strikeouts and the swings the Rockies are taking.
The team has the highest swing rate on pitches in the strike zone, yet has the third-lowest contact rate. They also have one of the highest swing rates on pitches outside of the zone while also having one of the lowest contact rates in that category. Their 15.8% swinging strike rate ranks at the top in baseball.
The fact of the matter is that the Rockies are still being plagued by the same offensive problems. The issues reared their ugly head in spring training and have carried over into the regular season. We can hope they are just stumbling out of the gate and will pick things up soon, especially at home on Friday, but the small sample size is already plenty worrisome for a team that can’t afford to repeat the same mistakes.
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Here’s where the Rockies’ top prospects will open the 2025 season | MLB.com
Where will the Top 30 prospects be playing to start 2025? This article from MLB Pipeline breaks it down. A whopping nine top prospects will be in Triple-A to start the season.
Predicting when prospects will make MLB debuts by month | MLB.com
Speaking of top prospects, Sam Dykstra tried to predicts when prospects will make their MLB debuts. He predicts that Chase Dollander will be wearing Rockies purple by May.
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On the Farm
Triple-A: Salt Lake Bees 15, Albuquerque Isotopes 1
It was an extremely forgettable night for the Albuquerque Isotopes as they struggled to muster much offense at the plate and throw strikes on the mound in their home opener. Anthony Molina started on the hill, laboring through 3 2⁄3 innings giving up six runs on nine hits. Karl Kauffman came in relief and went 2 1⁄3 scoreless, but he ran into plenty of traffic as well. The rest of the Isotopes’ bullpen imploded in the eighth, giving up nine runs on four hits. The staff struggled to find the zone, issuing 11 walks on the night. At the plate, the Isotopes scored one run on four hits with 10 strikeouts against four walks.
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