While I don’t think the Colorado Rockies will lose 100 games for the third straight season in 2025, I understand the people who do.
If not for the Chicago White Sox, the Rockies would rank at the bottom of MLB in nearly every category over the last two seasons. They’ve not hit. They’ve not pitched. They’ve simply not played good baseball.
Well, except for one aspect. These guys can pick it.
This isn’t news to anyone who has been paying attention. Ezequiel Tovar and Brenton Doyle burst onto the scene and already have gold on the mantle. Doyle, in particular, is already proving to be one of the most impactful defenders in the history of the franchise.
Ryan McMahon is making his way up the all-time charts as well, having been a finalist for the Gold Glove in four consecutive seasons. Hoping to add his name to this group is first baseman Michael Toglia who has already put on a picking clinic in the early going. Oddly enough the Rockies lost a former Gold Glove winner at second base in Brenadn Rodgers but his veteran replacement, Kyle Farmer, has been fantastic.
Farmer has always derived most of his value from his glove despite never overly impressing in the advanced stats like DRS or UZR. Watching him for just one road trip, though, reveals as surehanded a defender at the keystone as this club has seen since DJ LeMahieu. With three remarkable athletes around him, Farmer’s steadiness has been a perfect fit.
Nick Martini, in right, has similarly shown off an ability to make the most of a skillset that doesn’t exactly max out the athleticism categories. He plays the wall well, has a strong and accurate arm that has already earned him two outfield assists, and has overall been more than solid.
On the flip side, left field has been an intriguing/scary mix of high-end athleticism and inexperience. Jordan Beck has done alright but had a few miscues during Spring Training while Micky Moniak had a pair of mistakes on Thursday. It’s a small sample size and there’s a lot of time and potential for improvement here.
The biggest surprise of the season, in many ways, has been Hunter Goodman. He rode a hot spring with the bat right into the Opening Day starting lineup and has been the only guy in said lineup to provide consistent pop at the plate so far this season.
But this is about defense. And the catcher-turned-outfielder-turned-catcher has shown off some fantastic blocking abilities. There’s definitely room for growth when it comes to controlling the running game but at the one spot it looked like the Rockies might have substandard defense, it appears that will not be the case.
This has already created an intriguing dynamic.
Each game they’ve played has been close going into the late innings. Teams in the Tampa Bay Rays and especially the Philadelphia Phillies who have far loftier postseason expectations have found themselves frustrated for most of the game. Typically, when you play against a bad team, you don’t anticipate spending so much time watching them make world-class plays. And yet that is exactly what’s happening.
In just the second game of the season, the Rockies put up one of the best one-game defensive performances many of us had ever seen, including 34-year-old Kyle Farmer.
Nobody has embodied this bizarre dynamic more than Antonio Senzatela who has given up an NL-worst 19 hits in 9.2 IP but has yet to surrender an earned run. As the old adage goes, “trust your defense,” and Senzatela has.
The return of German Marquez along with Senzatela is likely to give this defense a lot more chances than they had over the last few seasons as well. Both are proven groundball getters. Kyle Freeland, too, has been known to induce his fair share of weak contact.
This is why you are likely to continue to see unusual stats that take us back to 1913 and the like.
It will, naturally, be interesting to see how this changes over the course of the season where Colorado has quite a few opportunities to get even better defensively with the injections of talents like Zac Veen, Adael Amador, Drew Romo, and Benny Montgomery. All possess fantastic tools.
But even as it stands, it’s wild to watch a team that can’t seem to buy a base hit manage to take so many of them away. They can’t figure out a way to cross the plate but they keep erasing runs off the board.
If you are watching these games, and I understand why many of you aren’t, you are seeing tremendous defense almost every single inning. You can see the frustration in opposing players and fans who feel like they ought to be dismantling these lowly Rockies.
How can these guys be this bad… and also that good?
Look, I get it. Having a great defense in baseball is a lot like having a great special teams unit in football. It’s nice, but if your offense (hitting) and defense (pitching) are terrible, then it isn’t going to amount to much. And as the results have already shown, that is very much the case here.
But, for my money, as fun as the longball is and as amazing as it can be to watch phenomenal pitching, nothing on the diamond is more fun or exciting than a great defensive play.
Right now, the Colorado Rockies are producing those at a ridiculous rate, making them one of the most fun bad baseball teams of all time.
