2024 Division Outlook: NL West
By Sam Holstine
Colorado Rockies
Key Additions
- RHP Cal Quantrill
- RHP Dakota Hudson
- C Jacob Stallings
- LHP Jalen Beeks
Key Loses
- RHP Chris Flexen
- LHP Brent Suter
Ah, the lovely Colorado Rockies. The Rockies do exist in the NL West, but won't be nearly as competitive as the other four teams that inhabit the NL West. Due to the Rockies being the Rockies and the state they are in, I won't take too much time talking about them.
The Rockies lineup has a few bright spots, but they do play 81 game sin Coors Field, allowing anyone to have a strong offensive season. Headlined by 2023 breakout Nolan Jones, Colorado's lineup has got some work to do. In only 106 games last season, Jones posted a .931 OPS and finished fourth for National League Rookie of the Year. He also has an elite arm, posting an arm strength of 98.9 mph, putting him in the 100th percentile last year. The Rockies will enter year three of the anomaly that is the Kris Bryant contract, as they hope to get any offensive value from him. Veterans Charlie Blackmon, Ryan McMahon, Elias Diaz make up a third of their linuep, as they hope to provide some stability in Denver. The rest of Colorado's offensive attack will consist of young players trying to prove themselves as Major League players, including Brendan Rodgers, Ezequiel Tovar, Michael Toglia, and Brenton Doyle.
One of those was by Nolan Jones, who hit one 483 feet the other day, the 24th-further pull-side home run of the Statcast era pic.twitter.com/ajQ9uo83kM
— Chris Towers is the Riley Greene Preservation Soc (@CTowersCBS) June 11, 2023
Colorado's lowlight will once again be their pitching, as their rotation includes Kyle Freeland, Cal Quantrill, Austin Gomber, Ryan Feltner, and Dakota Hudson. None of those names jump off the page at all, but Gomber and Feltner can hopefully develop into potential pieces for Colorado's future pitching staff. Colorado's closer looks to be Justin Lawrence, who turned in a strong 2023 season and is looking to build off that this year. Outside of those names, I really can not say much else about Colorado's pitching, so let's just leave the Rockies review at that.