MLB:  Cutting Edge Franchises; Colorado Rockies.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com.  .  . 

.  .  .   SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner.

MLB    Let’s begin by dispensing with the idea that anyone’s pre-season predictions about MLB end-of-season standings can be super-precise. That’s because most of the 30 MLB franchises have just enough strengths over weaknesses to pull up some surprises April through September, while as many as a dozen MLB teams have enough strengths at the start of a season to appear likely division champions. However, from a few mid-season mistakes or from injuries, the latter can fold and fall back. Not one of the six divisions comprising the National and American Leagues (three per) is without  this two-sided coin, that is, every team within each division is capable of avoiding last place during and as a regular season closes, yet at the start of each season one or more teams always appear to have the greater number of capabilities for being numero uno, for instance, the American League West’s Los Angeles Angels 2013 batting order today including Josh Hamilton (outfielder-batting average .285, 43 home runs), Albert Pujols (1B-.285), and Mike Trout (OF-.326), plus starting pitchers, RH Jered Weaver (20-5) and LH C.J. Wilson (13-5); or, the AL Central’s Detroit Tigers order blessed still with triple crown/MVP winner, Miguel Cabrera (3B-.330, 44 HR) and Prince Fielder (1B-.313, 30 HR), plus starter, RH Justin Verlander (17-8).

Last year, the Tigers finished at 88-74 and won the AL title, though the Angels ended, 89-73. Also, regarding number of games won, both teams completed 2012’s regular season behind the AL East’s New York Yankees---95-67, second to the year’s highest win/loss record, 98-64, achieved by the National League East’s Washington Nationals. Neither the Angels, nor the Yankees, nor the Nationals moved ahead of the Tigers during the playoffs, though the Tigers had the fewer regular season wins.

Yet while the Nationals could boast of only one hitter at .300 (OF, Jayson Werth), the team’s order included four players with batting averages higher than .260. Worst win/loss record for the 2012 season belonged to the AL West’s Houston Astros, 55-107, yet the Astros also had four hitters finishing with batting averages higher than .260, 2B Jose Altuve having reached .290, which suggests that 2012 ought to have been a better year for the Astros and that 2013 could be better for them than 2012; then again, maybe not in light of the Astros final regular season record.            

Note that among National League teams, World Series winner, the San Francisco Giants, finished the 2012 season, 94-68, behind the NL Central’s Cincinnati Reds, 97-65, and behind the Yankees win/loss record. And, the Nationals and the Giants entered the 2012 post-season beneath competitors, as NL wild card teams, as had the AL’s Angels and the below .500/73-89 AL East’s Toronto Blue Jays.

So, the differences in 2012’s number of wins over losses per team between the regular season and the post season, including the year’s WS outcome, and that the Blue Jays got to the post-season when behind more than 10 other MLB franchises in end-of-regular season wins over losses, such surely reflects the unpredictability, or should we call it "the built-in/non-retrievable unfairness," of baseball regarding wins over losses determining which teams deserve to be in the playoffs and which will get to and win the WS.

The above-cited also reflects why the making of pre-season predictions could never be that “sure thing.”

            Colorado Rockies.   Few MLB teams have the wide disparity between what a team’s batting order might be able to accomplish in 2013, and that which the same team’s pitching staff could accomplish, than the Colorado Rockies, if we use 2012 stats as measuring sticks.

Make no mistake, the Rockies can hit, but can they pitch?

Last season, the Rockies batting order included four hitters with batting averages above .300, more than within most MLB clubs that finished the 2012 season much higher in the rankings (Dexter Fowler, CF-.300; Carlos Gonzalez, LF-.303; Chris Nelson, 3B-.301; Jordan Pacheco, 3B-.309; and, Eric Young, OF-.316).

And, five Rockies hitters finished the 2012 MLB season with batting averages .270 and higher, D.J. LeMahieu, 2B-.297.

But the Rockies starting pitchers were no match in their basic accomplishments, none having obtained more 2012 wins than losses, LH Jeff Francis closest with a 6-7 record, however, a 5.8 ERA.

The best Rockies starter ERA belonged to 3-5 RH Jhoulys Chacin---4.4.

Were it not for three of the team’s seven relievers winning a total of 19 games over their combined six losses, the Rockies may have finished 2012 as poorly as the Houston Astros had.

Yet the value of the Rockies superb hitters starts to fade when examined are the number of RBI’s produced by the team’s high batting averages, the highest belonging to Carlos Gonzalez, 85, dropping next to the 72 accrued by .290 hitter, Tyler Colvin 1B, followed by .270 hitter/catcher Wilin Rosario’s 71. Afterward, the RBI figures drop to 54 and less per Rockies hitter with a batting average above .240.

The above being so, new Rockies manager, Walt Weiss, not only has to create starting pitcher + reliever upticks; he has to inject into his batting order “the hits that convert to runs, or why have deep and solid hits except as entertainment for the fans?" Here’s where a rehabilitated pair of heavy hitters, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, and first baseman, Todd Helton, can make the difference (neither played a full season, 2012), along with top hitters Gonzalez, Colvin and Rosario.

END/ml