I’ve written about the Colorado Rockies so many times over the past two years that I think we can all take the normal disclaimer as read. They’re not very good, and they’re probably not going to be very good in the short or medium term. However, there is some good news. Colorado has put quite a bit of faith in two young players who put up monster defensive numbers at up-the-middle positions: center fielder Brenton Doyle and shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. The latter signed a seven-year contract extension this spring. These guys are so good defensively it almost doesn’t matter if they hit at all. And that’s a fortunate coincidence, because last year, they didn’t hit at all. That part wasn’t the good news.
This is the good news: In 2024, Doyle and Tovar are hitting a little.
So Tovar / We’re So Back
| 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Tovar | 4.1 | 27.0 |
| .253 | .287 | .408 |
| 70 | ||
| Doyle | 5.1 | 35.0 |
| .203 | .250 | .343 |
| 43 |
| 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Tovar | 3.8 | 29.0 |
| .294 | .325 | .487 |
| 114 | ||
| Doyle | 9.5 | 26.2 |
| .269 | .341 | .404 |
| 99 |
2024 stats current through 6/9
Let’s not overstate this development; a wRC+ in the 90s won’t get a position player in the Hall of Fame unless he’s Ozzie Smith or a close personal friend of Frankie Frisch. But let’s not understate it either. If it’s sustainable, league-average offense with Gold Glove shortstop defense is basically Dansby Swanson. League-average (or even slightly below-average) offense with Gold Glove center field defense is basically Kevin Kiermaier. And those two guys played on a lot of winning teams. If Tovar and Doyle can continue to hit as they have for the past two months, the Rockies will have solved two positions that can be difficult to fill.
2024 BABIP Leaders
Qualified hitters only
2024 stats current through 6/9
Ah crap. Well that’s not an awesome place to start. Still, this isn’t 15 years ago; we know that raw BABIP isn’t a measure of flukiness unless we have context. To start, both of these guys ought to have high BABIPs: Tovar is an above-average-to-plus runner. Doyle can fly and he hits a lot of grounders. And Coors Field, with its enormous outfield and barely-worthy-of-the-term air density, is the place batted balls go to drop. The league average BABIP across all venues this year is .288; at Coors Field, it’s .326, which is 10 points higher than any other full-time ballpark. It’s fair to raise an eyebrow when anyone has a BABIP of .390, especially when Tovar is 20 points ahead of second place, but this isn’t as fluky as it might look at first glance. Besides, we have better tools now.
