The Rockies may finally have some young starting pitchers to build around
Jon Gray and Tyler Anderson give the Rockies hope for a high-end rotation going forward
By
Mike Axisa
•
3 min read
Coors Field is a legitimate competitive disadvantage for the Rockies. They play at altitude and the thin mountain air does funny things to the baseball. Pitches don't move like they normally do and batted balls travel a little farther as well.
The Rockies have been around since 1993, and during that time they've been unable to crack the code of pitching at Coors Field. They've tried sinkerballers. They've tried pitchers with blow-you-away fastballs. They've tried finesse guys who can dot the corners. The Rockies have yet to find something that works consistently a mile above sea level.
Because they've been unable to build a reliable pitching staff, Colorado's success has been fleeting. They've never once won a division title and only three times have they gone to the postseason. The Rockies lost in the 1995 and 2009 NLDS, and of course they won the 2007 NL pennant before getting swept by the Red Sox in the World Series. That's the extent of their postseason history.
This season, the Rockies have reason to believe they may finally have the pieces in place to build a successful and sustainable rotation in righty Jon Gray and lefty Tyler Anderson, both rookies. Here are their numbers to date:
| IP | ERA | FIP | WHIP | K% | BB% | GB% | HR/9 | WAR | |
| Gray | 114 2/3 | 3.77 | 3.71 | 1.13 | 25.6% | 7.9% | 45.2% | 1.02 | +2.8 |
| Anderson | 61 | 3.25 | 3.13 | 1.26 | 20.6% | 4.7% | 54.9% | 0.74 | +2.3 |
Among rookie pitchers, only Tigers righty Michael Fulmer (+4.1 WAR) and Brewers righty Junior Guerra (+3.2 WAR) have a higher WAR so far this season. Dodgers righty Kenta Maeda (+2.2 WAR) is right behind Gray and Anderson, though he's a veteran from Japan with hundreds of innings of experience under his belt.
The 24-year-old Gray and 26-year-old Anderson have different pitching styles and backstories. Gray is a classic power pitcher with a big fastball and a nasty slider. The Rockies selected him with the third overall pick in the 2013 draft and he zoomed through the minors, making his MLB debut late last season. Tuesday night Gray struck out six Dodgers in five scoreless innings:
Anderson was a first round pick as well, going 20th overall in 2011, though he dealt with a ton of injuries in the minors and did not make his MLB debut until this season. He's a fastball/cutter/changeup pitcher who sits around 90 mph. Earlier this week Anderson held the Dodgers to two runs in seven innings.
That's all well and good, but now comes the big important question: what makes Gray and Anderson different from, say, Jhoulys Chacin or Shawn Chacon or any other young Rockies hurler who had instant success but failed to sustain it long-term?
For Gray, I think it's his true power stuff and willingness to pound the zone. He misses bats regularly and won't hurt himself with walks, which is a surprisingly uncommon combination. As for Anderson, he has a ton of deception in his delivery and excels at locating on the edges of the zone with multiple pitches, so he keeps the ball off the sweet spot.
The Rockies have had guys with big stuff like Gray before -- Ubaldo Jimenez immediately comes to mind -- but never someone with his combination of stuff and command. Anderson, meanwhile, disrupts hitters in three ways: with the deception in his delivery, by changing speeds, and by pitching in and out.
Developing quality pitchers is really hard, and for the Rockies it's even harder because of Coors Field. You just don't know how a pitcher's stuff will behave when you introduce it to that thin mountain air. Suddenly that nasty curveball gets a little loopy, or the sinker doesn't sink as much. Altitude changes everything.
In Gray and Anderson, the Rockies seem to have found themselves some young arms to build around, something they've sorely lacked over the years. Colorado has had little trouble developing position players throughout their history. If Gray and Anderson are truly rotation building blocks, the Rockies might finally be on their way to consistent contention.
