Context Matters for the Colorado Rockies: Why Last Season’s Ceiling Must Become This Season’s Floor

“Today’s ceiling is tomorrow’s floor”
– Vince Lewis

I work for a pretty great company that does business in a very growth-oriented industry. Our company tagline seems like it should be, “What have you done for me lately?”, but our CEO puts it in much more aspirational terms. “Today’s ceiling is tomorrow’s floor” is a much more inspiring way to say, “No matter what you got today, we’ve got to go get even more tomorrow”. It often reminds me of the context professional sports teams and athletes seem to operate in.

When you’re a terrible team, you take a victory out of finally having a winning record. When you are stable enough to be expected to have a winning record, you take a victory out of finally getting yourselves into the postseason. Once you are making it into the postseason regularly, you are expected to make it deeper and deeper into that tourney, until you finally only take victories out of winning that elusive championship. Once you finally have that ring, nothing else will do, and your club will often find itself chasing one or two more until it all comes crashing back to earth, and you have a new “floor” all over again. The Broncos, Avs, and Nuggets have all ridden this roller coaster at least once, and are currently in varying stages of riding up or down around the top of that hill.

It all boils down to the context of your current situation, where you are coming from, and how big a next step it will take to feel that next sense of accomplishment. You even see it individually, in places like this current Winter Olympics, where you’ll witness a person being soul-crushed by becoming the second-best someone in the entire world at something and winning a silver medal, juxtaposed against someone exultant over being good enough to simply come and compete, even if they finish in last place. The context of their situation and expectation sets where their emotional floors and ceilings are placed. The silver medalist expected to win it all. The long shot felt a win by simply being in the mix.

And in that context, the Colorado Rockies should feel pretty damned hopeful right now, even in a moment that no one beyond the most die-hard of fans is paying attention. Because boy, have they hit a pretty low floor these past few seasons. As losers of 103, 101, and (gulp) 119 games these past three seasons, the Rockies have hit the reset button more times than a little brother trying take his big bro out playing a video game. Colorado may have not only hit a floor, but a subfloor, and then some dirt below it with the way the 2025 season played out. They decidedly found a basement.

So why hopeful, you may ask? Simply because they have finally turned over the entirety of the front office? Because they seem to be making some small moves that appear to have purpose? Well sure. That and some pending games that really don’t count.

Spring Training kicks off this weekend for the Rockies, being one of a handful of teams who will play a Friday game before all 30 teams kick into the full slate on Saturday. The Rockies will also be one of two clubs getting to help Team USA tune up for the World Baseball Classic with a matchup against them on March 4th. The Rox will then lose a few players to the WBC games, with 11 players from seven countries competing. Colorado will have these moments to sharpen their tools and bring a raft of young (and WBC-worthy) players back with more experience than the daycare-aged club that started off last year a woeful 4-25 before finally stringing together two wins in a row, and 9-50 before another streak of any sort. With experience and direction, they may not have a .500 record 60 games in, but they also shouldn’t be sitting at .167 as they were last year.

Would that be a victory? It would sure seem like one to many faithful fans. If you were to simply replicate the late time the Rox didn’t lose 100 games (68-94 in 2022), they would experience a 25-game improvement from last year, which might feel astounding. That’s how low that basement now feels. A 25-game lift would seem a huge relief, a ceiling that would feel vaulted, even if only to find themselves back on the first floor.

Contextually, Colorado simply needs to get back out of their deepest depths to feel that new level to climb on top of. Then they can take a shot back at an above-.500 record, something the club has only achieved nine times in their 33 seasons, the last in 2018. Once they get back there, their new ceiling can be another playoff appearance, something that they’ve only accomplished five times. Achieve that seemingly impossible floor/ceiling combo, and then you can have them point back at the World Series, an apex they have only reached once, and did not win. A title? Well, let’s not get quite so ahead of ourselves. Baby steps.

First baby steps come this weekend. Hopefully finish the Spring with a winning record, and even more importantly, get set into a lineup that can compete and get back above that 100-loss line. If they can just lay down that new floor, they can finally have some sort of ceiling to climb back up onto. 2026 Rockies Baseball starts now.