DENVER – When a season is filled with silver linings, that usually means that it was mostly comprised of one enormous mushroom cloud of bad baseball.
And that is certainly true of the Colorado Rockies 2019 campaign. Both sides.
There are a ton of positives to take away from this last place team. Plenty of young players emerged as real big leaguers, guys like Jon Gray and Scott Oberg took huge steps toward showing dominance despite the Coors Effects, and Nolan Arenado has finally settled into his role as a leader.
While nobody wants to be playing meaningless games in September, the Rockies have taken this opportunity to get experimental with their lineup, in an attempt to get some live reps for some changes that are likely coming in 2020.
Most notably, Colorado has been clearly looking for other options to lead off which would move Charlie Blackmon into the middle of the order.
This has led to a regular shifting in the top two spots. Raimel Tapia was making an interesting case to start ballgames before an ill-timed thumb injury forced the Rockies to get more creative. We’ve seen some Garrett Hampson atop the lineup, showcasing his insane speed and newfound success with his contact tool.
But perhaps the most intriguing set-up has been one that sees power-hitting shortstop Trevor Story setting the tone.
One could argue that his home-run ability is misplaced in the first spot in the order, as they could with Blackmon, and that his propensity to swing and miss also makes for a less than perfect fit.
He has made tremendous progress on the latter and if he continues to, the speed element he brings might play up a bit more as well.
It can be difficult for some players to adapt to the unique nature of leading off and Story says his approach has been not to make any drastic adjustments.
“Yeah, it’s a little different for sure,” he admits, “But I’ve tried not to change my approach and just do what I’ve always done.”
Allowing his athleticism to reach it’s full potential is a possibility not lost on Story, but he also notes that he has to be smart about how he employs his speed regardless of lineup position.
“I like to run no matter where I am,” he says. “But you don’t want to get thrown out in front of Nolan or Chuck. I’m always looking to take the extra base.”
Though, our conversation with Story had less to do with the specifics of hitting first, and occasionally second, and a lot more about why the Rockies are playing around with some new concepts.
“I like that we’re experimenting a little bit,” he says. “We are trying some new things out to see how to really optimize our offense.”
This search for optimization is made easier by the fact that the club is not competing for a postseason spot. They can worry less about the outcomes of individual games that might be lost as players get used to new jobs. This dynamic is apparent to Story.
“Of course we’d much rather be playing more meaningful games right now,” he says. “But we have to make the best of it and do what we can to help us in the future.”
It remains to be seen if the Rockies will show up to Spring Training next season with a new plan for how to stack the top of the lineup or if these looks at a different setup will ultimate yield very little on the surface.
But they hope having their eyes on the 2020 race already will give them a bit of a head start.
