It’s early, oh-so-early in the 2017 Major League Baseball. They’ve only completed one and a half months, there are four and a half left to play. But what nobody can take away from the Rockies is 24. 24 wins that is. That mark is the second most in MLB.
Those 24 wins are banked. Only one team has deposited more wins than Colorado.
That’s huge.
How huge?
62-61.
If the Rockies were to play one game above .500 (62-61) from this point forward they would reach my original win prediction of 86. This estimate of 86 I believe is just good enough for a second wildcard spot (last year 87 wins is what San Francisco and New York needed for the wildcard.)
Currently, the Rockies are on pace for 100 wins, that’s right.
Nobody is saying this will continue, but the crazy part is, it most definitely can.
No longer are certain Rockies circles the only ones buying in.
Baseball Prospectus marks the Rockies odds at the postseason at 56 percent while Fangraphs says 51 percent and FiveThirtyEight tabs them at 49 percent. No matter the nitty gritty numbers of projection systems, all three of those have Colorado going to the National League Wildcard.
The Rockies sit on May, 16 nine games above .500 with their ace sidelined (Jon Gray), their star offseason acquisition having played just two weeks (Ian Desmond), exciting youngster and starting left fielder yet to have played a game (David Dahl), power hitting platoon catcher in the same situation (Tom Murphy) and consistent backend starter fighting cancer (Chad Bettis).
Now every team has injuries, it takes just a quick mosey through the NL West to see that. And as bad as the Rockies injury situation has been, the Giants and Dodgers are seeing situations just as bad if not worse. But it shouldn’t detour the Rockies, the Giants have already played themselves out of contention this season and The Dodgers may be too good for the Rockies to catch.
That may seem like a crazy statement considering the Rockies are one up on the Dodgers in their season series and the clubs just split a four-game set. Yet, it wasn’t Colorado’s ability to keep up with L.A. that impressed, it was the Dodgers new wave of talent led by Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger and Julio Urias that should threaten Denver for years to come which showed off in the series.
This shouldn’t be too concerning as the Rockies best crop of prospects is ahead of them featuring Ryan McMahon, Brendan Rodgers, Jeff Hoffman and many others to bolster what is already a young and skilled roster. The Rockies-Dodgers match-ups will be great for years to come, but for now, the Dodgers clearly have the upper hand.
Even with that being said it’s extremely likely that the Rockies can nab the wildcard at this point. They’ve played so well through six weeks that they could theoretically coast into the playoffs. Looking how it lies now, if the Rockies continue to play at this level, one we’ve never seen before in franchise history, they’ll be knocking shoulders with Washington and L.A. for the NL pennant.
