May 30, 2025 | @TyPaddor

Fans of Colorado and certainly those around the league are wondering how the Rockies could possibly manage to be pacing for the absolute worst record in MLB history. It was clear they were destined for a 5th place NL West finish but at 9-47, they are in uncharted territory with the worst 56 game start in the history of the league.

On Wednesday night, following a Wrigley Field sweep, the Rockies also set the MLB record for most consecutive series lost, dropping 21 consecutive dating back to last season.

The reality is, it’s clear how and why the Rockies are the worst team in baseball, you can look at the replies to the official Rockies Twitter to figure that one out (yes, it starts with ownership). However, for any team with any composition of players to have a start this bad goes far beyond an insular baseball operations philosophy.

This is an absolute perfect storm for losing with the wishbone breaking the wrong way every step of the way.

Recently, I figured I’d dive into more advanced stats and find out what has changed so drastically since last year to warrant going from a 101 loss team to one pacing for around 130 losses. The problem is, advanced statistics tell largely the same story between 2023, 2024, and 2025; a very bad team but not the worst team in MLB history if 2023 and 2024’s results mean anything.

What that tells me is the Rockies are losing more in the margins this year than ever — we always hear baseball is a game of inches and the accumulation of a few tiny misreads or missed opportunities can be decisive. That falls on pre and in-game strategy which exists on a micro level game-to-game but more importantly on a macro level of cultivating a roster and coaching staff that can scout their way into more fruitful opportunities.

The Offense

Again, I figured the Rockies would be swinging at more pitches out of the zone, making less contact, and hitting the ball more softly than the last two seasons. That’s just not true. They have generally improved their swing decisions and are hitting the ball significantly harder this year, with similar expected results, indicated by xwOBA.

The Rockies Approach (2023-2025)

Year	BB/K	Chase%	Whiff%	Avg Exit Velo	xwOBA	wRC+
2023	0.29	35.2	29.2	88.0	.304	80
2024	0.28	35.4	29.8	88.6	.298	82
2025	0.28	33.8	29.7	89.1	.300	64

Obviously these stats don’t directly translate into plate appearance results but historically they’re extremely descriptive of performance and more predictive of future success than what a player or team’s current rate stats are.

However, it is stunning that the Rockies have performed practically the exact same by all of these key offensive metrics but are getting over 16% worse results (wRC+ measures and scales as a percentage).

Further, the Rockies are hitting more fly balls and fewer ground balls in 2025 than in either 2023 or 2024. They are pulling the ball more and their hard hit percentage is also higher than in either of the previous two seasons. In the modern era, pulled flyball percentage is becoming a relied upon metric as pulled flyballs generally result in more power production — though to each hitter their own. For the Rockies, pulling the ball in the air is the team’s holy grail to maximize Coors Field.

Rockies Batted Ball Data (2023-2025)

Year	FB%	GB%	Pull%	Hard Hit%
2023	36.3%	42.3%	40.8%	36.3%
2024	36.9%	43.2%	38.9%	39.2%
2025	38.9%	40.5%	43.6%	39.7%

These are all strong indicators that the Rockies should be performing better than they are but they’re so embarrassingly and stagnantly failing to do so.

Ultimately, we can look to their xwOBA (.300) versus actual wOBA and see (.283) their process has been slightly better than their results. Additionally, their .283 BABIP would be the franchise’s lowest mark by an entire 16 points (.299 in 2021).

This isn’t to say the Rockies actually look decent under the hood but for a struggling team with seemingly subpar preparation methods among other issues, having some misfortune on the field is the last thing you can afford.

Some positive regression is likely and it’s fair to assume the Rockies wRC+ will climb into the 70s season-long but seeing such poor results despite an eerily similar — and in most ways better — approach at the plate as in recent years gives rise to plenty of theories as to how this team projects to be 20-30 games worse.

On the Basepaths

One area the team has absolutely struggled is on the basepaths. The team has the 6th fewest steals in the league at 27 and simultaneously the 12th most caught stealings at 13. That gives rise to a 67.5 SB%, the 2nd worst mark in baseball, only above the Houston Astros.

The only problem with that is Houston’s lineup is led by slower sluggers like Yordan Alvarez, Christian Walker, and Isaac Paredes, while 35-year-old Jose Altuve’s 40th percentile sprint speed makes him an anti-stolen base type of player at this point in his career.

The team’s identity couldn’t be further from a crafty baserunning team. Meanwhile the Rockies roster is loaded with speed; Brenton Doyle, Jordan Beck, Mickey Moniak, Tyler Freeman, Hunter Goodman, and Ezequiel Tovar are all comfortably above average runners. Doyle, Beck, and Moniak shade in the plus to elite speed territory. Still, the team isn’t stealing bases effectively, another area that lies in the margins of games and one that can be dictated by extreme attention to detail in preparing for opposing pitchers.

Also, you do need to get on base to steal a base.

The Pitching

The Rockies have somewhat defied the “but the pitching!” narrative. They’ll never have a great staff because of the difficulties of bringing in external big league talent, developing prospects to pitch at altitude, and the added stress on arms that Coors Field brings over the course of a season. Still, if I was to tell you in March that through May the Rockies would be on pace for the worst record in MLB history, you would have thought the pitching was an absolute nightmare.

Stacked up with the league, they have not been the worst from a holistic standpoint.

Rockies Pitching Ranks (2025)

	ERA-	bWAR	fWAR
2025 Rockies	122	-0.1	2.4
Lg Rank	26th	29th	25th

You can look to the bWAR column and say they might as well be the worst but bWAR has flaws when measuring Rockies pitching because of the stat’s heavy emphasis on pure runs allowed with less flexibility granted for Coors Field and the defense behind pitchers (spoiler alert, wait ’til we get to the defense section). Even then, they’re still 2.8 bWAR above the Orioles.

fWAR’s measuring is — to my earlier point — more holistic and considerate of Coors Field and defense, giving the Rockies some leeway with 5 teams ranked below them.

To again reinforce the shock factor here, the Rockies have somewhere between the 25th and 29th best pitching staff in baseball but are simultaneously pacing for a record number of losses — they’ve won far more games in the past with much less on the pitching side.

Back to the overall theme, stacked up with 2023 and 2024 Rockies pitching, this staff has met the (low) standard of a 100 loss team not the subterranean bar for a 130+ loss team.

Rockies Pitching Metrics (2023-2025)

Year	K%	BB%	ERA	SIERA	GB%
2023	17.9%	9.3%	5.68	4.90	41.4%
2024	17.7%	8.9%	5.48	4.62	43.4%
2025	16.7%	9.0%	5.61	4.47	45.9%

This club has seen some strikeout decline due to the exaggerated strikeout incapability of Antonio Senzatela (11.2%) and a somewhat unexpected 13.1% strikeout rate for German Marquez (career 22.3% rate). However, this team has done a better job keeping the ball on the ground which can lead to better results.

Perhaps more stunning is that metrics rating the pure stuff and pitch location of this staff view this team far more favorably than their past counterparts.

Rockies Pitch Modeling (2023-2025)

100 is average for the following stats

Year	Stuff+	Location+	Pitching+
2023	90	98	89
2024	92	98	92
2025	96	98	94

The Rockies have found ways to improve the overall quality of their staff as pitch modeling stats evaluating them relative to the league with a notable 6% increase versus the league when it comes to pure stuff and 5% when it comes to overall pitching (stuff and location focused).

Yet despite these substantial gains, the Rockies have not seen correlatively better results with their pure descriptive stats (ERA, K%, etc) coming in around the same as years’ past. Once again, we find ourselves thinking the same thing — how is this team projected to lose the most games in history despite improved pure pitching talent on the roster from seasons’ past? I think that question can be answered with two points: utilization and strategization.

While the Rockies have developed better pitchers, they are still operating with an antiquated philosophy of pitching to contact as seen with certain pitcher locations and pitch breakdowns. They attack hitters to get weak contact rather than get punchouts. This is somewhat understandable considering Coors Field weakens the quality of stuff but pitching to contact at Coors Field is a recipe for cheap hits, long innings, and an overall negative impact on the staff.

Still, it’s mystifying trying to understand how this team may lose 130 games.

The Defense

Finally, defense provides the last measurable component of this club and shines plenty of light on how this team has gotten played so poorly. I’ll save words here and let the numbers speak for themselves.

Rockies Defense Ranks (2025)

	DRS	OAA	dWAR
2025 Rockies	-36	-6	-9.8
Lg Rank	30th	21st	24th

30th in DRS is truly something. But hey at least OAA and dWAR paint an acceptable overall picture, right?

It gets much worse when considering the usual standard this team plays to on the defensive side. One caveat is that these statistics are cumulative and thus full conclusions can’t be drawn until the end of the season but it’s unlikely the Rockies drastically change course on this side of the ball.

Year	DRS (Lg Rank)	OAA (Lg Rank)
2023	20 (14th)	-1 (16th)
2024	20 (14th)	9 (10th)
2025	-36 (30th)	-6 (21st)

Generally, the Rockies have played respectably on the defensive side in year’s past and that has been the team identity. It’s also important to call into question that defensive metrics certainly do not encapsulate the difficulties of playing at Coors Field entirely.

However, that cannot explain away -36 DRS. This team has started extremely poor on the defensive side and course correction has not begun, if it ever will.

Defense thus explains some of the Rockies 2025 struggles but defense does not impact the game like pitching and hitting. Not to mention, OAA thinks the Rockies are just fine on the defensive side. They didn’t get 20-30 games worse just by playing bad defense.

Diagnosis

We covered every statistical aspect of this team in breadth, though certainly there are still stones to be unturned. This was not intended to be an attempt to explore the oceans of depth that go into baseball teams. However, refining scope really only helps to explain more individualized and specific issues.

To recap, the offense — though producing historically bad results — has actually shown signs of improvement from last year and in theory should at least be close to as good as previous seasons. The pitching has produced very similar results to previous seasons despite being measurably better in terms of pure pitching ability.

There have been serious weaknesses on the basepaths and on defense, areas that greatly impede success and would keep this team’s win totals suppressed regardless of the quality of everything else.

However, again this is a team that seemingly already scraped rock bottom the last two seasons, dropping over 100 games in both 2023 and 2024. Yet, somehow the 2025 Rockies are on pace to lose 136 games (.161 win percentage times 162 games). That would be 35 games worse than last season and is frankly an inexplainable result without pointing fingers to the strategic aspects of this organization. Afterall, this is practically the same roster as last season with limited change even from 2023.

To try and make this point more concrete, I would go on a limb and say this current Rockies roster with the strategization of a front office like the Rays or Dodgers would not lose 100 games, let alone 136.

Serious change needs to take place to get players more prepared strategically from the time they join the organization until the time they leave it and that process must start from the top down.