Man, the NL West is full of some young teams. Yesterday we looked at the Arizona Diamondbacks and determined their best season, and today we're looking at the Colorado Rockies. Both teams have played less than 30 seasons.
But, like the Dbacks, the Rockies have seen some success in their short time. While they've never won a division title, they have made five playoff appearances and won a National League pennant in 2007. That makes it pretty easy to decide which season is the best in franchise history. The 2007 team won 90 games, and while they have won more in other seasons, it's not by much. The Rockies won 91 games in 2018 and 92 in 2009. But if you factor in the fact that 2007 was just their second postseason appearance ever and they managed to win a pennant, that has to take the cake as the better season. Let's take a look at some of the stats, too. The 2007 Rockies batted .280/.354/.437. They hit 171 home runs throughout the course of the season. For comparison, the 2009 Rockies batted .261/.343/.441 with 190 home runs. While the 2009 team did put up a better slugging percentage and more home runs, the 2007 squad has the better on-base plus slugging at .791. Each team only had two All-Star representatives, and none of them started in their respective games. When it comes to awards voting, here's another spot where the 2007 team comes out on top. The Rockies had players finish in the top 10 of both NL MVP and NL Cy Young voting in 2007. Matt Holliday placed second for the MVP while Jeff Francis came in ninth in Cy Young voting. The 2009 team had just one player finish in the top 10 for either award - Troy Tulowitzki placed fifth in MVP voting. Matt Holliday's 2007 season was actually insane, and I'd be willing to bet the only reason he didn't win the MVP award is because of the Coors Field effect. He finished the season hitting .340/.405/.607 with 36 home runs and 137 RBIs. Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins won the award with a slash line of .296/.344/.531 with 30 home runs and 94 RBIs. There's no reason Holliday shouldn't have won that award. But it is what it is, and the Rockies still had a great season in 2007. They've matched that win total twice since but neither time has resulted in as much postseason success as when they went on to their first World Series in franchise history. Of course, they lost in four games to the Red Sox, but overall, it was still a great season.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMatthew Atkins, Journalist and Baseball fan. Archives
March 2023
Categories
All
|