Reason for optimism: At age 24, Nolan Arenado emerged as the next great Rockies position player.
Reason for pessimism: When Tyler Chatwood is being counted upon to improve a pitching rotation, you've got problems.
Years ago, the Rockies' use of a humidor to store baseballs went a long way toward reducing the video game-like home run totals common at Coors Field, but the scoring environment continues to skew an entire league's statistics. That's because the huge playing surface in Denver, by far the largest in the majors, still rewards contact hitting and, conversely, is a hellscape for pitch-to-contact pitchers. It also means that fielders with range and the ability to convert batted balls into outs should be prized in Colorado above all other venues.
Yet Colorado's human resources department, for reasons unknown, seems to covet soft-tossers with questionable control and poor fielders.
The Rockies, more than any other team, play two distinct seasons -- 81 games at home and 81 games on the road that have a limited amount of comparative value. When looked at as split seasons, though, their weaknesses are easily identified. For instance, in away games only, Colorado's pitching staff ranked 24th in strikeout rate, while rankings last in walk rate. On offense, the Rockies were 29th in runs scored, just one run ahead of the Braves! And the Braves didn't have half a season of Troy Tulowitzki, let alone Nolan Arenado, on their team in 2015.
That's what makes the Rockies so hard to evaluate and project. On the surface, they are worse than last year, especially with the playing status of the aging Jose Reyes up in the air due to a domestic violence incident. The only new face in the rotation isn't a new face at all; it's Chatwood, who missed all of last year with elbow surgery. His career strikeout and walk rates of 13.4 and 10.2 percent, respectively, make him ill-suited for his work environment at Coors.
Once upon a time, the Rockies mitigated poorly-constructed rotations with excellent bullpen work, but no longer. Over the last 10 seasons (2006-15), during which the average major league bullpen has lowered its ERA by half a run, the Rockies of recent years have managed to assemble their worst bullpens. Last year's 4.70 ERA was only a bit better than the 2014 unit's 4.79 ERA, which stands as the franchise's worst in that 10-year period.
If your pitchers are going to have the lowest strikeout rate (17.6 percent) in the National League, it would help if the defense supporting them in the vast reaches of Coors Field was exceptional. Unfortunately, the news here is also difficult for Rockies fans to hear. Again, park effects have a lot to do with the team's 29th-ranked adjusted defensive efficiency, but even in road games, balls hit into the field of play turned into hits at an above-league-average rate.
I have a great deal of difficulty park-neutralizing all of the data that results from a season in Colorado, let alone converting projections into a reliable runs scored/runs allowed view for the upcoming season. Somehow, last season, it all essentially washed out and I viewed the Rockies as a 67-win team sporting a 68-94 record.
Normal regression would suggest some pitching improvement, especially from the bullpen, but regression is often the result of management shedding inferior talent for something that resembles league-average players. That doesn't look like it's occurred in Colorado. Still, the team has a dark horse MVP candidate in Arenado as well as two men who used to wear that mantle in Reyes and Carlos Gonzalez.
With an over/under market of 71.5 games and a lineup with some established stars, it looks like there is more upside than downside to taking the "over." But then you realize the Rockies haven't won more than 74 games in any of the last five seasons despite the presence of some legitimate superstars, and you wonder how this pitching staff can even produce a 70-win team.
My numbers call for a 74-win team, because it's always going to favor significant improvement from the prior year's worst bullpen and next-to-worse defense in baseball, but Coors Field means I have to put lower confidence bands around that projection. As a result, this is a pass for me.
2016 projection: 74-88 (fourth, NL West)
Bet recommendation: Pass