Ongoing Attempts, May 16, 2024: Do the Rockies have a representative on this list?
A thought exercise with the NBA playoffs going, the best of the NL and the AL, a big debut, and more.
Nikola Jokic delivered a masterpiece in the Denver Nuggets’ win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night. The Joker had 40 points, 13 assists, seven rebounds, and zero turnovers. He did that in game 5 of a playoff series that was tied 2-2.
I think it was one of the best individual performances I have ever seen from a professional athlete on the Colorado teams that I cheer for. It certainly goes on the list of outstanding playoff performances from Jokic, headlined by the Nuggets winning the championship last year.
It got me thinking about the list of truly great players I have gotten to watch in my lifetime. First of all, I’m pretty lucky. There are multiple championship runs to consider as the list comes together. So, I tried to be selective and keep the list short.
There’s Jokic. There’s John Elway and Terrell Davis. There’s Patrick Roy. Von Miller probably chins his way up onto the list. There are probably two or three others. And then there’s a question: who goes on this list from the Rockies?
In this week’s Ongoing Attempts:
- Thinking about those truly elite guys for the Rockies
- The Phillies and Orioles both look formidable
- There was a much-hyped debut this week
- Checking in with the incompetence of the modern-day Rockies
That plus more from the past week in baseball. On we go.
A (short) exercise in looking back on great Rockies performances
To be clear, the history of the Rockies offers its fair share of great individual performances. What it lacks, however, is any meaningful list of candidates to join a list like the one I was going through at the top - the players who rose to the top in the biggest moments.
The franchise’s limited success in the postseason makes it a short list. They have two Hall of Famers now in Larry Walker and Todd Helton. But for the purposes of this question, Helton was the only one who came to mind for me as a candidate for the list. And he came to mind because of one season.
Even though they didn’t win it all, the Rockies’ most memorable season was the 2007 Rocktober run that ended with a National League pennant. It started with one of the most memorable moments in Rockies history.
Helton hits a two-run walk-off homer
It wasn’t just that home run for Helton and that historic winning streak. The Toddfather posted a .385/.485/.633 slash line in September and October of that season. He delivered five home runs, drove in 22 runs, and put up 12 doubles over that stretch. That’s all-time great stuff.
The playoffs weren’t so great, however, with Helton batting just .220 with just three extra base hits. Combine that with the Rockies falling short in the World Series, and it’s harder to place Helton’s run among those all-time great performances.
There’s also the nature of baseball to consider. A baseball player gets four or five at-bats a game and whatever balls come to him in the field. Jokic touches the ball every possession. Star NFL players play roughly half the snaps in the game. There’s only so much one baseball player can do. Just ask Mike Trout.
Is Rocktober memorable enough to put Helton on that list of Colorado all-timers? Maybe yes, if you want to give a little boost because he’s in the Hall of Fame and was outstanding as an individual. Maybe no, because the Rockies fell short. Maybe no, because baseball is just different.
For what it’s worth, Helton was similarly great down the stretch when the Rockies reached the playoffs in 2009: a .323/.430/.427 line in September and October to cap off a season in which he received MVP notes. Those playoffs didn’t go well either, however, and that was it for Todd and the playoffs.
This is probably a different exercise altogether for MLB franchises that have actually enjoyed success over the years. Those fans might even need to leave guys off the list who performed well and won championships. As for the Rockies, it raises an interesting question to consider with a beloved franchise figure.
Maybe someday there will be more successful teams and more Rockies to consider. Not anytime soon - we’ll get to that shortly. But maybe someday.
Quote of the week
The Philadelphia Phillies can really pitch. Aaron Nola was especially masterful in his start against the New York Mets on Tuesday, throwing a complete game shutout while striking out nine and walking zero. Here’s how his catcher, Garrett Stubbs, described the performance (via MLB.com):
"Once we were rolling, it did feel at one point into the sixth, we may go for a no-hitter because of the way his stuff was going. Obviously, it’s really hard to get. It was really incredible and felt like a video game.
… I’m not a big video game player. I have to imagine that’s what it feels like. I felt like anywhere we called a pitch, it was going in that direction with some velocity, with the shapes that you are looking for. When you have that with a guy like Aaron Nola, you get the results that we got today."
I really enjoy Stubbs using the video game comparison and then immediately coming clean that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We could use more of that kind of honesty.
The Phillies have run out to an absurd 31-13 record as of this writing. A big part of that is their pitching. They rank near the top of the league with a 3.19 team ERA (126 ERA+). At least so far, the pitching is just as stellar as everyone expected it would be entering the season.
The Paul Skenes hype is real
When I checked in on MLB.com this past Saturday, the top four stories were about Paul Skenes. I forgot to get a screenshot for proof, so you’ll have to take my word for it, but that’s a different level of hype.
Sure, you’ll see a top story here and there when a much-ballyhooed prospect makes his MLB debut. This was the entire front page. People were comparing his debut to Stephen Strasburg’s historic MLB debut back in 2010. There was some serious excitement.
All of this was for a starting pitcher on the Pittsburgh Pirates in the year 2024.
It says a lot about the high opinion scouts and talent evaluators have about Skenes. Ultimately, I find it refreshing. It’s something different. People are going out of their way to watch Pirates games, for goodness’ sake. Perhaps most importantly of all, the hype means more people will appreciate a fine mustache on display.
Come for the mustache, stay for the 102 MPH fastball.
Paul Skenes fans 7 in his MLB debut! (100+ mph HEAT!) 🔥
⚾ Three questions ⚾
Are the Baltimore Orioles the best team in baseball?
It’s amazing how some baseball stories come together. The Orioles have not been swept since May 2022. That month, Adley Rutschman made his MLB debut. They extended that sweepless streak yesterday with a 3-2 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
How did they do it? With a Rutschman walk-off home run.
You wouldn’t necessarily associate that kind of consistency with a team this young. We have seen growing pains in other instances, namely their collapse in the playoffs last year. But the Orioles appear to wise beyond their years in terms of their resilience, their ability to bounce back, and their success in close games.
For many of them, they do not look wise beyond their years physically, despite their best efforts to hide their youth behind mustaches and beards. Many of them just look like children wearing disguises.
When will Clay Holmes give up a run?
The Yankees’ closer is 18 games into his 2024 campaign. He has 21 strikeouts and zero runs allowed in 18.1 innings. It’s still a small sample in the grand scheme of things, but it’s also pretty remarkable to be in the middle of May and have a 1.2 WAR pitcher still pitching a shutout for the season.
How is this headline real?
“Cubs draw six bases-loaded walks in one inning and lose.” I thought it was a prank.
“Cubs draw six bases-loaded walks” would be a story by itself. Then you add not one, but two qualifiers to make it even more rare and strange. It’s like someone was playing Mad Libs with baseball fun facts.
Checking in with the Rockies
When it comes to predicting which teams will be good and which teams will be bad, we’re wrong all the time. That’s part of the fun. Even as projection systems grow more sophisticated, the joy of watching baseball is witnessing the things you didn’t expect to happen.
That said, the extreme ends of the projections for any given system tend to hold relatively true. In 2024, that means that the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves are predictably great. It means that the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox are predictably terrible.
A couple teams are bucking their extreme negative projections, however: the Washington Nationals are in third place in the NL East with a 20-22 record. The Oakland A’s are also in third place in the AL West, with a less impressive 19-26 record. But they’re not at the very bottom as expected.
Before the season started, FanGraphs writer Ben Clemons featured the Nationals and the Rockies in a piece entitled: “Why are this year’s worst teams so bad?” Here’s what I’m pondering: what’s the difference between the Rockies and these other teams? What gives?
I don’t have the answer or the gumption to dig in too much, but I’m curious how this will continue to play out with the Rockies and the other teams that were projected to be truly terrible.
And hey, with a truly shocking sweep of the Padres under their belt, the Rockies raised their record to 15-28. They have won seven straight games! Maybe they are on their way to joining those other teams in the “surprisingly mediocre” category for the 2024 season.
- Lots of stories this week have been digging into Statcast’s bat tracking data, which is built on measuring swing speed. Mike Petriello wrote about Brewers’ catcher William Contreras as a standout with this new metric.
- Jung Hoo Lee was a fun story to start the season for the San Francisco Giants. Unfortunately, he is headed to the IL with a shoulder injury after crashing into the wall.
- Astros’ pitcher Ronel Blanco was suspended for 10 games for having sticky stuff in his glove, giving everyone the chance to dust off their clever sticky stuff headlines.
- If not the Orioles, the aforementioned Phillies might be the best team in baseball. Then again, they might not even be the best team in their division, with the Atlanta Braves still sitting just three games back in the standings.
- It’s probably too early to panic, but the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays are probably both feeling some urgency as they toil around the .500 mark and prepare to face off this weekend.
- In case anyone needed a reminder about how scary this Dodgers team looks, take a peek at the NL batting leaders and note how many times you see Mookie Betts’ and Shohei Ohtani’s names.
That’s it for this week’s Ongoing Attempts. Let’s go out with a video of Shohei Ohtani destroying a baseball.
SUPER SHOHEI! Ohtani crushes one out! | 大谷翔平
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