Rockies news and links for March 5 Roy Halladay Jersey , e RocksPebble ReportRockpileRockies Game ThreadsRockies Fan ExperienceRockpileShould Nolan Arenado bat second?New,120commentsRockies news and links for March 5, 2019MSTShareTweetShareShareShould Nolan Arenado bat second?Colorado Rockies: Here’s why Nolan Arenado batting second is good | Rox PileIn spring training, the Rockies are trying out having Nolan Arenado bat second. While this might seem like a small adjustment, batting order can affect the season, sometimes impacting one to four wins. Charlie Blackmon led off much of last year, and that seemed to have an impact on getting the Rockies to the playoffs. Arenado is arguably the best hitter the Rockies have, so he could really succeed hitting second. Arenado’s willing to do whatever his team needs, so he’s on board with trying it out. He could end up getting about 15 more at bats, so if he can get the job done, all the better. Colorado Rockies: Ryan McMahon’s hot streak making a statement | Rox PileRyan McMahon started at third base in Monday’s spring training game, and he hit 2-3 and impressed many. In the last five games, he’s gone 7-11, showing that he could be a huge offensive contributor for the Rockies. He also had a couple good defensive plays, and Bud Black is glad that McMahon is so fundamentally sound. Desmond preparing for center field duties in ‘19 | Rockies.comIan Desmond has been working on preparing for his new center field role, and it shows. He’s been working on his legs, which are extremely important for center fielders, who need to jump to get to the ball and hustle like crazy. After trying Desmond out at first base, the Rockies feel confident with putting him in the outfield, where he had success as a Ranger. He’s tried to learn from Charlie Blackmon how to play this position at Coors Field, and the team has a lot of faith in him and in what he can do.The Rockies tied 4-4 with the Rangers, with German Marquez putting up some good pitching. Ryan McMahon continues to impress, and Colton Welker is also starting to draw some attention, showing off that he can hit when he needs to. What an amazing turnout!"WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Diamondbacks Farm TeamsGameday ThreadsDiamondbacks NewsDiamondbacks Game ReportsFang FoodResults from the “Challenge the Narrative” GameNew,49commentsWhat an amazing turnout!EDTShareTweetShareShareResults from the “Challenge the Narrative” GameJake Roth-USA TODAY SportsI have to start this article with this; Wow, what an amazing turnout. The discussion in the comments was fantastic http://www.bluejaysfanproshop.com/authentic-curtis-granderson-jersey , spoilers were mostly avoidly, and there were upwards of 200 participants in the voting as you’ll see below. Thank you! I will be sure to do more games like this in the future. Anywho, back to the discussion at hand. Last week, I described a few “anonymous” players with some very sective stats and situations and asked you all a question about each player(s).The theme of the article was to present the audience with data that would possibly “challenge” what each person might think of said player in general.There was no intent in actually changing anyone’s minds on any of the players that were chosen; it was purely to get each person to do a little critical thinking and challenge how each opinion was created. Ottavino, who just signed a 3 year, $27 million deal with the New York Yankees this past offseason. Andrew Chafin is a good reliever and is often underrated by fans. He gets strikeouts at a very good clip and he is fantastic at surpressing home runs. In fact, he gave up zero homers last season in 49.1 IP. I’ve written about Chafin before. The Diamondbacks seem to be using him as a one-batter lefty specialist when that really isn’t his strength. And while some people might prefer Ottavino for a variety of reasons, here is something that really stands out: In the last 2 years, Andrew Chafin has inherited the 4th-most runners in baseball, with 87. Ottavino has inherited just 43. This means Ottavino is entering games with a clean slate far more often than Chafin. Chafin and Ottavino have nearly identical percentages of runners that were allowed to score (29% for Chafin, 28% for Ottavino). Considering that Chafin has performed at a similar level to Ottavino except with double the volume (at least with runners on base). In this situation, I would rate Chafin better than Ottavino. Therein lies the problem with Chafin: we’re back to the problem where negative memories far outweigh the positive ones. When you’re being thrown into so many situations where you have a lot of baserunners on, you’re occasionally going to fail. And these are the memories that so many fans seem to keep in their mind regarding Chafin, all-the-while disregarding everything good Chafin has done. Chafin is a good reliever and needs to be used more (okay I lied, I am trying to change your mind with one example). This next one is my favorite. This is another Goldy example. With all of the sadness regarding the Goldy trade, which is 110% deserved and okay, by the way, I had to challenge the narrative here. Not to get people to change their thoughts on Goldy, but rather bring some optimism to the trade itself. Except in this case, Player M isn’t Paul Goldschmidt. Player M is Albert Pujols in his age 31 through age 36 seasons (2011 through 2016). Why is this relevant? These mirror the same ages that the Cardinals currently have Goldy under control with the extension (age 31 on his current deal at $14.5 million and ages 32 - 36 at $26 million per year). The results from this yielded a nice bell curve. But what’s intriguing here is that you gave Pujols a mean annual salary of around $17.5 million per year. That’s far short of what Goldy is currently getting from the Cardinals in his extension. The point of this is not to make a one-player comp and declare the extension a bad one for the Cardinals. The point here is that players age and as they age, their performance declines over time. Even the best players. There is a long track record of players declining as they enter their 30s. MLB 1B tend to have this the worst, as they tend to be bigger (which leads to bigger physical declines) and they are the worst defenders on the field, giving them less buffer to stay in the league. We’ve seen examples of hitters staying good well into their 30s, but this often comes at a cost of speed, defense, and overall value. Albert Pujols was the Paul Goldschmidt of the Cardinals before they ironically acquired Goldy. He was the face of the franchise. And no offense to Paul Goldschmidt Roberto Osuna Jersey , but Pujols was an even bigger deal than Goldy (at least to everyone outside of AZ). This does NOT mean Goldy should be treated less than he receives here in AZ (Goldy is insanely underrated), but that the feelings that Cardinals fans had when Pujols left has got to be extremely similar to what Dbacks fans are feeling today. Let’s compare Pujols and Goldy before their age 31 seasons:Pujols: .332/.428/.626, 371 HR, 1100 RBI, 170 wRC+, 77.2 fWARGoldy: .297/.398/.532, 209 HR, 710 RBI, 144 wRC, 35.2 fWARLook, Goldy is a fantastic player but Albert Pujols was an absolute legend before the age of 30. Yet, the decline hit him hard and fast. If a player of Pujols’s caliber can turn into a player that deserves less than $20 million a year by his early 30s, what does they say for Goldy? As fans of Goldy, it is acceptable to maintain optimism that Goldy will beat the odds and continue to be a great player in his 30s. But the reality is that the extension that Goldy signed will overvalue Goldy for his age 32 to age 36 years. It’s not the albatross that Pujols’s 10 year, $240 million contract was, but big(ish) contracts to players in their 30s tend to not go well. Just look at us trying to deal with Greinke’s salary right now... and that’s with him performing really well the past two years. The lesson here: it really really sucks losing Goldy right now. You can’t put a price on a fan favorite. But in a few years, we will recover. We got some pieces that all look really promising. We might have avoided a bad extension. Or maybe Goldy proves us wrong. Only time will tell. And now for the last comparison. At first glance, it may seem like these players are total opposites. One is on the all-star/superstar fringe and the other seems to be an average to below-average regular per the consensus votes. And that makes sense regarding the state lines that I presented. I also gave a fun hint during one of the Gameday threads (the day game that Robbie Ray pitched): both of these players were playing in that game. For a few minutes, there were some guesses and some digging to figure it out but no one did. Because it was a trick. Player N and Player O are the same player. They are both David Peralta. Specifically, they are both David Peralta from 2018.Wait, what? This was simple a manipulation in splits. The Player O version of David Peralta were his home splits from last season - a 161 wRC+. In 81 games, David Peralta was a borderline superstar. However, the Player N version of David Peralta were his away splits from last season - a 100 wRC+. Which, according to you, is on the line of being an average regular or below-average regular. Now, we now know how the season turned out for Peralta - he was one of our best players last year. And he’s been really good for years. Peralta is also a decent fielder and extremely likeable and passionate http://www.bluejaysfanproshop.com/authentic-curtis-granderson-jersey , everything you’d want from a fan favorite. Now, these splits don’t really mean much for David Peralta. He’s still a very good overall player and splits like these tend to even out over the course of several seasons, though a slight home advantage would still be expected. The lesson here is that very good players - especially one that we like - can still play like very average players for a lengthy portion of the season. In Peralta’s case, it was literally a half season. Also last season, Goldy had an OPS below .700 through the end of May. These things happen. Luckily, David Peralta has done enough to earn our respect and love. But not every player will have done that prior to having such a polarizing season (though, in Peralta’s case, it might have been harder to see). We should try harder to find the good through the bad. If we do that, we’ll find more players that we love. Also, if David Peralta gets an off day on the road... maybe it’s for the best. I know we, as fans, tend to overreact to each lineup that’s posted, but we have to get through 162 games. Players need days off. For Peralta, maybe it’s best if he gets his days off on the road?This was a lot of fun. I enjoyed seeing our players in a different light. But if you caught on, I was also manipulating you. Fangdango caught onto it last week. But all of these examples are purposefully cherry-picked and narrowed down to make a point. When you’re doing a game like this, it’s okay to do something like this. It’s fun to have some counterpoints to make you re-evaulate some thoughts. But context is extremely important, especially when you’re dealing with narrow splits of individual players. I stripped the context away from all of these players and I was able to get you to vote exactly like I wanted to in every single poll to prove the point I wanted to prove. None of the players above would ever be purely judged on the simple stat lines that I provided. As I mentioned, I wasn’t trying to change your opinion on any of players - when you add the actual context to the examples above, the opinions that you have are pretty justified. This exercise was purely for fun and to give us some new ways to think about situations, nothing more. So, to sum it all up, there are two lessons here. If you can, try to find ways to be more open-minded about players and try not to dwell on just the bad moments. But also, be wary of context. Splits are fun but they don’t mean a lot without context or without an extremely large sample size. There is often a lot of strife between the “stats” people and the “fans” people but there is no reason we can’t co-exist. By working to collectively keep open minds and be more informed with what we analyze, we can all be better fans.