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2007 Colorado Rockies Predictions

Check out our 2008 Colorado Rockies Predictions!

The Rockies improved nine wins from 2005 to 2006 knotting them with San Francisco and Arizona with 76 wins last season. The Rockies still have a little ways to go to avoid having their seventh consecutive losing season. It’s taking longer than Rockies fans would like as Colorado maintains its build-from-within approach to get their ship headed in the right direction. I find this a very noble move in today’s high dollar bidding baseball, but obviously not the best recipe for success in the short term. I wonder how many more losing seasons Colorado can endure before it takes the Marlins approach of buying your success to get everyone off your back then holding a fire sale if you want. All I have to say is that if the winning doesn’t start soon in Colorado GM Dan O’Dowd and Manager Clint Hurdle could be out of their jobs.

With Jason Jennings gone, Aaron Cook and Jeff Francis become even more vital to Colorado’s success. Francis has won 27 games in his first two major league seasons and I think he evolves into the ace of this staff this year. This will just be Cook’s second full season in the majors. Last year’s 9-15 mark is not going to be acceptable out of Colorado’s number one man. I think Cook improves, but I don’t really see him emerging as a 20-win guy in any ball park on any team. Rodrigo Lopez, who comes over from Baltimore, is a guy I look to to have a solid season. He has been the Orioles opening day pitcher three of the last four seasons and has recorded 14 wins or more in three major league seasons since 2002. Getting away from the big bats in the AL East should help this guy out. Hirsch, who comes over from Houston in the deal for Jennings, and Byung-hyun Kim rounds out the Rockies starting five. There’s some potential here, but its hard to pitch at Coors where long balls get hit often.

Offensively, Garret Atkins and Matt Holliday will put up big power numbers once again in the three and four spots. Helton will hit behind them in the fifth spot giving Colorado a very respectable middle of the order. Willy Taveras comes over from Houston and brings his .329 career on-base percentage with him to score lots of runs for this Rockies team which actually has some bats to drive him in. Kaz Matsui is a guy who might just come up really big for the Rocks this season. He hit safely in 20 of his 24 starts for the Rockies last season. Many of these guys haven’t been around long enough for us to know what we can expect, but I don’t foresee any major lapses by any key guys in Colorado’s order.

As far as betting the Rockies is concerned, you can forget about taking this team on the road. They were just 32-49 last season away from Coors losing day-to-day backers even more chips. Colorado is just 239-409 on the road over the past 8 seasons losing backers well over 90 units. If that’s not enough proof to steer clear of Colorado on the road, I don’t know what is.

I love this team at home though. They have an advantage with Coors Field’s where the Rockies consistently produce winning seasons. Colorado’s 44-37 home record in 2006 was the second best home record within the NL West. Because the Rockies are so bad on the road, perception is that they are a bad team period. Often times, we will be able to take advantage of opportunities where the Rockies are home underdogs. The Rockies at home as a dog has been one of my favorite plays in baseball over the past few years. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue to profit in those spots.

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