The Rockies bad and boring season is over, here’s what you should know

The Colorado Rockies just finished their 30th season of baseball on Wednesday and will celebrate their Pearl anniversary in 2023.

To close the book on 2022, Colorado finished with a record of 68-94, the third time the club has finished with that amount of wins which ties for the fifth-worst record in franchise history. Worst in franchise history was the Rockies finishing mark of 43 games back of the National League West-winning Los Angeles Dodgers, beating out the 1993 expansion year team for the low mark, who finished 37 games back of the then seven-team division.

Since the Rockies and Dodgers tied for the National League West in 2018, the two teams have gone entirely opposite ways. LA is 367-180 in the regular season with a World Series crown and another trip to the Fall Classic and have won at least a playoff series in each year. The Rockies have not been back to the playoffs or had a .500 season, going 239-307 over the last four seasons plus Game 163.

Now nobody expects Colorado to go toe-to-toe with Los Angeles each and every year but watching the Rockies season end a win below oddsmakers’ expectations in defeat by the Dodgers does bring back up some of those memories.

Colorado’s season was rocky from the get-go, with star signing Kris Bryant injured early and held to just 42 games. The ragtag Rockies got a required All-Star appearance from a former castaway in C.J. Cron, who ended the season with just a 1.3 fWAR. Colorado’s best player was Ryan McMahon, which was promising considering he signed a long-term extension just before the season’s beginning. Brendan Rodgers was up and down but finally showed some of the promised that led him to be once named one of the better prospects in all of baseball. But Colorado’s offense was plain bad; Cron was the only hitter above league average, according to wRC+.

The Rockies pitching was also pretty bad. Kyle Freeland turned around a bad start to the season and had a solid year, backing his recent long-term extension. German Marquez largely disappointed, while Antonio Senzatela suffered a significant injury midseason. Daniel Bard earned a contract extension and was one of the best closers in the game.

The biggest signs of a new youth movement for the Rockies was 52 okay games from 23-year-old Elehuris Montero and the late debut of 20-year-old Ezequiel Tovar.

If all of this sounds boring to you, it pretty much was. The Rockies were out of it all season, didn’t have any spectacular performances by star players and mostly played completely meaningless baseball. Rarely has Colorado even at their worst been just this boring but the fans did show up in droves, thanks in part due to the ballpark being open at full capacity the whole season for the first time in multiple summers since the outbreak of COVID-19.

To emphasize just how forgettable the season is, the Rockies didn’t even hit a grand slam—a first in franchise history. It was cool to see Tovar debut and maybe B-Rod, RyMac or K-Free are on this team next time they’re playing for something but mostly fans in LoDo were just rooting for laundry in 2022.

The most interesting Rockies-related storylines of the season were often what Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, Jon Gray or Tyler Anderson are up to in their new locations.

Will 2023 be better in Denver? Maybe.

The youth wave is beginning, plus some health could get the Rockies into the 70s with wins. Bryant was great when he did play. The Rockies aren’t losing anything to free agency that is devastating and maybe those high attendance figures will drive Dick Monfort into splashing for another free agent.

The Rockies are still far off from greatness but come 2023, they won’t be the Blake Street Borings of 2022 again.