Sunday Rockpile: Rockies ostrich issues continue

But I really understand the sentiment. It may just be a product of being a fan of a certain team, but it feels like the teams that I root for (these days only the Rockies, but in past years also the Broncos) tend to not be able to make the “clutch” plays both early and late in games to either come from behind or pad or create early leads.

I remember a game in the miserable recent years of the Rockies where they were playing the Mets. The Mets had a grand slam or some silliness in the first, and the Rockies started to mount a rally in the following half-inning (I can’t recall if the game was in Colorado or New York), which would have been a big deal. It would have given the beleaguered starter more time to rest in the dugout; it would have given the rest of the team hope that a comeback was possible; it would have changed the outlook of the whole game. But, of course, the next batter grounded into a double play, the rally was quashed, and the Rockies went on to lose. It felt so representative of the team that year – never being able to get the key hit to spark or complete the rally. Even in recent years when the Rockies have been good, I’ve still had that sinking feeling that a rally will be killed by an untimely double play or strikeout.

I’m sure most of this is confirmation bias: I forget all the big hits in wins and focus on the big misses in losses. As a sabermetrically-minded fan, I tend to write most of it off as small-sample nonsense, but it’s hard to fully put it out of my mind.

if you just click through that, you should get it.

GO ROCKIES!!!!!

Several suggesting that it’s just not going to happen at this point. My own opinion is that it’s still probably too early to dump it as that will completely and unalterably cap his ceiling as a middle of the pack CF, only so good as his speed allows him to be.

I guess the question would be what’s the lowest acceptable level of production from the left side? I think it would be somewhere less than what he produced last season, a sub .700 OPS and you would have to consider him a lineup cancer, but at a .350 or better OBP he’s still pretty valuable with his speed. If he can get a few bloop hits, walks and bunt singles to keep the OBP up from the left side in the here and now, I think the ultimate reward would be worth him continuing the switch hitting thing. He just has to do better than he has in the season thus far.

His batted ball profiles are virtually the same as both a lefty and a righty – though towards his later years in the minors he was a better line drive hitter while batting right-handed.

His strikeout rate in the minors as a right handed batter was something around 17% whereas as a left-handed batter it was 26%. However, his walk rate as a right handed batter was 8% and his walk rate as a left handed batter was 13 or 14%.

One thing that is interesting is that as a left-handed batter, his career minor league average is .299, fueled by a .390 BABIP. As a right handed batter, he averaged a .314 batting average accompanied by a .364 BABIP. Not exactly how to interpret this – his home run rates weren’t too different. I suppose it’s just the relatively high strikeout rate from the left side that necessitated a higher BABIP for a good average – not really earth-shattering news.

I guess in summation this is just saying the trends we’ve seen at the major league level (higher k rate and walk rate while batting lefty) are the same in the minors. In his limited time in the bigs, it just seems like his left-handed approach hasn’t carried over to the majors, but was pretty effective in the minors. Also, it still offers no insight into how Dex would fare batting right on right…

today.