Blatantly stolen from some of our commenters
No one told me the season was going to be this way.
Olivo's a joke, Tulos broke, Our Road Offense is DOA
seems like we're always stuck in 2nd gear.
It just hasn't been our day.
Our week.
Our month.
Or even our year.
But
i’ll be there for tulo
when clint barmes drops the ball
i’ll be there for tulo
when jim joyce blows the call
I'll be there for Tu-loooo
though that mullet has to goooooo
/guitar lick
Really, I don't know what to say anymore. The team just didn't get it done. I'd make more excuses about injuries and stuff if we had, you know, won a game after the realistic chances of catching the NL West had disappeared. I can't express my disappointment with the slovenly play we saw on the field during the last 2 weeks of the season.
It's funny to think about how this team differed from the 2008 team. 2008 the team was plagued with injuries as well, but the end of the season looked a lot different. The past 2 weeks of the season, they played .500 ball, winning a series in San Diego, losing a series in Arizona, sweeping the Giants, getting swept by the Diamonbacks. Remember, too, that this was the team that sported Glendon Rusch and Jason Grilli, gave over 500 PA to Willy Taveras, over 200 to Omar Quintanilla, and something about Garrett Atkins, punctuated with a sigh.
But as ravaged as the team was by injury and regression, they never seemed to quit. Say what we may about Clint Hurdle, there is no way he would've put up with the turrible play the Rockies. This team would've gotten their butts CHEWED by Mr. Hurdle, and whether or not it would've made a difference, this play would've been even more inexcusable. I promise this isn't meant to be an indictment of Jim Tracy, or to say that any more yelling or what have you by him would've changed the outcome of the last 2 weeks of the season, but something just seems different around the team.
Maybe it's just exhaustion from a long season, maybe it's the lashback from players being overworked early in the season, maybe the team just wasn't actually good enough to finish the season at a better tally than 83-79. Whatever it is, this isn't what we signed up for.
I was looking over the WAR tallies for the NL this season, and figured I'd take a look at the batting RAR for the Rockies. Carlos Gonzalez led the team at a mark of 42.4 RAR, then Tulowitzki at 32.2, and past that, there's not a player above 10 RAR. There's not a player above 6 RAR. That's not even remotely acceptable.
Jumping from Fangraphs to Statcorner, the Rockies had one pitcher with a tRA below 4, and that was Ubaldo Jimenez. Granted, Hammel and Chacin were close (4.01, 4.06), but that's not really acceptable given a team that's supposed to have a strong pitching corps. In fact, we had 2 relievers provide more pRAA than all of the starters not named Ubaldo Jimenez (and they are Matt Belisle and Rafael Betancourt).
Basically put, there's not much good to say about 2010 aside from Carlos Gonzalez' breakout, Matt Belisle's studliness, and the hope that Jhoulys Chacin can provide a similar level of play in 2011 (if he'd had 200IP, he'd have probably been a 4-4.5 WAR player).
I wish I had something deeper and more insightful to put forth after the 2010 season, but really, I just don't. Much as I prefer baseball to everything else in sports, and I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I'm glad this season is over. It's been a season of excuses and rationale for a team that just hasn't done as well as we all hoped, and I'm tired of making them.
It'll be an interesting offseason, that's for sure.
CarGo to celebrate batting title by improving || Thomas Harding, MLB.com
While Carlos Gonzalez had a fantastic 2010 season, including a batting crown and a near-triple-crown total, there's a lot of room to grow for Gonzalez. Cutting the strikeouts down while walking more would be an excellent place to start. By the way, did you realize that Larry Walker won 4 batting titles? It wasn't that long ago, but this fact may have been forgotten.