Paul DePodesta discusses where the Rockies are now (Part II)

As a reminder, last weekend, Colorado Rockies president of baseball operations talked with media about where the Colorado Rockies are at this point in the season. On Monday, we ran DePodesta’s comments related to prospects. Tonight, here are his comments on a range of other subjects.

Some comments that have been lightly edited for clarity.

Pitching

DePodesta addressed Rockies pitching with a focus on Kyle Freeland and Michael Lorenzen.

Kyle Freeland and Michael Lorenzen 

We have a lot of belief in those guys, and we’re sticking with them. There’s no doubt about it. They have long track records of success, and we don’t expect them to have super-low ERAs. They’re pitching in this environment. This is going to be challenging — there’s no doubt — but we know there’s more in there with both those guys.

I think stuff-wise, Michael Lorenzen, it’s all there. He’s throwing hard.

Kyle still is getting strikeouts and whatnot, so we know it’s still in there, and we’re sticking with him, and we believe in him. We know it’s going to better at some stretch. This is just their lull right now, and they’re fighting through it, and we’re going to be right there with them, fighting through it.

I think both those guys are fantastic competitors. It’s part of the reason they’re here. I think I think Free has always embraced this challenge and always wanted it. Michael absolutely did. He wanted to attack this challenge.

They’re intense competitors, so I think it’s tough for them to not be as successful as they expect to be, and they’re trying to figure it out. But the least we can do is be right there by their side and fighting along with them and believe in them, and we do.

Look, again, this is a tough challenge, I think, for anybody, and there are going to be some tough stretches, but that’s just part of it. Again, we’ve talked about some of these other guys already, they’ve had some ups and downs through the course of the season, and these guys may have had some down moments recently, but there are going to be ups here coming. We believe that.

Pitching depth

I think we certainly felt we were going to need it through the course of the season, and even as we get into the summer here at Coors, and I think the elements are even tougher on the on the pitching staff.

We didn’t expect to have this many injuries in the rotation, but it certainly has proved to be helpful in that circumstance. But even now, it gets to a point where it’s just hard to come up with that many guys that are that are prepared and ready to either take on the starting role or the or the bulk roll. We certainly feel like we have a couple more in Triple-A, but not as many as we’d like right now.

Baseball at elevation & improved hitting

In addition, DePodesta was asked if he had been surprised by anything when experiencing baseball at elevation up close and personal. He also answered a question about the best kind of hitter for Coors Field.

I don’t think [there were any unexpected surprises about playing baseball at elevation], but largely that’s because I’m pretty close with a lot of people who’ve been here for a long time, so I think they prepped me pretty well for what this was going to be like.

Undoubtedly, there are some real challenges, not only on the field but even off the field. I think that might be the one that doesn’t get talked about very much, is just the recovery aspect of this — not just for pitchers, but even for position players.

I’ve actually been really pleased with our position player club, especially recently, going on the road. I think they’ve outperformed what they’ve done in recent years, especially those first couple days on the road, which can be really taxing.

But, like I said before, there are unique challenges, but I don’t think they’re ones that are at this point unexpected.

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I’m not entirely sure [about the Rockies’ improved road numbers]. I wish I could pinpoint it exactly.

I do think our hitting coaches have done a terrific job with our guys trying to get them locked in. I do think plate discipline certainly does have something to do with it as well.

We saw it certainly on this last road trip, those first — really all six — games. I think we showed as good discipline as we had all year, and we scored a lot of runs as a result.

But I think our preparation, and I — this isn’t a comment on what it was ever like in the past because I have no idea what it was like or even the players we’ve had in the past — but I do think our hitting coaches have done an excellent job of getting our guys prepared, both mentally and physically, when we get on the road.

And they’ve tried a lot of different things, and I think we’re going to continue to try more, even in terms of drill packages and things like that, once we first get on the road, just to acclimatize as best we can.

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Ideally we’d have both — walks and homers. Let’s do it, right? I’m all for it.

You know, it’s interesting. You go back to the Blake Street Bombers — everyone talks about the power of those clubs. I think that’s absolutely right.

What sometimes doesn’t get talked about is those guys were great hitters. They were great hitters first, right?

They did have good plate discipline, they did put the ball in play, they also happened to hit the ball over the wall. So I think that would be the ideal scenario.

But I think foundationally, we as an organization needed to have more plate discipline. This past year, our chase rate was the highest in baseball — not just in the big leagues, but also in Triple-A, also in Double-A, also in High-A, also in Low-A. So we have a lot of room to make up just to be on par with some of our competitors in that space.

And, again in this field, we just need to take advantage of all the holes that are out there in the outfield. We need to be able to put more balls in play. In order to do that, we need to swing at better pitches to hit, and we’ve started to do that, which I think has been really encouraging.

The trade deadline

The nearing trade deadline was also a topic of conversation, but DePodesta wasn’t showing his cards.

This is probably around the time of year where those conversations are beginning. They’re still very preliminary, so we certainly haven’t canvassed the league or anything like that, but we’re starting to have some conversations out there to see if there’s a potential match.

I think we just need to be opportunistic, so whatever might be available to us — whether it’s helping the big-league team, whether it’s helping the upper levels, or whether it’s something dynamic at the at the lower levels — I think we have to be open to all of them.

There would be certain guys that would be really, really hard for us to move. I think that’s probably true for any team.

There are guys that we feel are, hopefully, foundational players for us going forward. At the same time, like I just said, I think we need to be opportunistic. We’re not where we want to be, right? So, if there are opportunities for us to get better, certainly both in the short term and long term, I think we need to look at that. I think it’s our responsibility to look at that. But there are a lot of guys that we’re not going to be active in shopping, that’s for sure.

Where the Rockies are now

DePodesta also attempted to assess the current state of the Rockies.

Probably right around now, 10 weeks in, or thereabouts, I think our biggest problem is we just have a lot of guys out. And that’s not an excuse. It’s just that’s our reality.

So, we haven’t really been able to see our team together as we viewed it, and we hope maybe what it will be before the end of the year, but we’ll see.

I think we have a decent feel for a handful of players. As you can see through the course of these first two-and-a-half months, there are players who’ve been up and down at different times, but I think they’ve shown certainly what they’re capable of. And I think what we’re anxious to see is when our pitching, our hitting, defense, it sort of all comes together because we’ve had stretches of each of those performing really well.

For the first month, I thought our pitching did an excellent job, really carried us to a large degree. I think, in the last, even the last week-and-a-half or so, I’ve really been pleased with what our offense looks like, but our pitching hasn’t been as good as it was early. And part of that student injury and whatnot.

But so I am anxious to see us put it all together because I think we flashed it on both sides of the ball.

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