Based on prior history, what you can expect the Colorado Rockies to do in 2020

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I was just looking at how the Colorado Rockies baseball team did to finish out the 2019 season. They swept the Milwaukee Brewers in a three-game series at home. The final game of their season in 2018 ended at home when they got swept in three games in the playoffs by the Brewers in the division series.

So how did the 2019 season go? Well, they finished 71-91, which clearly was a disappointment from the previous two years when they made the postseason two seasons in a row. Colorado has only made the postseason in back-to-back years once.

The Rockies have never had such a fallout of wins until this year when they won 20 fewer games than they did in 2018. Their previous record was in 2008 when they won 16 fewer games than they did the previous year (the World Series year).

So what did previous Colorado teams show after such disappointing seasons? The Rockies had a 24 win improvement over a strike-shortened season in 1995. That one doesn’t really count (probably). What about any other season?

Colorado had a 14 win improvement from 2006 to 2007, when they got swept in four games in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox. They had an 18 win improvement from 2008 to 2009. And they had a 12 win improvement from 2016 to 2017.

OK, what about when they sucked?...

The Rockies didn’t improve by 14 wins in 1994, but that was when the season ended abruptly due to a labor strike on August 12, 1994. And Colorado likely would have won more than 67 games in 1994, had there not been a labor strike.

They won 16 fewer games in 2008 than they did in 2007. They won 83 games in 2010 compared to 73 in 2011. And they won only 71 games in 2019.

So those four seasons: 1994, 2008, 2011 and 2019 are the only seasons when the Rockies lost 10 or more games than they did the previous year.

Maybe it was inevitable and they had it coming for them to lose at least 10 more games than the previous season.

And we should probably expect that to happen again in the near future.

In 1998 (6 more losses), 1999 (5 more losses), 2001 (9 more losses), 2004 (6 more losses), 2010 (9 more losses), 2012 (9 more losses) and 2014 (8 more losses) were the seasons in which they lost between five and nine more games than the previous year.

Even if Colorado were to improve by 24 wins, they will win 95 games in 2020. Realistic? Probably not.

What have the Rockies shown to do in every season as far as improvement and non-improvement?

Well, at their worst (in 2019) they have shown that they will win 20 fewer games than the previous year, so you can expect Colorado to win at least 51 games in 2020.

And if their worst for you is having the same number of wins as they did last season, they will win at least 71 games.

Their best in a non-strike shortened season is plus-18 wins from the previous year, so they will win at least 89 games.

I guess that’s the easy way to answer the question that I had that I didn’t actually answer. Maybe some of you think I did answer the question, but I didn’t.

So here’s the answer for all of you extremists out there who want a quality answer.

The answer is 64 wins. That’s how many wins the Rockies have had in every non-strike shortened season. (They had 53 wins through 117 games in the strike-shortened season of 1994.)

But if Denver; Colorado; and their fan base care, they are going to win more games than 53 or 64 games. They are going to win at least 67 games and get to regular season victory number 2,100. They are going to win at least 71 games, because that’s how many they won in 2019.

The best the Rockies have done the year after they made the postseason was to win six additional games. In a non-strike shortened season, that total is to win only four additional games (which they did in 2018).

But Colorado didn’t make the postseason in 2019, but they did in 2018, so how have they done two years after last making the playoffs in their history (for example, the year 2020) compared to the previous year (for example, the year 2019)?

The best they did was win plus-18 more games in 2009 than they did in 2008. The Rockies had the most wins they have had in the regular season in franchise history in 2009 with 92 wins. Colorado was in the playoffs in 2007.

The best the team from the Mile High City has done compared to two years earlier (when they made the playoffs) was they won an additional six games in 1997 compared to 1995. But if we don’t say that the 1995 strike-shortened season is legitimate, that answer is only two additional wins when the Rockies won 92 games in 2009 compared to just 90 in 2007. So winning 93 games in 2020 is not a bad thing for Colorado because the 2018 team on 91 games. However, if we are to say that the 1995 season was legitimate, winning 97 games is the highest goal for the Rockies in 2020 without exceeding that win total.

What about when the team has won 71 or fewer games in a season, what can we expect the next year? A fourteen win drop-off. A twenty-four win improvement. A one win drop-off. A nine win improvement. A ten win improvement. A two win improvement. A seven win improvement.

So, what does that mean? The Colorado Rockies should improve in 2020. They have improved in five out of seven seasons the next year after they won 71 or fewer games in a season.

Let’s put this in context. Based on every previous Colorado Rockies' season, what can we expect from them next year?

No improvement (1). Improvement (2). No change in regular season record (1). No improvement (3). Improvement (3). No improvement (4). No change in regular season record (2). Improvement (4). No improvement (6). Improvement (6). No improvement (7). Improvement (7). No improvement (10). Improvement (8). No improvement (11). Improvement (12). No improvement (12).

You can expect Colorado to be better or worse next year. There’s no other way to put it. The Rockies have improved in 12 seasons and they have not improved in 12 seasons.

To look at the 2019 season from an objective standpoint, what about when previous Colorado teams have won 91 or fewer games in a season, what can we expect the next year? The easy answer is you can expect improvement or no improvement. What you shouldn’t count on is the same number of wins and losses as the previous season.

So the Rockies clearly didn’t improve in 2019.

The team from the Rocky Mountain region has improved in 12 seasons after winning 91 or fewer games and they have not improved in only 11 seasons.

The only Rockies’ season in their franchise’s history that doesn’t get accounted for when they win more than 91 games is in the 2009 season when they won 92 games. In 2010, they did not improve from 2009 when they only won 83 games.

Based on Colorado's past history, they should improve their regular season record in 2020.

Since after the 2007 World Series year, the Rockies were consistently a bad team from 2008 through the 2014 season. They had the roughest patch from 2019-2012.

Colorado improved every year from 2015-2018, proving that the current mindset for 2020 has consistently been about winning since after the 2014 season. This is the best the team has ever played over a period of several seasons.

Don’t believe me?

1993: Up (1). (By default.)

1994: Down (1).

1995-96: Up (2).

1997: Stay.

1998-99: Down (2).

2000: Up (1).

2001: Down (1).

2002: Stay.

2003: Up (1).

2004-05: Down (2).

2006-07: Up (2).

2008: Down (1).

2009: Up (1).

2010-12: Down (3).

2013: Up (1).

2014: Down (1).

2015-18: Up (4).

2019: Down (1).

So the Rockies were never really consistent until the 2010-12 seasons. They only have a better or worse record than the previous year every one to two seasons.

And remember, the Colorado Rockies, like the Miami Marlins, have never won a division title in their franchises’ history.

In 2017 and 2018, their home game attendance ranking for all Major League Baseball teams made it back into the single digits for the first time since 2002. The Rockies were #1 in attendance in MLB from their first season in 1993 through the 1999 season. They also were in the top nine in MLB attendance from 2000 through 2002.