Is 2025 the Rockies’ best chance to be respectably bad?

During the last two months, the Rockies came strikingly close to an average .500 winning percentage, especially for a franchise which hasn’t seen a season over .500 since 2018. The reason for their recent relative success lies in their hitting; Michael Toglia and Eziqiel Tovar have finally started hitting above average with an ops+ of 105 and 103, meaning Toglia is hitting 5% better than league average, and Tovar is hitting 3% better than league average. Brenton Doyle cooled off later in the season, but carried a 120 ops+ for well over half the season.

All these batting changes correlate with the arrival of the new hitting coach, Hensley “bam bam” Meulens. Most hitters improved a few percentage points after his arrival, giving him the image of a miracle worker. However, seeing as the Rockies had almost no hitting coaching (or hitting coaching of very poor quality) before his arrival, the ops+ bump is expected. While Meulens is likely an excellent coach, any competent coach who arrives at arguably the league’s most ignorant team will likely make a larger impact than normal. If Meulens were to be hired by the Dodgers, the impact would almost certainly be smaller. But due to this bump in hitting, the Rockies’ lineup is finally getting enough depth - especially as they give less playing time to hitters like Elehuris Montero, finishing with an ops+ of 55.