With Arizona and Colorado facing off in one of the best three-game series of this weekend, let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the two clubs, with one eye on their matchup and the other on how they line up in the race for the NL West title.
Arizona's strengths
The Diamondbacks' major move this offseason was to add innings sponge Dan Haren to their rotation, slotting him in as the No. 2 starter behind Brandon Webb. Haren, who started last year's All-Star Game for the American League, gains by moving to the easier league but leaves the friendly confines of Oakland's home park, with copious foul ground and deep fences. He follows Webb, one of the best starters in the game, an extreme ground-baller with above-average control.
Diamondbacks vs. Rockies
Weekend probables Day Time (ET) Matchup
Friday 4:05 Micah Owings vs.
Mark Redman
Saturday 8:05 Brandon Webb vs.
Jeff Francis
Sunday 3:05 Edgar Gonzalez vs.
Franklin Morales
The Rockies will face Webb on Saturday, bookended by Micah Owings, who also has plus control and swings a potent stick for a pitcher, and Edgar Gonzalez, another strike-thrower who has been extremely homer-prone and pitches in the wrong ballpark for that style.
When they get a late lead, the D-backs have a quartet of outstanding relievers to throw at opponents. Newly acquired Chad Qualls pounds the strike zone and gets ground balls, so while his style is different from Jose Valverde's (for whom he was traded), his results should be just as good. He joins closer Brandon Lyon (fresh off a blown save on Wednesday), Tony Pena, and Juan Cruz, three hard throwers who were all top performers last year. And credit manager Bob Melvin for his skillful deployment of his relievers in 2007. Three Arizona relievers ranked in the top 14 in baseball in Relievers' Expected Wins Added, a Baseball Prospectus statistic that measures performance as well as leverage, or how the relievers were used. Melvin got his best relievers into games where they could do the most to increase Arizona's chances of winning, and he did so better than any other manager in baseball.
Arizona also has a chance to be one of the better defensive clubs in the league when their top lineup is on the field. Orlando Hudson is among the best second basemen in baseball, with good range on ground balls and a great knack for catching pop flies. An Eric Byrnes-Chris Young-Justin Upton outfield includes three guys who could play center field every day. And Stephen Drew is athletic enough to become an above-average shortstop, although he's not there yet.
Arizona's Achilles' heel
2007 National League ranks
Batting average 16th (.250)
On-base percentage 16th (.321)
Runs 14th (714)
Arizona's weaknesses
The Diamondbacks scored fewer runs in 2007 than any NL team other than San Francisco and Washington, both bad teams playing in pitcher's parks. The fuel for Arizona's offensive ineptitude was its inability to put men on base, as they finished dead last in the league with a .321 OBP. That's likely to improve somewhat as their young hitters gain experience and see their batting averages rise, but they're still dependent on a number of hitters who've shown no propensity to work the count or take a walk, including the hacker Mark Reynolds, Byrnes and Young.
Young posted great walk rates in the minors, but he has to get his bat started early and doesn't have much of a chance to adjust to off-speed pitches at the big-league level. So despite its strength in several areas of run prevention and the 90 games they'll play in hitter's parks, Arizona will be hard-pressed to score much more than 800 runs this year. Their impatience certainly favors Colorado's Saturday starter, Jeff Francis. The 27-year-old left-hander has a fringy fastball but plus command and can take advantage of hitters with poor plate discipline.
Colorado's strengths
The Rockies had arguably the best defense in the National League in 2007, and if anything they've improved their defense up the middle this year with the substitution of Jayson Nix for Kaz Matsui. Troy Tulowitzki nearly won the Rookie of the Year award on the strength of his defensive reputation; he has great range in both directions, good hands, and a plus arm. Nix won't hit, but he's above-average at second base, and the Rockies should turn plenty of double plays with that keystone combination.
They're strong in center with Willy Taveras and Ryan Spilborghs, and are only weak in their outfield corners, especially with converted first baseman Brad Hawpe playing right.
The front end of the Rockies' bullpen was one of the best in baseball last year, and they return the top two arms in Manny Corpas and Brian Fuentes. Corpas, probably forever doomed to a ceiling of the second-best reliever to come out of Panama, has a filthy two-seamer that hitters pound into the ground, while Fuentes comes at hitters from a sidearm angle but gets his fastball in to right-handed hitters and doesn't have the severe platoon split that most sidearmers have.
Colorado's weaknesses
The Rockies' run to the playoffs last year was fueled by several factors that no longer apply. Their rotation returns Francis as the ace, but he's followed by question marks. Ubaldo Jimenez has a live arm but walked more than 100 batters during the regular season last year between the minors and majors, and he wasn't any better in spring training, walking 10 men and hitting five in just under 20 innings.
They've replaced Josh Fogg with Kip Wells and brought back late-season addition Mark Redman, neither of whom has even been league-average since 2003. And hard-throwing starter Franklin Morales, one of the surprise aces of the Rockies' playoff run last year, showed reduced velocity and poor control all through spring training and was pushed to the fifth spot in the rotation. Arizona will face Redman, Francis, and Morales; if Morales returns to his 2007 form, the Sunday matchup against Gonzalez heavily favors the Rockies.
Their bullpen lost a major cog when LaTroy Hawkins chose to sign with the Yankees, trading places with Luis Vizcaino, who was coming off a year that started and ended poorly. Vizcaino missed time in March with a stiff elbow and his command has been terrible, culminating in a four-run pounding Wednesday night against St. Louis. The downgrade from Hawkins to Vizcaino leaves the Rockies without a good right-handed setup option to complement Fuentes and help get the ball to Corpas.
Their offense is almost completely intact from last year, but one weakness in the lineup was exposed in the World Series, when it became clear that most of the Rockies' hitters struggle against good fastballs. The Red Sox exploited this weakness in shutting the Rockies down in four games, and you can bet that most NL opponents caught on to this. In this series, the Rockies won't face a lot of heat from the Arizona starters, but if the Diamondbacks take a lead into the late innings, they have several relievers who can light up the gun, including Lyon, Pena, and Cruz.
Keith Law, formerly the special assistant to the general manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, is the senior baseball analyst for Scouts Inc.
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Started Drew over Peralta
