Hey, at least Kyle Freeland cares. Which is already more than can be said for Rockies management right about now.
The cynics up in the Grading The Week offices have been accused of having no soul — and we deserve that — but a few of the baseball folks still have a little bit of heart. And man, did ours go out to Freeland after watching his news conference at Coors Field on Thursday.
When a scribe asked the Denver native and Rox pitcher what he would say to fans after the franchise’s historically painful/awful/embarrassing/hilariously bad 6-31 start, the left-hander scratched his right eye, took a long, deep breath, then looked to the sky.
“Keep believing in us,” Freeland said, his voice cracking a little. “Keep riding.”
Has it come to this? Seriously? Are the Rockies so bad they’re going to make Freeland, the pride of Thomas Jefferson High School, almost break down in front of the microphone?
Team GTW feels your pain, dude.
Rockies leaving Freeland speechless — D
This season, CEO Dick Monfort’s masterpiece can’t be easier to watch from the dugout than it is from the stands. Especially for Freeland, who was part of that #Rocktober core of ’17-18 that gave a success-starved fan base something besides The Rooftop to puff their collective chests about.
With a third straight 100-loss season careening on LoDo like the train at Royal Gorge, 2018 feels less like seven years ago and more like 17.
Yes, Freeland is making $16 million this season — tops among all Colorado hurlers — to sport an 0-5 record and 6.41 ERA through eight starts. Yes, that salary ranked 41st among all starting pitchers, according to Spotrac, edging out peers such as Seth Lugo ($15 million) and Dylan Cease ($13.75 million).
But would you believe us if we said that Freeland’s also been snakebit by the general incompetence around him, too?
As of Friday afternoon, the lefty sported a 3.18 FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching, a sort of alternate ERA that measures a pitcher’s ability to control what he can control — walks, hit batters, home runs allowed and strikeouts.
Freeland’s FIP ranked 11th among National League starters as of Friday afternoon.
In layman’s terms, look at the gap between a pitcher’s ERA and his FIP, and you get a picture of how lucky — or unlucky — a hurler has been when batters make contact against him. You ready for this one? No NL qualified pitcher among the top 15 in FIP as of Friday had a chasm between their ERA (6.41) and their FIP (3.18) as large as three runs, save for one — Freeland. If it wasn’t for bad luck, as the late, great Albert King once sang, he wouldn’t have no luck at all.
Shiffrin giving NWSL Denver more juice — A
Meanwhile, Denver’s entry into the National Women’s Soccer League, which is slated to start play in 2026, can’t get here soon enough. The expansion franchise’s winning momentum picked up speed this past Tuesday when the club announced that skiing legend Mikaela Shiffrin had joined the ownership group.
Given the NWSL’s spring/summer overlap with MLB starting next year, GTW will happily wager you a cold beverage that the women’s soccer franchise, which will have a 12,000-seat temporary venue in ’26, gets within shouting distance of the Rockies at Coors, on head-to-head dates, at least once next year.
