Winning At Altitude (Or At Least Having A Prayer)

When I was a kid, I used to wrestle with my brothers and friends all the time. It’s a guy thing; who doesn’t enjoy it? But you can’t be screwing around all the time without breaking a few things.

My best friend’s mom has this fancy china set sitting over in the corner of the house where there’s no chance anyone will ever accidentally breathe on or enjoy it. One time Jonesy and I were fighting over who-knows-what when some gifted young writer’s hand punched a hole in the wall on the other side of the room.

Naturally, we got this painfully long lecture about all the horrible consequences of our misbehavior. Then Jonesy’s dad came home and fixed the wall in about fifteen minutes of work.

Anyway, his mom said she understood we were just messing around, but if we ever damaged her china, she would kill us, and no jury would ever convict her.

Those were really her words: “No jury would ever convict me.”

Set aside the whole issue that if you think being a scorned woman is a legitimate legal defense, you probably need to watch a little less Oxygen Network. I remembered this recently and got to thinking, if anyone can go postal and, in a just world, not be convicted, it would have to be Todd Helton.

Has a greater player ever been surrounded by less competent management? Has any team ever seemed so anxious to waste the prime years of a star’s career?

First, the team’s case. Helton’s first full year with the Rockies was 1998, and since then, the team has finished over .500 just once (82-80 in 2000).

Wait a second, if the Rockies are so bad, he probably has something to do with it, right? He can’t really be great if he doesn’t win, right?

I don’t think baseball works that way. It’s not like other sports, where a single talented player can lift the performance of others by compensating for their weaknesses. Baseball’s too democratic, and there’s just not much one guy can do.

So what does Helton do, anyway?

For starters, he’s one of the top defensive first basemen in the major leagues, if not the best. He’s won three Gold Gloves, sells out his body on every close play, and even has a great arm.

But first base isn’t a key defensive position like shortstop. You want some hits out of that guy. All Helton has done is compile the highest batting average (.339) and slugging percentage (.616) of all active players, and he’s second only to Barry Bonds in career on-base percentage among active players.

This wouldn’t be a baseball discussion if I didn’t unfavorably compare him to guys who played seventy years ago, so how does Helton rank against all-time greats like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams?

Well, he’s not quite that good. That career slugging percentage falls behind the marks accomplished by Ruth, Gehrig, and Williams-and that’s it. I repeat: no one else has had a higher percentage in all of baseball history, not Bonds, not McGwire, not Mays, nobody.

Is Helton really one of the top few hitters in baseball history? Of course not. For one, hitting numbers are up across the board these days. He’s not on steroids (despite the laughable recent accusations-if you passed Helton on the street, would you think he was even a pro athlete?), but he does play at Coors Field, which helps a lot.

But while Coors Field-and the altitude-may help Helton up Hall of Fame numbers, they’re certainly killing his chances of ever playing in the World Series. Because Rockies management has no idea what it’s doing.

Every year, the team cooks up a new scheme. The only constant is: it never works.

In 1999, the Rockies hired Jim Leyland, who decided that since everyone hits well a mile high, the club should actively seek out guys who field but can’t hit. Result: a 72-90 record.

In 2000, Buddy Bell decided we’d run like crazy to maximize scoring opportunities. (I don’t know why these guys thought scrapping for every run was such a brilliant move, but whatever.) We did have that one winning season, but it didn’t last.

Then Dealin’ Dan O’Dowd thought (always his first step towards failure), hmmm, maybe if we pay the pitchers more, they’ll play better, giving Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle enormous contracts in 2001.

Last year the Rockies decided, “Why not pick up a bunch of has-beens and see what they can do?” And it kind of worked, in a way: Vinny Castilla led the league in RBIs (that’s right, runs batted ins) last year, and Jeromy Burnitz socked 37.

But the Rockies still sucked.

This year it’s all about Generation R, the Rockies’ somewhat-promising young players. Or, in other words, they’re going to flush more of Helton’s prime years straight down the toilet.

(The only plus is the new uniforms. I hope we wear the white and black vest jerseys instead of the purple ones every game from now on. Those Barney-flavored uniforms are so hideous, they make Bruce Weber recoil in disgust.)

So it’s an improvement over the usual Generation Retread plan, but not by much.

How can the Rockies win? Obviously, baseball is a different game at altitude. But it’s not impossible to win, they just need to play by different rules.

But what rules? The Rockies have tried so many approaches, what could actually work?

History is the best guide.

It’s simple: make Coors Field work for them.

If Coors is such an easy place to score, why don’t the Rockies load up on offense and outscore teams? (My favorite nonsensical sports argument, used mainly against high-scoring football and basketball teams, is that you can’t win by just trying to outscore teams. Um, actually, that’s the only possible way you can win. But anyway…)

The Rockies have had four winning seasons: 1995, 1996, 1997, and 2000. Each time they led the National League in runs scored. Well, duh. The Rockies play at altitude. They should do that every year, right?

Well, they haven’t done it since 2001. The Rockies not leading the league in runs scored is like the Yankees not leading in payroll-with all the advantages they’ve got, it should never happen.

Building around pitching isn’t going to take you too far in Colorado. 2000 was the only winning season (and one of only two seasons in the club’s history) in which the Rockies didn’t finish dead last in the NL in ERA. Instead, they were next-to-last.

Since the pitching’s never going to be great or even passable, outscoring teams is pretty much the only option.

I understand the Rockies are obsessed with being cheap lately. So are the A’s, it doesn’t seem to be stopping them from winning. Besides, what do the Rockies need? Hitting-and there are always hitters willing to sign a one-year deal at Coors Field like Vinny and Jeromy, because it’ll help you land your next contract.

Of course, the Rockies need pitching, too, but since starters are pretty much never consistent here (Pedro Astacio being the only close-to-long-term exception), we need to load up on relief pitching. Besides, we probably can’t afford proven major league starters, who will always demand long-term dollars in exchange for the career suicide of pitching at Coors Field.

But since starters so rarely go deep into games here anyway, we need a reliable bullpen more than other teams, and relievers always work on short contracts as it is.

Remember 1995? In the Rockies’ only playoff season, they loaded up on hitters (leading the National League in runs, hits, triples, home runs, batting average, and slugging percentage) and had a lights-out bullpen when they needed it (featuring guys like Curtis Leskanic, Darren Holmes, Steve Reed and Bruce Ruffin, each of whom had an ERA under three and a half).

Of course, any team that employs Dan O’Dowd at any position higher than bullpen catcher this long obviously isn’t obsessed with winning.

For everyone’s sake, they better hope Helton isn’t, either.