Perhaps the biggest baseball news out of Denver that you’ve heard about this week is that the Rockies are being investigated by the FAA for some cockpit hijinks they pulled on their way to a road series in Toronto. But aside from the most non-baseball “Rockies being weird” story you’ve ever heard, the team has been as bad as you might’ve predicted before the start of their 2024 campaign. The Rox have started this year at a 4-15 clip with an NL-worst -41 run differential and an MLB-worst 117 runs allowed. In other words, all is normal at Coors, that is, except for their first baseman.
We might have a new star in our midst in Ryan McMahon, the 29-year-old veteran first baseman for the Rockies, who currently leads the National League in batting average with a .361 mark. McMahon has always been your prototypical first baseman; lower-ish batting average with a lot of power potential, except he’s never had an OPS+ above 100, that is, until 2024. His OPS+ this season stands at 154 and his OPS at .948, 15 points ahead of Kyle Tucker and 28 points ahead of Adolis Garcia.
As someone who follows baseball like it's a religion, I’ve known who Ryan McMahon is for quite sometime, especially because he’s never missed more than 21 games in a season since 2019. But for those of you who aren’t as familiar with Mac, perhaps it’s time you get acquainted with him because he could be a popular name at this year’s Trade Deadline. While he remains under contract through 2027, thanks to a 6-year, $70 million extension he signed right before the 2022 season, don’t be so sure he’s staying in the purple and black come August 2024.
The Rockies have never been afraid to trade away big contracts (ahem, Nolan Arenado), but the bigger incentive for Colorado to deal McMahon comes from an interesting stipulation baked into his extension. Ryan can opt out of his deal after 2025 if he finishes in the top five in NL MVP voting any year from 2022-2024 and can opt out after 2026 if he finishes in the top five in 2025. With the changes McMahon has made to his game to start the season, it looks like he could get the opportunity to opt out, which would lead the Rox to explore trade options to recoup lost value.
McMahon’s hot start might be super sustainable. I whiffed at that prediction last season with Matt Chapman, but let me explain myself. One of the big themes of this season has been pitches per plate appearance, a murky, yet important stat in terms of measuring a player’s patience, eye, and ability to pounce on opportunities to collect base hits. When you look at the P/PA stat across MLB, most guys’ numbers are inflated, except for McMahon’s. The Rockies’ first baseman is currently seeing 4.34 pitches per plate appearance, which is good for 21st in baseball. Last year? McMahon led MLB in the category at a 4.38 clip.
In other words, that part of his game hasn’t changed, but he’s gotten much better in other areas. His 2-strike approach has led to a 66-point jump in 2-strike batting average (.168 to .234). He’s also demolishing fastballs at a rate that he’s never shown before and has a .3% better put-away rate against them compared to batting maestro Steven Kwan. All of this is to say that, with a similar cadence at the plate, McMahon has completely transformed how he protects himself, which gives him better chances to succeed. While his power numbers have gone down (lower launch angle, more ground balls, lower expected batting average), he’s actually squaring up balls at a much higher rate than last year (53.8 hard-hit rate in 2024 compared to 44.2 in 2023). He’s a more complete hitter than ever before, and if I know the Rockies and their shady front office, they’ll be keeping tabs on McMahon’s MVP chances as we enter the back half of the season, and you should, too.
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