The easy answer to the question in the headline is, "Whatever Mark Ellis does, he can't be worse than the guys who have been playing second base for the Colorado Rockies."
Is Mark Ellis Going To Fix The Rockies?
Now, it should be said that the Rockies’ second basemen probably haven’t been the worst in the major leagues. They’ve combined for a 610 OPS, which is obviously terrible but (believe it or not) ranks 23rd among the 30 teams.
Of course, OPS doesn’t include defense; considering that none of the Rockies’ five second basemen this season have reminded anyone of Bill Mazeroski -- or for that matter, Bill’s little brother Joey Mazeroski, the one with the club foot -- we might assume that Colorado’s keystoners have ranked in the bottom quintile. If not worse.
What’s not readily apparent is that Mark Ellis will help much.
Yes, he’s almost certainly going to help with his glove. While Ellis has not played his usual Gold Glove-deserving (though never awarded) defense, he’s still better than anyone the Rockies have thrown out there.
His bat’s another thing entirely. A year ago, Ellis ranked among the American League’s better-hitting second baseman with a .291/.358/.381 line. That made for a 102 OPS+, plenty fine for a slick-fielding middle infielder.
This year, though? Ellis’s OPS+ is exactly half that: 51. And there’s no obvious scapegoat, as the great majority of Ellis’s numbers were posted before he suffered a hamstring injury earlier this month that landed him on the DL for two weeks.
Maybe that’s a good thing, though. Given his history, we might assume that a healthy Mark Ellis was bound to start hitting eventually, and perhaps we may assume that if he wasn’t healthy, the Rockies wouldn’t have traded for him.
Of course, we might instead assume that the Rockies are simply crazy-desperate because they’re somehow three games under .500 and 6-1/2 games out of first place. We might assume that, instead.
And finally, we might assume that the Rockies are just due for some good luck, in that area on the field between the first base and the second base. They tried Jose Lopez, who didn't work. They tried Jonathan Herrera, who didn't work. They tried Eric Young for a few days (didn't work). And lately they've been trying Chris Nelson, who seems familiar solely because we all knew somebody named Chris Nelson when we were growing up.
Still, it turns out that Chris Nelson can hit some ... at least in Colorado Springs. To this point, he’s not done anything 70 miles north on I-25. And now, it looks like he won’t get the chance to do anything. Not with Mark Ellis in town. But maybe Chris Nelson will get his shot next year. Or maybe, if he keeps hitting in C-Springs, he’ll get a shot with another club that doesn’t obsess over small sample sizes.
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