COL - Rockies 2025 Team Awards
- OppoTaco Baseball
- Dec 7, 2025
- 4 min read
Welcome to the new series of articles, where I will be writing 30 separate articles breaking down each team and selecting who I believe was their best starting pitcher, reliever, hitter, Rookie of the Year, and overall Most Valuable Player (MVP) from the 2025 season. I will be rolling these out in reverse order throughout the course of the offseason, starting from the 30th-ranked team to the 1st based on record/standings at the end of the 2025 season. Let's get into it!
Starting us off and finally getting the chance to be first for something... our beloved Colorado Rockies. The Rockies finished the 2025 season with the worst record in all of baseball with a 43-119 record. Coming oh so close to beating the 2024 White Sox record for the worst season in MLB history, that they only got to set a year ago. But thankfully for the Rockies faithful, they were able to avoid it.
Obviously, for teams like this, and likely the next 10 to follow, there aren't many guys that "turn heads", but there were some notable seasons that I feel are worth pointing out and not wanting to let go under the radar just because their team may not have performed. So that is my reasoning for breaking down each team individually, and well... for something to do during the offseason.
TOP STARTING PITCHER - KYLE FREELAND
It definitely wasn't pretty, but it was enough to claim the Rockies' 2025 Top Starting Pitcher. Despite leading all of Major League Baseball in losses with 17, he still managed to put up the best WAR (and only positive WAR season amongst fellow rotation members). Another couple notable stats for Freeland, is that in his 31 starts he managed to keep his ERA below 5.00 (barely) with a 4.98 which yes isn't great, but considering his home ballpark is Colorado and when comparing again to his fellow rotation members seemed pretty hard to do considering his was 1.35 points lower than the 2nd lowest of 6.33 by Tyler Gordon (who also happened to only pitch in half the amount of games as Freeland did).
FINAL 2025 STATS:
WAR: 1.4
GS: 31
RECORD: 5-17
IP: 162.2
ERA: 4.98
WHIP: 1.42
K/BB: 124/38 (3.26)
Freeland has had to deal with this since coming into the league with the Rockies in 2017. I feel he deserves this just as much as I feel he deserves to be traded to a better team. Keep up the good work, Kyle!
TOP RELIEVER - JIMMY HERGET
Definitely not the first guy that comes to mind when your buddy tells you to name a random Rockies player, but maybe he can be after this one. At his age 31-year-old season, Jimmy Herget had himself the best season of his career and is being crowned the Rockies' Top Reliever for the 2025 season. On what was his 5th team in his 7th MLB season, Herget was a staple coming out of this Rockies pen all year long, leading the way, putting up a 3.0 WAR season (1.2 points higher than the 2nd most for a pitcher and only 0.7 off leading the entire team). He appeared in 59 games in which he was just eating innings ending with 83.1 innings pitched, had a 2.48 ERA, well, almost averaging a strikeout per inning.
FINAL 2025 STATS:
WAR: 3.0
GP: 59
RECORD: 1-2
IP: 83.1
ERA: 2.48
WHIP: 1.17
K/BB: 81/26 (3.12)
This one was almost a no-brainer when compared to picking a starter, and I feel this will be one of those underrated seasons that would've been missed otherwise, just because of the team he did it for. Well done, Jimmy, keep this rolling into next season!
TOP HITTER - HUNTER GOODMAN
Maybe the most obvious one here, but Hunter Goodman is taking home the Rockies' 2025 Top Hitter honours. In what was a very disappointing season for the Rockies and their fans, Goodman was one of their bright spots as in his first full season in the big leagues at the catching position, the 25-year-old lead this offence the best he could. Leading the team with a 3.7 WAR, which was 2.5 points higher than any other Rockies hitter, with Ryan McMahon coming runner-up with 1.2 WAR (and who also didn't play the full season as he was dealt to the Yankees at the trade deadline). Goodman appeared in 144 games (either at the catching position or DH), had 540 at-bats, collecting 150 hits, with 28 doubles, 5 triples, 31 homeruns, driving in 91, and coming around to score 73 times himself. These numbers were so impressive that he was named to his first all-star game and even rewarded with the NL Silver Slugger Award at Catcher, so it would be kind of silly not to name him as their top hitter.
FINAL 2025 STATS:
WAR: 3.7
SLASH LINE: .278/.323/.520
H/AB: 150/540
HR: 31
RBI: 91
R: 73
Like the reliver pick, this too was a no-brainer. Goodman really stood out amongst the entire MLB, let alone the Rockies. I look forward to seeing how he follows this up in 2026. Congrats Hunter!
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR - RYAN RITTER
In a season in which 11 Rockies players made their MLB debut, it was middle-infielder Ryan Ritter who made the biggest impact when he got the call on June 6th. Enough to earn himself the Rockies' 2025 Rookie of the Year.
Despite only appearing in less than half a season's worth of games during his stint, Ritter definitely made a little noise for himself during that time. In the 60 games he played, he eared himself 187 at-bats in which he recorded a hit in 45 of them, with 9 of them being doubles, 3 triples, and 1 even being his 1st MLB homerun, he drive in 18 well coming in to score 22 times.
FINAL 2025 STATS:
WAR: 0.3
SLASH LINE: .241/.296/.337
H/AB: 45/187
HR: 1
RBI: 19
R: 22
So, although it was only a small sample size and nothing really jumped off the page stats-wise, he still finished with the highest WAR with 0.3 amongst the rest of the Rockies rookies who appeared, including some of their bigger named prospects like Chase Dollander, Zac Veen, and Warming Burnabel (who also put out a decent showing).
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