The Marquez Group
When I released my SP rankings yesterday, I was fairly certain that the German Marquez slotting would continue to garner attention. There were questions when I had him 34th back in February and after more research and shuffling, he actually dropped a spot to 35 on the March list. Part of me definitely finds it weird that I have to keep justifying my Marquez ranking while those with him in the Top 25 just skate by unchallenged. How is anyone comfortable ranking someone that high when they must contend with Coors Field for half their games?
Furthermore, are we just completely ignoring Marquez’s career before last summer now? He undoubtedly made improvements, namely the excellent curve and surge in fastball performance. But I’m just not sure that 113 excellent innings is enough to say he’s a completely new pitcher, especially with Coors lingering overhead. Let me be clear about one thing: I think German Marquez is a good pitcher. I don’t want my ranking to be seen as some indictment of him. I just don’t think he’s ready to be an unmitigated fantasy ace.
A couple months ago, I compared Marquez to his teammate Jon Gray, but let’s try this one on for size:
| Pitcher | GS | IP | ERA | WHIP | K% | BB% | HR9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher A | 22 | 141.7 | 2.54 | 0.99 | 31% | 6% | 0.76 |
| Marquez | 17 | 113 | 2.47 | 0.95 | 33% | 5% | 0.80 |
Since posting that line, Pitcher A has a 4.17 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 27% K, and 8% BB rate in 621 innings. Do you know who Pitcher A is yet?
Obviously, with the 621 innings it should be clear that he’s a veteran.
I’ll give you a moment to log your guesses.
Are you ready?
OK, here we go…
3…
2…
1.
Chris Archer just hasn’t been the same since that big run in 2015. In fact, his ERA has gotten progressively worse at 4.02, 4.07, and 4.31 the last three seasons. He posted a 4.61 in the final two months of that 2015 campaign. His big run didn’t propel him into the game’s next ace and he didn’t even have to contend with Coors Field. Although, he did have the AL East holding him back and unlike Marquez, he didn’t develop that go-to third pitch. He was still pretty much just fastball-slider, whereas Marquez added that a devastating curveball to his fastball-slider combo.
The 24-year old right-hander is a dynamic arm capable of missing plenty of bats and he may well even be ready for a next step, but I think he’s well-suited for the group he’s in on my rankings. Look at Marquez since 2017 with seven others ranked right around him, including Archer:
| Name | IP | ERA | WHIP | K% | BB% | SwStr% | HR/9 | FIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robbie Ray | 285.7 | 3.34 | 1.24 | 32% | 12% | 14% | 1.3 | 3.97 |
| Patrick Corbin | 389.7 | 3.58 | 1.23 | 26% | 7% | 13% | 1.0 | 3.25 |
| Luis Castillo | 259 | 3.89 | 1.17 | 25% | 8% | 13% | 1.4 | 4.12 |
| Eduardo Rodriguez | 267 | 4.01 | 1.27 | 26% | 8% | 11% | 1.2 | 3.81 |
| German Marquez | 358 | 4.05 | 1.28 | 25% | 7% | 11% | 1.2 | 3.86 |
| Chris Archer | 349.3 | 4.17 | 1.31 | 28% | 7% | 13% | 1.2 | 3.55 |
| Masahiro Tanaka | 334.3 | 4.28 | 1.19 | 26% | 6% | 15% | 1.6 | 4.19 |
| Jon Gray | 282.7 | 4.55 | 1.33 | 25% | 7% | 11% | 1.2 | 3.73 |
I don’t hate Marquez for fantasy baseball. I held on as long as I could in an NL-Only last year:
— Paul Sporer (@sporer) October 25, 2018
And even took him in my “Beat Paul Sporer” NFBC 12-teamer:
But planning for him to put up a Top 25 (or in some cases Top 20!) season is just too much. The strikeouts will give him some wiggle room on the ratios, but unless he repeats or improves his 3.77 ERA/1.20 WHIP combo, he won’t crack the Top 30. A couple busted starts in Coors and he’ll be staring down a 4.20 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. At that point, he’s basically 2017 Jose Quintana (4.15 ERA/1.22 WHIP, 26% K) with a few more strikeouts.
There are a whopping eight qualifying seasons (162+ IP) with a 3.77 ERA or better. Four are owned by two pitchers (Ubaldo Jimenez and Jhoulys Chacin), two others happened last year with Marquez and teammate Kyle Freeland, and the other two are from Joe Kennedy (3.66 in 162.3 IP) and Jorge de la Rosa (3.49 in 167.7 IP). So, Marquez is a longshot to even match his 2018, let alone improve upon it. And yet, he’s a Top 80 pick and Top 25 starter in March NFBC drafts? Good luck with that.
Throwing curveballs in the strike zone and getting 20% SwStk is a pretty sick pitch. I’m buying the hype. You don’t have to contend with the Coors air when you aren’t allowing it to be a factor.
I wonder if the curve in the zone against the slider moving through the zone is enough to combat Coors again?
I’m all in on Marquez (in my keeper league) because I resigned him for a $1.
Well ya, keeper situations are easy to be in on
Sounds like you’re $1 in on him, not “all in.”
Worth mentioning that most projection systems have him around a 3.80/1.25 with 9.8+ K/9. When rostering a Rockie SP, one strategy is to bench at home against top 10 or so offenses. This costs about 5-6 starts per year but decreases the odds of one of those blowup starts. You are still risking 10 or so Coors starts, but if Marquez were on another team, I’d probably start him when visiting Coors. I believe in the skills (but I am also hopeful Archer’s results to match his stellar peripherals this year).
So I’m happy to take the “avoid Rockies starters” discount because I think it’s an overreaction by the market to a risk that can be reduced by at least 50%, at the cost of 5-6 starts.
What discount? There is absolutely zero discount on Marquez. And I don’t think it’s mitigated just by sitting him for a select 5-6 outings. First off, you have to be perfect there, so I think it’s a bit pie in the sky. Most lgs are weekly moves, so what if one of them is a 2-start week where the other one is a trip to Miami?
Secondly, I’m not really eager to pay a top 80 pick for someone I have to curate, especially since it’s a guess anyway. I *might* get 160 IP of a low-3.00s if you start at something like 4.00 and shave the right innings, but what if you miss? What if you pick the wrong ones so you shave off 30 IP, but still get a high-3.00s/low-4.00s ERA?
A top 25 SP is supposed to be set it and forget. If I want 150 IP of great pitching, I’ll take the non-Buehler Dodgers SPs (and I am bc they’re cheaper).
You may not think he’s at a discount compared to where you value him. But don’t you think people know that Coors field is a thing? And they have it baked into their valuation?
I’m not here to defend him as a “top 25 SP”. My league rules aren’t standard 5×5, so I read these articles for player valuation and general baseball coverage. If your whole point is that you don’t think he’s worth what other people are paying, and that’s the only way to read these articles, that’s cool., I can find content elsewhere on the site I guess.
I don’t think Paul is expecting people to ONLY agree with his ranking, but he has a pretty good point…
When you draft a starting-pitcher at #20 or #25 or thereabought, it’s pretty well expected that you just drafted a guy who you can plug-in from Day 1. Not only at certain times or certain parks. A pitcher of that ranking shouldn’t require special treatment just to get solid value in return.
I think what you’re suggesting is a sound strategy, but an unnecessary practice for a SP that’s technically supposed to be projected as an ACE (if you believe the top-25 rank).
I disagree on all these assumptions, but it’s not super data informed. Are you and Paul looking at the typical ROI for a top 25 guy (“really good”) versus top 75 guy (“rosterable”)? Otherwise, it’s more of a psychological projection onto an ace that they should be plug-in from day 1.
My guess is that guys in the #8-25 range are generally not plug in and forget types, and should have much wider error bars on their ROI than Paul thinks.
There’s no comparison, he has by far the lowest xFIP for a starter at Coors in a season with 3.1. Closest is Jon Gray at 3.45 and 3.47. The only comparison is with relievers like Ottavino, Bethancourt, Belisle and Street, they all had multiple seasons around that xFIP and maintained a reasonable ERA. I know they’re relievers, it’s not the same but comparing Marquez to Jimenez who had an xFIP 15% higher isn’t right either.
The other advantage is once you project him for say a 3.90 ERA and 1.24 WHIP, I’ll take Marquez over any other pitcher with those projections. With a Coors pitcher, you have the advantage of knowing when he’s a 3.40 ERA pitcher and when he’s a 4.40 ERA pitcher.
No comparison w/0.30 difference of FIP? C’mon, that’s just not true.
And unless your league uses FIP, what advantage is there knowing that your pitcher should be better than the ERA he earned? That sounds awful. I’d rather get a 3.40 ERA from someone who deserved a 4.40 so I can win my league.
3.1 and 3.45 last season is the difference between Scherzer (3.06), Kluber (3.08), Severino (3.10), Bauer (3.14), Buehler (3.15) and Pivetta (3.41), Morton (3.42), Tanaka (3.42), Greinke (3.44), Lucchesi (3.45), Gray (3.47), McCuller (3.48).
I didn’t even have to pick and choose names to prove my point. Those are seriously all the names last season around 3.1 and 3.45.
Marquez isn’t one of those two pitch pitchers who constantly has an ERA above is xFIP. 3.1 xFIP vs 3.77 ERA is about standard for a Coors pitcher, he had a 2.95 ERA on the road.
You also mention Marquez’s career numbers but he was solid in the minors in 2014, 2015 and 2016 ( very similar to your man Taillon’s minor league numbers) then he had a below average rookie season but he adjusted and became a very good pitcher.
If you want to keep arguing about this I’ll be at the NFBC in NYC this week-end, I believe I heard you’ll be there as well
That does nothing to show that 0.30 xFIP is a major difference. And I can’t really think of a less important stat for Rockies pitchers than xFIP because the last thing Coors does is adhere to league averages.
That he needed a 2.95 road ERA just to post a 3.77 full ERA only furthers my point about not beating Coors.
He’s been a 3-pitch pitcher for half a season.
I don’t want to continue arguing about it at all because it’s the same with every Marquez truther: completely disregard anything he did before 2H 2018, pretend he’s the Chosen One to defeat Coors, and find different ways to repackage the 2H to say how good it was.
I have him 35th, so I clearly don’t hate him. But drafting him as a top 25 SP is just setting up for failure. It takes away the upside and means he *has* to perform to deliver.
If you think that .030 of batting average (a .250 hitter vs a .280 one) is important, so is 0.30 of xFIP
I don’t, really. It’s 18 hits over 600 AB, not some major skill difference. Mookie Betts hit .268 a couple yrs back. And I definitely don’t care at all about xFIP with Colorado pitchers.
> He’s been a 3-pitch pitcher for half a season.
So is Taillon, who you have about 20 spots higher. Same exact pitch mix before/after, too, with the slider added to a fastball and curve. Jameson was a 4.48 ERA pitcher over year and a half prior to adding the slider, so are you equally worried that he’ll have lost his feel for the new pitch and regress to his pre 2H 2018 levels?
Someone tried this same little sleight of hand on Twitter, too. Though it definitely says something about the strength of your argument when you quickly run to “well, what about THIS guy?”
But my interest in Taillon isn’t based solely on the 2H of 2018. Not even close, tbh. He has 429 IP of a 3.63 ERA, 3.53 FIP, and 1.26 WHIP and that includes 71 IP of a 5.96 ERA and 1.61 WHIP after returning from cancer. Meanwhile, he pitches in a park that has yielded a 3.80 ERA and 1.27 WHIP to starters since 2016.
On the other hand, Marquez has a 4.11 ERA, 3.88 FIP, and 1.30 WHIP in 379 PA and plays in a home that allows a cool 4.76 ERA/1.40 WHIP combo to starters in that same time.
So yes, I prefer the guy who has 358 IP of 3.17 ERA and 1.19 WHIP surrounding an ugly 71-inning sample (where 4 mega-duds really pushed his ERA, but count the whole… he’s still a better bet than Marquez) and plays in one of the friendliest home ballparks for pitchers in the league v. the guy who needed a historical sample to make his 4.81 ERA/1.45 WHIP combo palatable and plays in the most hitter friendly ballpark in the game’s history.
I think Marquez is better than the 4.81 guy prior to his 2018 2H, but assuming he just holds all the gains and pitches like that for a whole year is a bad bet and that’s essentially what you’re doing if you buy him as the 25th or earlier SP off the board and top 75 overall pick.
He’s a career 4.51 ERA at home with an 18% K-BB rate. He was at 4.74 in 2018 despite boosting it to 20%. That means he has virtually no margin for error on the road. I just don’t see it as a sensible risk that high. 35-50 picks later… sure, but the upside is drained at his current ADP short of him doing something that’s been done all of twice before in Colorado’s history (Ubaldo’s 2010-11).
I’m really surprised that I’m having to explain why I have reservations about taking a Colorado Rockies starter in top 75 picks in 2019.
I think I’m the guy from twitter you’re referring to, when I asked about the difference between your ranking of Marquez this year and Castillo last year. FWIW, I wasn’t attempting “sleight of hand.” I don’t even disagree with your stance on the risks about Marquez here. It was an actual question as to why one small sample was believable and one not. Not as a “got ya!” thing, but as a “trying to better understand what goes into your evaluations and decisions on guys with short track records of success?” thing. Or a “what factors should be taken into account when it comes to believing in one more than the other?” kind of thing. In hindsight I probably should have posed a longer, more clear question here rather than in the character-restricted venue that is twitter.
No, no, it wasn’t you with Castillo. It was someone on Twitter literally bringing up Taillon.
As I mentioned on Twitter re: Castillo, I’m learning from my overrating him after 89 IP and not making the same mistake again, espec. with a Coors-based SP
Perhaps if you examined your tone, you would understand why you’re getting such strong reactions.
> Someone tried this same little sleight of hand on Twitter, too. Though it definitely says something about the strength of your argument when you quickly run to “well, what about THIS guy?”
This isn’t sleight of hand. I have both of these guys in my dynasty league and I’ve been really surprised by the disparity I’ve seen in their rankings from not just you, but most experts I follow. I’m not saying I’d take Marquez over Taillon, and I don’t think the tone you’ve taken here is necessary given what I wrote.
> I think Marquez is better than the 4.81 guy prior to his 2018 2H, but assuming he just holds all the gains and pitches like that for a whole year is a bad bet and that’s essentially what you’re doing if you buy him as the 25th or earlier SP off the board and top 75 overall pick.
Well, here’s the thing. By ESPN’s player rater, Marquez’s FULL season, even with his disastrous first half, ranked him as the 26th best starter in baseball in standard leagues. Marquez doesn’t to hold all the gains from the second half to be a top 25 pitcher, he just needs to regress less than 50%.
Taillon’s full season, meanwhile ranked 21st. He pitched 139.1 of his 191 innings after adding the slider, so his full season essentially represents a 27% regression from his post-slider level.
I’m totally willing to accept that Marquez has a lower floor to regress to – my point is that the gap in the rankings that I see everywhere between Taillon and Marquez requires the expectation of a much higher *rate* of regression for Marquez. When someone like you puts Taillon at 12 and Marquez at 35, that tells me you expect far less than 27% regression from Taillon and far more than 50% regression from Marquez. That’s what confuses me. I know Marquez has a larger distance to fall, I want to know why the consensus is that he’s *more likely* to fall. My pet theory is that people are subconsciously double-counting the Coors effect, applying it to the likelihood of regression when it’s already factored into where he’d be regressing to and from.
+1 to this ‘pet theory’! In a vacuum, I rate them about equally (as real-life pitchers) based on their similar trajectories and improving repertoires. But I’d just put JT a few mere spots ahead in the rankings– like lower 20s as opposed to high 20s,– just based on the unpredictability of Coors (where a guy can still pitch well and end up with a horrid looking stat-line… merely from an unlucky BABIP avalanche)! In such a case as a snake draft, I would have to pick JT if it was my pick and both were available (agreeing with Paul’s annoyance at having to ‘curate’ a bit). The thing is, unlike Paul, and it seems with many other fantasy pundits, I rarely play in drafts, but usually get my players through auctions. Consequently I have more shares of Marq because he’s regularly more affordable and in Dynasty I do believe in the talent being here to stay.
A FIP league would be like torture when you have an entire pitching staff that’s been lucky all year…. think Lester last season’s 1H.
He would be one of the worst SP on the team.. yet lead the team?? Yuck
Paul, great stuff. You are preaching to the choir on this one I think and I will eat crow with you if he does out perform. I think history is a great indicator, unfortunate for Mr. Marquez. The data points you provided just nail that point home!
I’m going to use rough numbers but I totally agree on fading every pitcher who calls Coors home.
League average BABIP is around .300 and Coors is around .330.
You probably expect your non-Rockies to have variance between about .275 and .325 in most cases. Coors guys would then be between .305 and .355.
Why risk taking a pitcher when your best case home BABIP is worse than league average and the worst case is something that almost no pitchers can overcome. I think it makes way more sense to pass on the Coors guys even if you think they’re a little better than the guys around them based on pure skills.
I think perceptions around the value of ERA and WHIP might be contributing to the wide range of opinions on Marquez. ZiPS has him projected for a 3.82 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 9.8 K/9, and 15 wins over 190 IP. That, to me, looks very good but not spectacular. My gut says I wouldn’t want to spend a top 100 pick on that line.
It turns out that line would make him the 12th most valuable SP by an SGP ranking of ZiPS — ahead of guys like Thor, Bauer, and Strasburg — because 190 innings of an elite K rate, with an above-average win total, is super valuable.
Of course, I wouldn’t fault anyone for thinking he might not be able to live up to the projections. All I’m saying is he doesn’t need to completely defy the odds at Coors or replicate his second half to be worth a top 100 pick.
Exactly. If he hits that line, he is a top 50 pick. Honestly, I’d say higher depending on venue. For example a league with a cap on innings he should go top 40. I wouldn’t pay that much for him clearly, but I also don’t ever draft a pitcher until like round 8 except in NFBC 15 teamers.
I sort my pitchers two ways : K-BB%, and SwStrk. I will discount him a little bit base on Coors, but doing it that way is basically the way to see whose the best pitcher park neutral. I think Marquez is a true talent top 5 pitcher.
And the award for Most Recency Bias Ever Displayed goes to…..
My point is Marquez could be at another ballpark. Like a guy showed above, his projection is 12 overall pitcher. Doesn’t K rate stabilize relatively quickly? He struck out 12 batters per inning over the entire 2nd half of the season. I think that is his floor, which sounds crazy to say, as he was putting up Haderesque numbers late in the season, and is striking out everyone again this preseaseon.
So his FLOOR is to lead baseball in K rate? LOL, that’s hilarious.
12 per 9 wouldn’t lead the mlb in K’s since no way he gets enough h innnings
What? I said K rate…
I overstated. But I would be willing to bet he has over a 11 k per 9 if you’d like.
Ya no one doubts he can log the Ks. Calling 12.0… or 11.0… his floor is insane.
The thing is, your entire starting pitcher ranking is recency bias. Snell, Tailon, Bauer. All guys who have had basically one “great” year. Now Marquez comes out and puts up a pretty good year as well, and a second half that was downright dominant with a great minor record/prospect status as well.
When I look for breakouts, there is one thing I always overpay for. Guys who had good second halves who are going into their 3rd season. Think Snell/Tailon , Berrios, last year. Severino the year before. This year the guys include Marquez, Glasnow, Keller, Pivetta, (Heaney counting injury).
He put up a good 2nd half (he had a 5.53 ERA prior to his run) and plays in the worst pitcher’s park ever.
And lol at my entire list being recency bias… if that were true, I’d have Ryu & Miley top 20 and Severino off the list bc of their 2Hs… so that comparison doesn’t really track.
Paul:
Excellent write up. I applaud your willingness to respond so much to each and every comment. Must be super annoying to basically just to repeat what you wrote, but I am sure I am not the only reader who really, really likes to see the engagement with the readers. Thanks.
That Graph reminds me of Trevor Bauer. Dropped him mid summer a couple of years ago and he’s been on fire ever since.
Friends don’t let friends draft Rockies pitchers.
Someone else mentioned the projections for Marquez, which are all around 3.85/1.25 with lots of Ks. The default config for the auction calculator puts him as SP19 with the Depth Chart projections — a tad more optimistic even than just the top 25 SP.
So what do you think the projections missing? They know about park factors. They aren’t fooled by small sample sizes. What is special about Marquez that the algorithms don’t know about?
Half of his positive value is coming from projected wins. That’s very easy for a projection system to miss. Only winning 12 games instead of 14 would drop his mW value from 4.2 to 2.7. Missing two or three starts would have a substantial effect on his counting stats, whereas most other top 25 starters have the ratios to support one DL trip.
That’s a fair point. I find it much more persuasive than COORS! and SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!, which is what most of the other arguments boil down to.
If you take out wins and just go off ERA, WHIP, and SOs, Marquez is still SP25. If you factor out guys with significant playing time/injury concerns like Chris Paddack, Rich Hill, and Charlie Morton who are pretty safe bets to have fewer wins than Marquez, he’s SP22. Either way, it’s a far cry from SP35.
I’m with you here Paul. The Rockies defense isn’t going to do him any favors either, unless you think Desmond, at age 33, is going to step in a be an elite defensive CF. Dahl and Blackmon the corners are average at best. I’m not sure what to make of McMahon, though Arenado and Story are good. Bullpen looks shaky too, which means he might get left in longer than usual in some cases. You could get a good amount of 7 or 8IP 4-5ER ‘Good’ Coors starts from him.
I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I’m with Paul.
Paul, thanks for the article. Why then in looking at this list do have Raybat #33 on tour recent SP list. That’s your list, not ADP, why?
Hi Paul,
I read your articles and listen to the podcasts. Putting aside the friction in the comments, I am curious about the stats you look at when ranking pitchers? I suspect you weight certain ones more heavily than the commenters that are upsetting you. I’d like to know so I can properly evaluate your list.
Wow, I can’t believe the hate here. I still don’t see how he has shown in a sample size more than half a season that he is more talented than Jon Gray. And as a Gray owner last year, I can tell you how risky that is. Sure, he could be great, but the danger percentage is way higher than others because of Coors.
The thing is, Gray simply isn’t that good. He has been dominant at home but real lousy on the road. That’s the sign of a not good pitcher getting lucky. Last year was the culmination of his luck running out.
Comparing Gray to Marquez is as lazy as comparing every short middle infielder to Jose Altuve.
This is a brutal take.
Career home: 18% K-BB, 4.64 ERA, 3.59 FIP; Road: 17% K-BB, 4.66 ERA, 3.76 FIP … really not different.
Pretending they are SO different bc of a half season from Marquez is silly – https://goo.gl/x6GX9L
Not a brutal take. Gray was abysmal in his first season at Coors (8.27 era) with a dominant road figure (2.70). But since has been .6, .83, and .43 better at home than on the road. I’ve gotta say, and I’m sure everyone will agree, that a ballooned figure in his first season holds much less weight than 3 straight (most recent) seasons.
Ya you said he’s been dominant at home and lousy on the road… that’s a brutally wrong take.
“A 4.32 career road ERA has been more of an issue than Coors espec. after a skills-supported 3.13 home ERA in ’17.”
I suppose Gray hasn’t been “dominant”, but the fact remains he’s been significantly better at home than on the road (with the exception of his 40 rookie innings). The point remains the same though. Gray simply isn’t a good pitcher and comparing him and Marquez because they pitch in the same park is like comparing all short middle infielders to Jose Altuve.
We’ve taken a half season worth of data from a lot of players (including young pitchers, i.e., buehler) and ran with it, so using that as an argument now simply doesn’t work.
Hey Paul, this probably isn’t the right place to ask, but I wasn’t sure how to message you on here. Have you considered doing a overall rankings for the upcoming fantasy season (like a top 250 players type thing), in addition to the positional rankings you’ve already made? Or would ranking every player be too difficult and situational to make use of? Just wondering!
There is a problem with your final article, and much of the premise here. The idea is that because it hasn’t happened, it won’t happen. You cite some examples (Jimenez, Chacin, etc), but fail to acknowledge the fact that those examples simply were not good pitchers (Jimenez’s best two seasons occurred in Colorado, for example). The fact is, that any example of Rockie pitcher you provide simply were not good (find me a pitcher that left Colorado and did much of anything during his career or was something special before arriving in Colorado).
The same is not true about Marquez. While we would be foolish to see Marquez as owning low 3s era at Coors, something in the high 3s is not unreasonable. What he can do on the road, is the big question. If you think he is capable of dominating (high 2s), then he’s easily a top 25 pitcher (season line – 3.30 with 28% k). However, if you think he’s comparable to Jon Gray, Ubaldo Jimenez, or Chris Archer, than he’s outside the top 50.
The fact is, he has no contemporaries. Your play index shows the gap between Marquez and the rest with a 5% k rate difference. Has that ever occurred in Colorado? Even the oft-compared Gray maxed out at 26% (also, has a higher road ERA for his career than at home, never posted a line under 4.06 – something you obviously know Marquez is capable of besting).