The Rockies look to be one of the prime sellers at this year’s trade deadline, though it doesn’t seem like the club will be swinging any deals soon. According to The Athletic’s Nick Groke, the Rox have told other teams that they won’t be participating in trade negotiations about any player “at least until play resumes after the All-Star break.”
The club has two priorities in the near future — the amateur draft that runs from July 11-13, and then the All-Star Game itself in Denver in six days’ time. Several other executives around the league have observed that the later date for the draft (usually held in early June) has thrown a wrench into trade discussions for many clubs, as many front offices don’t expect to fully turn their attention to upgrading the big league roster until the draft is complete.
For Rockies interim GM Bill Schmidt, he previously served as the team’s VP of scouting and has been running Colorado’s drafts since 2000, so it makes some sense that he would remain particularly focused on that aspect of the job. The Rockies have the eighth overall pick in this year’s draft, which gains increased import considering that the team definitely needs premium minor league talent to aid a rebuild that may be coming sooner rather than later.
This being said, however, it seems frankly bizarre that the Rockies are seemingly willing to entirely cease trade talks for such an extended amount of time, especially during what seems like such a critical juncture point for the organization’s future. Ten days can be an eternity during deadline season, and the market could shift dramatically due to several factors (injuries, a team getting hot and deciding to buy, a team deciding to sell after a losing streak, etc.) that can emerge quickly.
It stands to reason that some teams have already been in touch about what it might take to acquire Trevor Story, Jon Gray, or other trade chips, but those potential offers on the table could evaporate quickly, so the Rockies could be costing themselves by not engaging in talks for over a week. Considering that the likes of Story, Gray, and Mychal Givens are all free agents after the season, the argument can be made that the Rockies should look to move these players sooner rather than later, in order to maximize their return from a team eager to have these players on their roster for an additional amount of time.
Part of the issue could be that Colorado’s front office is simply understaffed. “Sources from two opposing front offices said their teams don’t know exactly whom to contact when they want to reach the Rockies about trades,” Groke writes. Assistant GMs Jon Weil and Zach Wilson have both resigned in the two-plus months since Jeff Bridich was removed as the team’s general manager, which elevated Schmidt into the interim role. As Groke has reported, the Rockies spread the duties of departed employees around to current staffers, rather than hire any new people into the organization.
Must be rough to be the Rockies knowing they have 2 huge trade chips and basically are keeping another (Marquez) supposedly….The 2 being Story/Gray. Then there’s Givens who should get them something decent.
Who gives a flyingtrollstevenebraska about this crap
Well, you took time to respond. So i guess you do.
You should beg to be different. Because what you are now is crapola
0-2
Rockies being the Rockies. Hopefully they outsmart themselves and end up getting no one useful for Story et al.
Multi-tasking and delegating is a thing… only outside of Colorado apparently.
Thatt’s because the entire front office is blazed up morning, noon & night. “Dude, when is the trade deadline again?” What a bunch of maroons. Ahahahaha!
A damn bundle of burgundies!
These players are “wasting assets” that decline in value the longer they remain with the Rockies. Fortunately for Colorado, there is a “terminal value” on Story (comp pick) and possibly with Gray as well. I wonder if this is a sign that offers are coming in lower than expected, at least in the “early” stages of deadline trades.
Unfortunately for them, the longer they hold onto their “rental” type players, the lower the return will be. Most teams aren’t crazy overpaying for pure rentals anymore, unless it’s for an unreal talent (say a Scherzer type/bonafide ace).. and even then, the lack of long term control seriously hampers the return. This isn’t like 2016, when you had 2 clubs looking like clear favorites and it had been 50+ years since either had won anything… that was the perfect storm to sell in.
The longer they hold, the more desperate the buyers become.
Or the less teams become interested as they have addressed their needs with teams that are still open for business. The longer a team can get a player for, the more they pay. Every less start a new team gets from their rental starter will affect the price. For example, if the Rockies are intent on trading Gray, they really should trade him sooner than later. There are other rental-type starters that will be available that will be moved before the Rockies decide they will do business again. This will mean less teams competing for one player, which also helps drive the price up… and no team is going to try to outbid themselves (unless you’re the Orioles and Chris Davis is a FA lol). I can understand Story (representing the Rockies in the HRD) and if they were going to seriously entertain moving Marquez (your team’s only All Star), but everyone else that they could move they should be open to discussing right now.
stymeedone
The longer they hold, the more desperate the buyers become.
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Not really. This is almost always a proportionate response. If four teams want shortstops, and four shortstops are available, you cannot gain leverage. Three SS’s could be traded, and there would only be one left. But by the calculus, there would only be one team for you to trade to.
And CO retains the injury risk. Every year, a trade gets injured in July. Time is not your friend. If Cincy decides to go all-in, and Story is unavailable, then maybe they turn to Baez, Iglesias, Swanson, etc.
FWIW, I said this last year about the RS. Some fans questioned why we didn’t wait until the deadline to trade Workman/Hembree. The performance risk was real, and the package being offered was really good. As soon as you get a package you like, you go for it.
Don’t listen to stymeedone. He once posted this comment.
“You do what you want, but I will still use Wins in my evaluation of starters. It indicates the ability to pitch effectively for more than 5 innings, and be better than your counterpart. A regular 15 game winner is worth more than a 3.00 fip.”
Well, number one he’s correct, and number two……….
YOU KEEP HIS POST!!!!!!
Picture, something wrong with
He’s not correct. You can pitch better than your counterpart and still not get the W. Bullpens and errors are a thing.
1. Bullpens are less of a thing if you go deep into games
2. Errors aren’t THAT MUCH of a thing, to appreciably alter a guy’s win total more than once or twice a season, I would think. IF more often, smart team will do something about that.
3. Smart teams do things like signing Rafael Belliard & Terry Pendleton for pittances in off seasons, rather than shelling out for the latest k-happy slugger.
1. Wins don’t measure whether or not you go deep into a game, you only need to go 5 innings, so I don’t understand why you’d think that’s a valid argument.
2. Altering a win total once or twice a season, when guys are winning 15ish games is a non-negligible change.
3. I don’t know WTF you’re on about. Terry Pendelton is 60 though, not sure smart teams should be signing 60 year olds.
omigosh dude, it’s not gonna happen every season, (2)
if you only go five, you won’t rack up wins (1)
and (3) I suppose your reply is slightly amusing, but not really en pointe, you know?
For Story- the return can never be lower than the value of roughly pick 30. So that has to be a good return regardless of him being a rental. There’s lots of quality players that come out of comp round 1.
So if u want story than it’s a fringe top 100 prospect plus 2 more players of less value. A team like Boston should be able to pick him up for the likes of jeter downs +2 lotto tickets
Are the Rockies covering his salary? People constantly fail to factor this in. Yeah, you can offer him the QO and he will reject it, giving you the comp pick, but you’re also paying his salary the rest of the year. For some owners, I think that’s definitely a consideration. So it’d be value of comp pick – remainder of contract.
I think Jeter Downs is probably better than a fringe 100 prospect.
Again, another stupid move by the Rockies owners and front office. But at least this time, I can see the logic of “we are focussing on hosting the all-star game” excuse, that kinda makes sense or I can see it. It’s still not forward-thinking enough and just plain very silly of them not to be selling as high as possible as they can on any of their go-nowhere roster by selling as soon as possible. To that end, they should be at minimum taking calls on players, this ridiculous “closed for business” idea is incredibly arrogant and uppity. You are the Rockies, your franchise is one of the least-relevant in MLB history. You aren’t some high and mighty entity.
It’s all about the optics in this case. Story’s representing them in the HR Derby, Marquez their lone representative (I doubt they’d keep him if presented with a truly fair offer). As for Gray, he won’t bring back all that much and his value should remain steady, barring injuries, for another week or two. This is the first FO move from them that makes sense.
Nobody is ever gonna take this team seriously until they have a new owner. They’re such an embarrassment.
This is probably the poorest run organization in baseball. I am from St Louis I live here. People don’t care much about baseball but they like to go out. And there are a LOT of people here. The team could be doing well if it was run properly.
Just the latest example of the worst run team in the league…just being themselves
This is what happens when you lose your entire analytics department. You can’t do more than one thing at a time.
I agree that it’s likely a staffing issue. They can’t handle the draft and multiple trade negotiations. It’s also possible it’s a negotiating tactic. Many major deals don’t happen until much closer to the deadline, which acts as a forcing event. The All-Star break, however, is also a time when many negotiations gain traction.
At this point, if they don’t have their draft strategy laid out, they’re the Colorado Rockies.
Obviously they’re too busy watching “America Had Talent” or ‘American Idle”.
I mean, I get that they don’t want to move Story or Marquez for reasons mentioned until after the break. But to come out and declare it publicly, like it’s some kind of mission statement. SMH big time.
The Rockies are likely short staffed and everybody expected that to be the case. The front office has chosen to focus efforts on the draft which seems totally reasonable to me and I feel like it should seem totally reasonable to anybody else who follows baseball operations. I’m not sure where the “ten days” line comes from since the draft starts in 4 days and the All Star Game is in 6 days, but I could have missed something in the article.
At this point, it really kind of seems like MLBTR writers have a personal agenda in bashing the Rockies organization to me.
The trades which mean anything don’t normally take place until after the ASG anyway. So much of the rumors are all about teams posturing until the deadline starts looming really close as division favorites are waiting to see what the other teams in their division are going to do and teams who are chasing want to make sure they don’t have a bad slide and invest to quickly.
The Rockies have well documented issues. Making the call to focus on the draft instead of “tire kickers” and “window shoppers” so they can do what they need to do is the mark of good management since there’s an obvious priority difference between operational goals due in 4 days than the end of the month.
The Rockies are a joke there is no agenda. Only issue with that stuff is Cubs related things and they do pretty good to stay unbiased.
I’m certainly not going to disagree with the argument the Rockies have been poorly run and had too much micromanagement from the Monforts.
Deciding the current interim GM or front office management has no agenda when they’re making clear decisions and providing rationale for those decisions is hard to support in my opinion.
The Rockies are in a real rough spot. A relatively small market, a very tough division and a ball park which plays a little differently than almost any other park in MLB. I don’t know what the future holds for the team, but the right GM with the right leadership skills could potentially turn things around for that franchise. No idea if Schmidt is that person, but it’s good for everybody he’s making it clear what the Rockies are doing. It’s going to take a assertive voice, bold decisions and a bit of luck to garner respect and confidence from players all the way to ownership. So far… so good.
I think he means there is no agenda from the writers at MLBTR
They knew they were hosting the All Star Game months ago. They knew the date of the trade deadline months ago. They couldn’t hire a couple extra people in that time to help lessen the load?
Most unprofessional organization in pro sports, the owners view it as a family legacy rather rather than a business
It is an utter admission of failure. I don’t even know if the RS need anything right now. But if someone calls up with a sweetheart deal, because they are under/overestimating the players involved, I am certainly hoping Bloom can take an hour out of his schedule to make the trade happen.
This just reeks of them being overwhelmed. As someone else mentioned, you should have 98% of your board already laid out, tweaking as new information becomes available. Barring unusual circumstances, you shouldn’t be switching players from #16 to #8 and vice-versa.
How mad would/will be Story or Gray be if they passed over to play for a contender this season because their organization couldn’t get their stuff together?
I actually wonder if they’re going to end up not being able to move Story because of the lack of suitors with a SS need. I think there are teams that may want him just for his bat even when they don’t specifically need a shortstop, but in that instance you can also get like Schoop, Frazier, or Escobar to play 2nd or 3rd and they’re all owed way less money than Story.
Not even beginning the negotiations until after the break really puts them at a disadvantage when the market already looks like the demand for him is going to be limited.
That’s a real possibility. The number of contending teams that need a SS, and can afford Story are really quite limited. While anything can be arranged by CO picking up most of Story’s salary, I’d say the the RS, TB, NYY, TO, WS, Hou, Oak, NYM, Philly, Atl, Nats, Mil, Cubs, LAD, SDP and SF are all out.
Story would be an improvement for a lot of those teams, but they likely would have no interest in giving up prospects for the upgrade at SS. I’d say the Reds for sure, and maybe the Cards or LAA, but those teams would have to convince themselves that they are contenders, AND that they need Story more than pitching.
Montfort might not be receiving all that many calls. A month from now, you might be hearing ‘we kept Story in the best interest of the fans’.
Crapola
The Rockies are so loaded at almost every position so what’s the rush? Might as well take their sweet time and let the possibility of some real beneficial offers go by the wayside. Who really cares if other teams fill their needs elsewhere by then anyways? Monfort has them winning 102 games and the NL pennant next year so their set
Rockies will screw this up. They should seek advice from Al Avila of the Tigers who received bupkus for All Stars JD Martinez & Nick Castellanos and got average mlb contributors for HOF Cy Young winner JV. Whatever Al Avila’s says, do the opposite!!
You never mention the guy they are probably calling about most.. Kyle Freeland .. last 17IP, 1R, 17K.. solid last year.. 4th cy young in ‘18 LH and 2 years of control !
It’s amazing how dumb this front office is
Big Ole Do Not Disturb sign up for the worst team in the league 3 weeks before the deadline.
You can talk and just not complete any trades till July 17… man they’re dumb. Maybe losing multiple FO executives and not replacing anyone was a bad idea..
The Rockies, having spread the duties of departed employees around to current staffers, are counting on last years top beer salesman, Timmy, to pull off that mega deal to change the direction of the franchise.
For the next couple of weeks, Mr. Monfort is going to be too busy feverishly crunching data from his beloved top-secret Interpolater machine, to consider any new trade proposals. Then, naturally, he’ll also need to consult his Ouija Board before making any final decisions. Give the man the time he needs to get all his stuff figured out.
After that, he’ll probably need a nice long rest. Presumably someplace quiet and secluded, with around the clock monitoring.
Rockies probably won’t trade with LAD, SF, or SD either, so that limits their market too.
I guess the Cubs have Javi Baez available for teams interested in SS.