There’s no secret to the fact that the Rockies enter the 2023 trade deadline in position to be sellers. General manager Bill Schmidt already told Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post last week that he’s received particularly high levels of interest in his veteran relievers. Within that same interview, Schmidt noted that he’d entertain offers on position players, but it would take a “legitimate” offer on someone like catcher Elias Diaz, who’s signed through the 2024 season, for the Rox to consider such a move.
It’s understandable for any baseball operations leader to take that stance. Any general manager or president of baseball ops is going to insist on a quality return — particularly for a player with multiple seasons of affordable control — unless ownership is simply mandating that they slash payroll. That’s clearly not the case in Colorado, where owner Dick Monfort annually broadcasts optimism about his team’s chances and is generally willing to spend (to varying extents) in free agency and via extensions for in-house players.
Diaz, 32, is a first-time All-Star this season, thanks largely to a .277/.328/.435 batting line. He’s smacked nine homers and added 15 doubles and a triple while walking at a 7.2% clip against a 21.3% strikeout rate. It’s not exactly elite production; wRC+ pegs him nine percent below average after weighting for his home park, and OPS+ has him four percent below average. However, relative to other catchers throughout the league, Diaz has been quite productive. The average catcher in 2023 is hitting .233/.300/.384. Even when adjusting for home park and league run-scoring environment, catchers have rated 13% worse than average at the plate, by measure of wRC+. In that regard, Diaz has been an above-average hitter relative to his position.
Of course, that’s just one season. Diaz’s offense has been a roller coaster throughout his career, peaking with a .286/.339/.452 slash (114 wRC+) in a much more pitcher-friendly Pittsburgh setting back in 2018 but at times bottoming out as it did just last year, when he hit .228/.281/.368 despite playing half his games at Coors Field. He’s had some good fortune on balls in play this year, with a .327 BABIP that’s about 50 points higher than the career .274 mark he carried into the season. There’s no major uptick in quality of contact that’s driven that change, either; Diaz averaged 88.4 mph off the bat in 2022 with a 39.3% hard-hit rate and is at 88.3 mph and 40.1% in those respective areas this year. It’s possible his bat will take a step back in the season’s second half, although even if it does, it shouldn’t wilt to last year’s surprisingly anemic levels.
Defensively, Diaz is a bit of a mixed bag. Framing metrics have universally panned Diaz’s work over the past two seasons, but he was above-average as recently as 2021. In terms of pitch blocking and throwing, Diaz is one of the game’s best. Dating back to 2021, he ranks eighth among all big league catchers in Statcast’s new Blocks Above Average metric, trailing only a handful of elite defenders (Austin Hedges, Sean Murphy, Jose Trevino, Jacob Stallings, J.T. Realmuto, Yan Gomes, Adley Rutschman).
It’s a similar story with Diaz’s throwing; he regularly boasts better-than-average pop times, and as recently as 2021 he paced the NL with a gaudy 42% caught-stealing rate. He’s at 29% this year, which is far better than it would’ve sounded in previous years, as the new rule changes in 2023 have contributed to a league-wide drop in caught-stealing numbers. The league average typically sat around 25% in seasons past, but it’s down to 20% this year. Statcast pegs Diaz as third-best in MLB with its Caught-Stealing Above Average metric (which strives to gauge throws on a case-by-case basis rather than treating all stolen base scenarios as equal).
There’s also Diaz’s contract to consider. He signed a three-year, $14.5MM extension with the Rockies a couple years ago, buying out his final arbitration season and first two free-agent years. He’s in the second year of that contract right now, earning a reasonable $5.5MM salary with a $6MM salary owed to him in 2024. It’s an affordable enough contract that any club could stomach it.
Relative to open-market prices, Diaz’s annual salary lines up with the type of money that steady mid-30s veterans or younger bounceback options might typically find. For context, Omar Narvaez signed a two-year, $15MM contract with an opt-out/player option this offseason despite having a down year in 2022. Mike Zunino signed a one-year, $6MM deal while seeking a rebound in Cleveland. The previously mentioned Hedges commanded a $5MM guarantee due solely to his defense. Diaz may not be an unmitigated bargain, but he’s at the very least a fairly priced backup — arguably one with some surplus value on his deal.
In general, it’s been a poor year for catchers throughout the league. Only 11 teams have received a wRC+ mark better than Diaz’s 91 from their catchers in 2023. Contenders and playoff hopefuls like the Rays, Astros, Reds, Marlins, Padres and Guardians have all received awful offensive production behind the plate. Speculatively speaking, Diaz could make sense for any of the bunch. That doesn’t mean they’ll all have interest, of course, but there ought to be a market for the veteran.
The Rockies, meanwhile, once again find themselves without a viable path to the postseason. Schmidt has voiced an understandable desire to add pitching to his system, and it stands to reason that there are clubs who might be willing to part with some arms in order to pry loose a catcher who could help not just for the current postseason push but also solidify the position next year. Colorado’s top catching prospect, Drew Romo, isn’t having a particularly strong season in Double-A this year but could conceivably be up in 2024 nonetheless. In the meantime, there’s little harm for a last-place club to let a journeyman like current backup Austin Wynns soak up the majority of starts in the season’s final couple months. He’s a sound defender who posted decent offensive production as recently as 2022. As far as 2024 is concerned, the Rox could always sign a veteran to a one-year deal this winter if need be.
Schmidt has pushed back against the notion of tearing everything down and trotting a Triple-A team out, citing the game’s integrity. That’s a commendable tack, and it provides some context for the type of offers he’d need to part with Diaz and other veterans. Diaz won’t simply be given away for the best offer, nor should he. It also bears pointing out that midseason trades of catchers can be difficult to pull off; acquiring a backstop in the midst of a playoff push and asking him to learn a new pitching staff on the fly is no easy task.
If no serious offers present themselves for Diaz, so be it. The Rockies can always listen in the offseason or hope for better results on a team scale in 2024. However, the Rox also have a history of hanging onto players who appear to be obvious trade candidates, either extending them (e.g Daniel Bard, C.J. Cron, arguably Diaz himself) or simply letting them walk in free agency (e.g Jon Gray, Trevor Story). Schmidt contended to Saunders that he simply didn’t receive “legitimate” offers for players like Gray and Story, and that’s certainly possible. Story, in particular, at least netted the Rox a draft pick after rejecting a qualifying offer.
Diaz won’t be a QO candidate post-’24, however, and his trade value is very arguably at its apex. He’s a first-time All-Star with strong throwing/blocking skills, enough offense for his position and an affordable contract. This summer is the best time to extract a quality return for him. Colorado shouldn’t simply trade him for a handful of magic beans, but setting too high an asking price and holding onto him runs the risk of again losing a quality player for little to no return at a time when the organization as a whole is hungry for quality minor league talent.
Move him out of Colorado and he doesn’t hit .235!
The home versus away stats are as far from each other as the East is from the West. Or Colorado versus the other 29 MLB cities.
Decent on defense and has a 96 OPS+ (almost average) which is rare for how shallow C depth is these days. Not an upgrade on every team, but could be on most teams, if not a nice depth piece – the trend at catcher with more of a 60/40 split behind the plate.
We won’t trade him this year if even next year. I say we because there is not many of us who have been true supporters the last 30 years. Having 9 winning records in 30 years with no division title is tough to stomach. I will always root for them no matter what but a change in ownership with bigger pockets seems like the best for everyone.
Change in ownership doesn’t always help. – signed a sad but loyal Royals fan
I remember my wife and I attended an Oriole- Pirates spring training game in March of 2017. We were surrounded by old Pittsburgh Pirate fans who had come on down for spring training and they all spoke so highly of and the great expectations that Elias Diaz would fulfill and I was sitting there quietly thinking, ” Whaaaaatttt????”. Rockies should definitely trade Elias Diaz while he is riding high.
Kind of surprised not to see a, “Rockies will instead extend him for 7 years and $105 million dollars.” comment yet.
That’s a lot closer to reality. I honestly don’t see them trading him. Logic does not apply when we’re talking about the COL front office.
You know who else doesn’t hit in Hartford? Like 98% of prospects to ever be in the Rockies system.
“The Rockies Should Make Their Team Available At The Trade Deadline”
Fixed.
You can’t really simply adjust for park in that way. The more telling stat is his 633 OPS on the road. I know it’s difficult to adjust after playing home games at Coors but the truth probably lays somewhere between the WRC+ and those road stats
You’re overrating Diaz.
1-While I don’t completely buy the Mile High hype, his road OPS is still only .633.
2-His current year BABIP is .327 against a career .282. If his OPS regresses to the .282, then the current year .763 probably regresses to ~ .673.
3-His OPS is .576 over his last 36 games.
4-His career bWAR prior to 2023 was only 3.0.
5-In terms of fWAR, at a minimum of 100 PAs, he is #28 in baseball.
He’s not bad, but hardly a big trade target.
He’s not bad but considering he’s the teams catcher and he’s not likely to bring a big prospect you may wanna keep him. Dont know how much he helps the pitchers but his value there may be better than the trade value (and hes controllable for another season). Then again he might have less value next year.
It don’t matter. The Rox won’t trade him no matter how decent the offer.
True. & to be honest I think the return on Diaz is going to be minimal. If they like the rapport he has with their pitchers—-he might just be a hold. They don’t have a replacement who is big league caliber. Pretty tough to develop pitchers without a good receiver to throw to. I mean they aren’t doing much well pitching in Colorado now but Diaz is a fine C. The rest of the ML team should be open season aside from the young guys. Colorado has some good looking minor leaguers if they can keep adding to that base.
& get out of their own way with the stupid contracts.
He’s at peak value, I’d say trade him now, get some pitching prospects and carry Austin Wynns until Romo is ready.
There is also Brian Serven available. Again, not a great option but he is there.
With the shortage of decent, not even All-Star level catchers available, it is understandable that they don’t want to trade him. As to the framing garbage, since it can’t be a flawed “stat”, it must be that he has forgotten how to catch. Framing is just like the new way of evaluating throwing out base stealers. It “strives” to provide a more accurate measurement. Let me know when it successfully does so. Sure sounds like a lot of subjectivity is currently in the formula. Until then, don’t bother me with it.
The pitch framing stat is for the delusional fan who truly believes that major league umpires are highly susceptible to being fooled by catchers. I guarantee that every single fan who believes in that stat has never umpired.
I use to do that maybe 50 years ago. You can’t steal a strike for a pitch 3 inches outside the zone, but you can certainly steal a half-inch or so.
To say you cannot steal a strike is probably worse than saying you cannot steal a charging in b-ball. 100% of all umps will make mistakes on close calls.
Found the dude that umpires.
Didn’t know umpiring came with a horse, and a high one at that
Who wants to walk with Elias?
It is easy to mix up the names of Elias Diaz and Alexis Diaz, so therefore the Reds should trade for him to complete the battery of confusion.
Not unless he can pitch.
I can’t see Houston trading for him. Dusty’s fascination with Maldonado is borderline insane. Yainer Diaz should be starting at C. Their upgrade is already on the roster.
Maldy had a couple nice HR’s against the Mariners. Baseball is weird sometimes.
It’s hard for a catcher to switch teams in middle of season. His hitting away from Coors is already bad and considering how much effort would go into learning the pitchers his hitting could crater. More of a focus on defense than hitting in that situation, as far as preparation goes. That’s one reason why catchers don’t hit as well.Not to mention the wear obviously
Diaz is simply more valuable to the Rockies than to just about anyone else. Trading him for anything less than a 2-3 prospect package would be foolish. You are not just trading your catcher, you are trading the leader of your pitching staff.
The Rockies will be trading most of their bullpen and virtually all of their vet starters are hurt. Therefore there will be a lot of young pitchers on the roster in the second half. A vet catcher like Diaz could be the difference between mining a few gems out of those young guys or starting over completely in 2024.
All you have to do is look how far the Cardinals rotation fell once you removed Molina from the equation. Now I am not saying Diaz is as good as peak Molina, but he is definitely right up there with the Molina of the past few years.
You are not just trading your catcher, you are trading the leader of your pitching staff.
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CO is 28th in ERA+. Either there is less “leading” going on, or the staff is so bad that leadership is not required. And, Wynns has a better ERAa and OPSa than Diaz.
Check out the injured list and you will figure out why the staff is so bad. When 4 of your 5 tops starters are hurt, it ain’t gonna be a good year for you. Doesn’t matter what team it is.
The Rockies should do a lot of things they aren’t going to do.
the last several years they’ve been in a great position to sell players on expiring deals and they never do. legitimately one of the worst run organizations in sports, which people will likely be reminded of again post trade deadline
And Kris Bryant chose this…well the money is good and the club has less of a city spotlight. He’s got his ring.
I don’t get it. For me, money counts, but I still wouldn’t put myself in a miserable position just to earn an extra 10%. He will make ~$245M for his career. If he took 20% less on this contract to play for an annual contender, his career totals would be maybe $210M. It’s a lot of money, but you are unlikely to spend it all for many generations.
I’d have taken less to play for a good team.
They’d also get postseason share and likely more endorsement opportunities on a good team.
. He got a full NTC to keep himself in control. That may have been the biggest bonus, even more so than the cash. He may like the Denver area plus the cash and control of where he gets to spend his life.
You’d have to know the terms of the other offers and what’s most important to the individual. But I’m with you. I’d take a little less with those kind of earnings to be happy. Maybe this works for him though.
A good article from theAthletic—
theathletic.com/3208509/2022/03/24/feeling-settled…
I would think most catcher needy teams would want Bart over Diaz.
Only the ones that have never watched them play.
Marlins
Hunter Goodman should be the Rox catcher of the future.
The Rockies need to trade their entire Front Office.
Yes, 7 years at $182 million for Kris Bryant on March 18 (late in free agency) …. who were they bidding against ? He is a quality major league but not a perennial All-Star with one super tool (power or average, for example).
Not trading Trevor Story and getting *something* for him other than the draft choice. Or just simply giving him the contract he got from Boston, which is less than Bryant’s.
Sell high on Diaz, but you never know with Rockies, the poorest managed team in NL. Monfort needs to hire an outsider as a replacement for Kelly McGregor or better yet, sell the team.
Sell high on Diaz, but you never know with Rockies, the poorest managed team in NL. Monfort needs to hire an outsider as a replacement for Kelly McGregor or better yet, sell the team
Welp…price just went up.
I know the all-star game is basically a meaningless exhibition game, but I am super proud to see Elias win the all star game mvp, not only did he help the nl win for the first time in years and give the nl home field advantage in the world series, but as a 32 year old first time all star that has to be an amazing feat for him. That being said, if the Rockies do trade him does anyone think that his price tag at least some what got a little higher due to him winning the all star game mvp? I could see the Rockies asking for whatever the original asking price for him was plus maybe a lower tier l, wild card prospect. Any insight that the Rockies might use this as extra leverage? Seems possible but I don’t know.
Good for Díaz as you wrote but no more home field advantage in the World Series for the All-Star Game winner. The MLBPA (Players’ Association) negotiated that out as the players did not like it.
Thank you for correcting me I didn’t know that. I do my best to keep up with most things baseball but that went right past me.
Dang where have I been? They stopped doing that in 2017. I feel very dumb right now. Thanks again for correcting me because now I know and have even read up on it some.
So you think the Rox are going to bring in a haul for a 32 year old catcher whose numbers decline away from Coors Field? He has value, but he’s not gonna bring in a big haul, but for some team being very desperate for catchers and not negotiating at all.
EVERYONE’S numbers decline away from Coors Field. That is what makes it the best hitters park.
Have you looked at his? He’s not going to bring in much, except for a contender who is completely out of catchers. It’s a pipe dream. And the fact that his numbers decline away from Coors is exactly my point. His offense is a creation of the ballpark, by and large.
Learn how to use commas, Steve. “Either” should not have one before it. Plus, “meanwhile” belongs at the start of the sentence, not in the middle of it, set off by commas.
It’s silly to talk about Diaz as bringing anything of value to the Rockies in a trade discussion. We know he is a journeyman who got appointed to the all-star team this year because the Rockies had to have someone go, and so he was picked, not because he is a diamond in the rough, but because he is performing adequately in his position, unlike the rest of the team. Who else would they send?