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Rockies Place Tyler Chatwood On 15-Day DL

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The Rockies have placed right-hander Tyler Chatwood on the 15-day disabled list with a mid-back strain, the team announced.  Eddie Butler is slated to replace Chatwood in Colorado’s rotation, while righty Scott Oberg was called up from Triple-A to add some bullpen depth in a corresponding move to the DL placement.

[Related: Updated Colorado Rockies Depth Chart]

Chatwood suffered back spasms during his start yesterday and was forced to leave the game in the second inning.  Rockies manager Walt Weiss told reporters (including MLB.com’s Thomas Harding) that he hopes Chatwood will only miss the minimum 15 days, though he noted that “with a pitcher you’ve got to build them back up a little bit.”  Some particular care could be necessary with Chatwood, who missed all of 2015 recovering from his second career Tommy John surgery.

Thus far, Chatwood’s return has gone very well.  The righty has posted a 3.15 ERA over 82 2/3 innings this season, emerging as the ace of Colorado’s rotation.  Advanced metrics (3.90 FIP, 4.20 xFIP, 4.42 SIERA) haven’t been as impressed with Chatwood, no doubt due to his good fortune with BABIP (.271) and strand rate (75.1%), as well as his inability to miss bats.  Chatwood has just a 5.57 K/9 and 1.83 K/BB rate, though he makes up for that lack of strikeouts with a whopping 58.7% grounder rate.  That’s an important skill to have when half your starts are at Coors Field, though Chatwood has the expectedly drastic home/away splits: a 5.10 ERA in seven home starts and just a 1.25 ERA in seven road outings.

Losing Chatwood for any length of time is a big blow for the Rockies, who have long struggled to find any consistent pitching help.  If he misses any significant time beyond the 15-day DL stint, it could also impact Colorado’s trade deadline plans.  The Rox fell to 32-36 after today’s loss to the Marlins, though they’re still only 4.5 games out of the last NL wild card spot.  Given the rough overall state of their rotation, it’s likely the Rockies were going to focus on starting pitching anyway if they became deadline buyers.  If Chatwood’s absence causes them to fall too far out of the race, however, the Rockies could instead look to sell.

Rockies Willing To Listen On Carlos Gonzalez

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  • The Rockies haven’t yet started receiving calls asking about Carlos Gonzalez, but they’re expected to listen to offers despite hovering around .500 to this point of the season. GM Jeff Bridich tells Heyman that his current focus is on winning and adds that prized righty Jeff Hoffman, who headlined the prospects acquired in last July’s Troy Tulowitzki blockbuster, is “closer than he is far away.”

Rockies Sign Multiple Top Draft Picks

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TODAY: Tyler, too, has agreed to terms with Colorado, Callis tweets. He’ll receive the slot value at 38th overall ($1,701,600). MLB.com rated him the 25th-best prospect available, noting that he shows a tall ceiling when he’s on. Tyler has a big fastball with movement and a promising change to go with it, but needs to work on his breaker and clean up his command and mechanics to remain as a starter.

YESTERDAY: The Rockies have agreed to terms with second-round draft pick Ben Bowden, a Vanderbilt lefty, according to reports from MLB.com’s Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo (links to Twitter). Bowden lands a $1.6MM bonus, which is $177,100 over the slot value for the 45th pick.

Likewise, the team has agreed to terms with third-rounder Garrett Hampson, a shortstop from Long Beach State, and high school infielder Colton Welker, who was taken in the fourth round. The latter ended up taking down a bigger payday, receiving $850K (well over is $541,800 slot value) while Hampson got $750K (just shy of the $776,700 allocation).

That results in a net $468,600 overage, but Colorado already reportedly saved $458,700 against the pool value of fourth overall choice Riley Pint. In the aggregate, then, GM Jeff Bridich still seems to have some wiggle room as he moves through the team’s harder-to-sign selections. The top unsigned pick is competitive balance selection Robert Tyler, a college righty.

Bowden rated as high as the 75th-available prospect, per Baseball America. In rating him 77th, ESPN.com labelled him a likely reliever as a pro but noted there’s a chance he could work out as a back-of-the-rotation starter. Hampson was rated 156th by Baseball America, which praised his speed and defense while calling him a high-floor player. Welker, too, only received a nod from BA; the University of Miami commit rated 168th.

 

Rockies Place Parra On DL With Ankle Sprain

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The Rockies have placed outfielder Gerardo Parra on the 15-day disabled list due to a high ankle sprain, reports MLB.com’s Thomas Harding (via Twitter). Parra will be in a walking boot for the next week, but there’s no word beyond that on the length of time the first-year Rox outfielder will miss. Parra, 29, is hitting .263 and showing solid pop (.160 ISO), but he’s drawn just four walks this season (one intentional), which has resulted in a 274 OBP — the ninth-lowest in baseball among qualified hitters. A corresponding move for Parra’s absence hasn’t been announced, but the Rockies have Brandon Barnes, Rafael Ynoa and Raimel Tapia as minor league outfield options on the 40-man roster.

Rockies Designate Jose Reyes For Assignment

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The Rockies announced today that shortstop Jose Reyes has been reinstated from the restricted list and designated for assignment. Reyes, 33, has been on a minor league rehab assignment after completing a 52-game suspension under Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy but will not get the chance to suit back up for the Rockies, who acquired him in last summer’s Troy Tulowitzki blockbuster as a means of offsetting some of Tulo’s salary for the Blue Jays.

Reyes was arrested in Hawaii on Halloween last year and had charges of domestic abuse filed against him by his wife, though he ultimately plead not guilty, and the charges were dropped shortly before a criminal trial was to occur on Opening Day. Nevertheless, commissioner Rob Manfred saw enough evidence to punish Reyes with a suspension that ran through the end of May and cost him two months of his salary, or roughly $7.09MM.

In Reyes’ absence, the Rockies saw Trevor Story emerge as a unequivocally superior option at shortstop. The power production of Story, who is batting .265/.318/.553 with 17 homers, paired with Reyes’ on-field struggles and off-field baggage, created what would appear to be an easy decision for the Rockies. Colorado had reportedly had some trade talks regarding Reyes, and GM Jeff Bridich in late May wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of moving him, all of which pointed to the possibility that Reyes had played his last game as a member of the Rockies, which is now indeed the case.

The Rockies will have 10 days to trade or release Reyes, though I can’t imagine why they’d waste any time in putting him on release waivers, as they’ve had ample opportunity to work out a trade to this point but had no success. While Colorado saved the aforementioned $7.09MM of Reyes’ $22MM salary due to the suspension, they’ll still pay him $14.9MM this season overall. There’s about $13.1MM of that sum remaining through season’s end, and the Rox will owe him $22MM next season as well in addition to a buyout of $4MM on his 2018 club option.

Other clubs around the league will have the opportunity to sign Reyes for the pro-rated portion of the league minimum once he does clear release waivers — clearly, no team will claim him and that exorbitant salary — though doing so will obviously come with myriad public relations concerns as well as questions about his ability to perform on the field. Despite the offense-inducing nature of Coors Field, Reyes posted just a .259/.291/.368 in 208 plate appearances with Colorado following last year’s trade, and he’s no longer defensively capable of playing even an average shortstop.

Gerardo Parra Leaves On Cart With Ankle Injury

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Rockies outfielder Gerardo Parra was removed from tonight’s game on a medical cart after suffering an apparent leg injury, as MLB.com’s Thomas Harding reports. The injury occurred in a scary collision with shortstop Trevor Story, who wasn’t hurt. Parra’s outlook appears to be better than feared, as manager Walt Weiss told reporters that the preliminary diagnosis was a sprained ankle. (Via Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post; Twitter link.) His reaction to the impact suggested a more serious injury, but hopefully nothing more is revealed over the coming days.

Rockies To Sign Fourth Overall Pick Riley Pint

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The Rockies have agreed to sign right-hander Riley Pint, whom they selected with the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft, reports Jon Heyman of MLB Network and FanRag Sports (Twitter link). The prep right-hander out of Kansas City will receive a $4.8MM signing bonus, which is $458,700 less than the No. 4 slot’s value of $5,258,700 (as reported earlier this year by MLB.com’s Jim Callis).

Pint, 18, rated as the No. 2 prospect in this year’s draft in the estimation of Callis and colleague Jonathan Mayo at MLB.com, and Baseball America rated him as the No. 2 prospect as well. ESPN’s Keith Law was a bit less optimistic, rating him 12th. Callis and Mayo note that he’s the highest prep arm to come out of Kansas state since 1983 due in large part to a fastball that sits 93-97 mph and reached as high as 102 mph this spring. BA calls Pint a “much better version of the same template” as former No. 2 overall pick Tyler Kolek, who went second to the Marlins in 2014 due largely to his own triple-digit heater. BA writes that Pint regularly hits 100 mph with sink and can flash a pair of above-average breaking pitches. Law notes that Pint will sometimes show a sharp curveball but doesn’t do so consistently, though the same is true of an above-average changeup, so there’s clearly the potential for a wide array of above-average offerings in the power-armed teenager’s future. Each report, however, mentions some concerns surrounding Pint’s delivery as well as his ability to consistently throw strikes, creating a fair amount of risk around him as well (as one would expect with any high school pitcher).

The Rockies went exceptionally heavy on college players in the 2016 draft, as Pint is one of just nine high school players the team selected out of 41 picks. Some of the savings they received on Pint could be applied to fourth-round pick Colton Welker, a prep third baseman out of Florida whom Callis and Mayo noted may require an over-slot deal due to a strong commitment to the University of Miami. Colorado entered the draft with a pool of $11,453,100 and will have $6,353,400 of that sum remaining upon the formalization of Pint’s agreement.

Rockies Trying To Trade Jose Reyes

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  • The Rockies have until Wednesday to either add shortstop Jose Reyes to their roster, trade him or designate him for assignment, and executives tell Rosenthal that Colorado is continuing to shop the 32-year-old. However, there are plenty of questions about how much he’s capable of contributing in the majors at this point, per Rosenthal. Reyes, who served a domestic violence suspension through May, is coming off arguably the worst season of his career and is still owed upward of $40MM – including a $4MM buyout in 2018.

    [SOURCE LINK]

Rockies Place Jake McGee On 15-Day DL

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8:00pm: An MRI revealed that McGee has a sprained MCL, tweets Ben Weinrib of MLB.com. It remains unclear how much time he’ll miss, though sprained MCLs have led to month-plus absences in the past. For now, the Rockies will go forward with Estevez as their closer, manager Walt Weiss said Saturday (via Weinrib). Estevez relieved Motte to pick up his first career save in a 5-3 win over the Padres earlier today.

2:59pm: The Rockies have placed closer Jake McGee on the 15-day DL with knee inflammation, Nick Groke of the Denver Post writes. They’ve promoted lefty Tyler Anderson to take McGee’s place on the active roster. Jason Motte will likely take over at closer, although Carlos Estevez could get looks there as well.

McGee tweaked the knee while pitching yesterday and had an MRI today. It’s unknown how long he’ll be unavailable. After arriving from Tampa Bay in a January deal involving Corey Dickerson, the 29-year-old McGee has a 4.98 ERA, 6.2 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in 21 innings in his first season with Colorado.

Parra Still Looking For Consistency

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  • Gerardo Parra has yet to take off at the plate since joining the Rockies, though he tells MLB.com’s Thomas Harding that he feels it’s only a matter of time before he becomes more consistent at the plate.  Parra entered Sunday hitting .269/.281/.429 over 218 PA, with a 1.8% walk rate that is far below even his modest 6.1% career mark.  Parra has struggled badly (.681 OPS) against right-handed pitching and away from Coors Field.  Between his bat and lackluster defensive metrics, Parra has been a sub-replacement level (-0.4 fWAR) player for Colorado in the first year of a three-year, $27.5MM free agent contract.
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