Rockies Trade Chris Martin to Yankees For Cash

In lunchtime news, the Rockies have traded away reliever Chris Martin for some cash.

While we’re all holding our breath waiting for Jeff Bridich to make a big move, hopefully for a pitcher, he has mostly been in the business of making little moves, primarily not for pitchers. In fact, his most recent move was trading a pitcher away: Chris Martin, the former furniture store employee who showed some promise but ultimately did not deliver in the Rockies’ bullpen last season. Martin’s proud new owners, the Yankees, have given cash in return.

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Martin is no great loss. He started out solidly enough, not allowing a run in his first four appearances out of the pen. But the wheels came off soon after that, and he began to alternate scoreless innings with very, very scoreful innings. His final game, June 20th agains Milwaukee, he allowed 3 runs in 1 inning.

The upside with Martin was his ability to miss bats (an 8.04 K/9 rate) and the fact that he induced groundballs over 60% of the time. His FIP is also quite a bit lower than his ERA, indicating that the latter number was not entirely his fault. Perhaps given more of a chance, Martin might have amounted to something, but I think we can safely say the Yankees’ cash will amount to more. Martin had already been DFA’d to make room for new catcher Nick Hundley, so this is free money; the alternative would have been a release or a minor league reassignment.

Is Bridich stockpiling cash to make a big move? Some have speculated he wants James Shields. A “mystery team” has been talking with Shields lately, but he is taking his time making a decision. If I were Shields, I’d be dragging my heels about coming to Colorado too. But you have to think that if the price is right, he’ll sign anywhere.

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