Rockies trade rumors: starting pitching edition

Four out of the six Rockies’ main starters are rookies and in their recent skid of losing 13 of 18 entering the All-Star break, they faltered.

As promised in this article that was published yesterday, we will be discussing the possible starting pitchers that the Rockies could acquire before the non-waiver trade deadline that is a little less than three weeks down the line.

Personally, I believe that the Rockies will trade for two starting pitchers before the deadline because the amount of rookies they have in their starting rotation currently. Chad Bettis, as long as everything goes smoothly, will also soon be returning from his rehab assignment (as our own Kevin Henry discussed a few days ago in this article).

The reason why I believe that two starters will be acquired is that the rookies will be sent down to the minor leagues (at one point or another) to hold back their MLB service time (you can learn more about service time from this article from 2015). They also might spend some time in the bullpen to lessen the workload of their arms. Both of these have already happened to Antonio Senzatela.

The starters will be split into two categories: top-flight starters and the middle- to back-end starters.

Also, I am not considering pitchers who have not done, at least, marginally well in Coors Field. They include, Edinson Volquez of the Marlins (I discussed him in this article), Tom Koehler of Miami, Clayton Richard of the Padres, Jaime Garcia of the Braves, Jeff Samardzija of the Giants, Ervin Santana of the Twins, J.A. Happ of the Blue Jays, Marco Estrada and Francisco Liriano of the Blue Jays, and Scott Feldman of the Reds. Each of them have started a game in Coors Field and have struggled mightily. For example, Liriano made one start in Coors Field and he only went 2 1/3 innings and gave up 10 runs.

So here’s the list…