Should the Colorado Rockies pursue Max Scherzer in free agency?

Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

For it: take the pressure off Eddie Butler and Jon Gray

​If you were listing the top takeaways from this 2014 season for the Rockies, you would ultimately start with the same issue that has plagued this franchise since its inaugural season: they need more pitching.

In the midst of that frustration, a commonly held complaint is this one: why don’t the Rockies ever have any young, hot-shot pitchers who have an impact in the starting rotation? Why don’t the Rockies ever have the stud prospect everybody is talking about?

For the first time in recent memory and possibly in franchise history, the Rockies have two of those blue-chip guys in Eddie Butler and Jon Gray. With those profiles has come a tremendous amount of pressure for each young man, however, something Butler experienced when he made his very brief debut back in June.

As we experienced with Drew Pomeranz, nothing is guaranteed with these pitching prospects. That is especially true for the Rockies, an organization still trying to prove that they can develop pitching at all.

Expectations are going to be so ridiculously high for these two, especially for Gray, that the Rockies might benefit from having a high-profile guy like Scherzer to absorb some of the hype. If they somehow signed Scherzer and brought Jorge De La Rosa back, then it would allow Gray and Butler to arrive to less fanfare and less pressure to be saviors.