Colorado Rockies: What Should They Do Now? Buy or Sell?

Argument to be Sellers: I think it is obvious the Colorado Rockies won’t be trading most of the players on their team (Arenado, DJ, or any of the pre-arbitration guys). However, there are many players who it seems smart to think about trading.

On this list, I have Jorge De La Rosa, Boone Logan, Charlie Blackmon and Carlos Gonzalez. I would be willing to trade Mark Reynolds and Nick Hundley but I am unsure  if anyone would want them. Obviously, trading these players would be signaling a  willingness to not to compete this year.

While it is hard to admit, this seems the smarter way of thinking. This year’s success has been mostly compliments of the young guys making their major league debuts. Jon Gray (2.5 WAR), Tyler Anderson (1.7), and Carlos Estevez (1.0) are all rookies and are all in the team’s top 5 in terms of pitching WAR. Trevor Story (2.8) is second only to Nolan Arenado in offensive WAR, all according to baseballreference.com. Tony Wolters has been one of my favorite players of the whole year. The exciting part of this is that only Jon Gray was thought to be one of the Rockies top 5 prospects coming into the year and Trevor Story was the only other one in the top 10 according to FanGraphs’ preseason rankings.

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What is even better, is that a majority of the  other top prospects are on the way. David Dahl just got called up, Jeff Hoffman is also very close. In 2017 I think we will see Tom Murphy, and Raimel Tapia make their debuts and also wouldn’t be surprised to see German Marquez, Ryan McMahon or Kyle Freeland along with various bullpen arms (Sam Moll, Jerry Vasto, Matt Carasiti) similar to Estevez.

Considering the recent success of the Rockies’ “draft and develop” strategy, I think it would be silly to give more than one of these guys up for one player, which would definitely be necessary to push the Rockies over the hump in 2016. The recent run has made me shy away from trading CarGo, especially since his splits would not allow the Rockies to get enough value in return for him.

The idea of him being the future answer at first base is sounding better all the time. The other guy I am unsure of is Charlie Blackmon. He is a very, very good baseball player and I would hate to see him go. However, I think if the Rockies can get a solid pitching. or a first base slugging prospect for him, Bridich should pull the trigger. I think this is a reasonable return for Chuck, but I would also love to see him playing a corner outfield position with Dahl manning center next year.

The guys I think the Rockies should trade are Boone Logan and Jorge De La Rosa. Logan has been ridiculous this year, and as Jon Morosi tweeted this afternoon, he is actually having a better season than Aroldis Chapman.

Logan: 1.83 FIP, 0.862 WHIP

Chapman: 1.93 FIP, 0.894 WHIP

Obviously, the two pitchers are used differently but still, trading Logan could land the Rockies a top 100 prospect, which would be huge for a guy that is a free agent at the end of the year. Teams will likely also call on De La Rosa, who is also a free agent at the end of this year. It would be nice to give him a chance to pitch for a contender and getting a solid prospect, like Marquez, would be a great return.

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I think I have talked myself into the Rockies being “smart sellers” at the deadline, dealing some of their pieces who have high value now and won’t be able to help them next year for prospects that are close to the majors and could prime the Rockies for a 2017 season mirroring the one 10 years earlier. While it would be fun to go all in this year, I think we have a better chance counting on our young guys now and those that are soon to come.

Regardless, this is the most optimistic I have been as a Rockies fan since 2010 and we are in for more fun games the rest of this year and for years to come.