Jeff Bridich: Trade Deadline Thoughts and Postseason Talk

With Story’s injury at shortstop, do the Rockies have enough talent or will they be looking at the waiver wire?

I echo Walt’s sentiment. It’s nice when you have versatility which is definitely a part of what we are trying to improve on in the last couple of years. Positional versatility. We have a veteran in Daniel Descalso who’s played a lot of games and who’s played World Series games. He brings some presence and some veteran experience into this situation.

He’s just solid all the way around … baseball player and human being. Cristhian Adames, same way. He’s more untested and unproven in terms of the later stages of a major league season when you are pushing towards the playoffs. He’s an extremely versatile switch hitter. Rafael Ynoa, same thing. Out in the outfield, switch hitting, and playing the infield too.

So I think there are pieces there. Do they perfectly add up to what Story has done? I don’t know but like Walt said there are a lot of different ways to win games. I do believe the guys here can and will step up.

Maybe it’s not just one guy, maybe it’s the lot. They step up together and contribute and help us continue to win.

Are Dahl and Adam Ottavino sort of your trade deadline acquisitions in that they joined the team midseason?

Yeah, you can throw Parra in there. That’s a veteran, a legitimate veteran bat that’s coming off the DL. Yeah, that definitely entered the equation.

Can this team make the playoffs?

I don’t see why not. We’re four and a half out (as of Monday afternoon). As long as we maintain our health, and that’s funny to say that with Story going down, and we continue clicking and playing team baseball like we have, why not?

We play the Dodgers three times (this week), the Cardinals in September, and the Marlins are coming in at the end of the week. So they are not that far ahead of us. It’s not like we’re trying to make up eight, 10, or 12 games. It’s in our grasp, it’s in our control, so why not?

One of the things that is important to remember is that every time you make a move, that means someone else is leaving. And so that concept or that idea plays an important part making decisions on the timing of things. This is a very talented team. There are a lot of ways to look at this team and go, ‘Hey, we have a lot of talent here.’ Knowing that we would have to remove people from that equation, I think it’s important to remember that when making other decisions. It plays a part in not rushing people into roles.

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I think there have been some good signs. When we brought up Jon (Gray) last year, he was able to get a taste of what major league life was like and that helped him come into this year not having to wonder.

With Dahl, he seems to go out there playing baseball the way he knows how. I think we are very cognizant of those things. But all that being said, it is nice to have a large group of players who are making decisions tough on me and the rest of the front office. Because they are playing well and developing like they should.

Were there serious offers for players like CarGo, Charlie Blackmon, Boone Logan, and/or Jorge De La Rosa?

We made a decision. Like I said, we’re always going to listen. It’s part of the job. We had made a decision pretty early that our outfielders were staying put. At some point prior to the end of the deadline, we had made a decision that Boone was also going to stay put. We were running parallel courses from the buyer/seller side of the market. When we made some of those decisions, we started to go to the other side, the buyer side.

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Are there other things out there that make sense for us? Both short-term and long-term, ultimately nothing came of that. That doesn’t mean something won’t come of it. There are still opportunities. Situations change.