Colorado Rockies: 10 Biggest Trades in Franchise History: 10-8

#10: Larry Walker to the St. Louis Cardinals for Jason Burch, Luis Martinez and Chris Narveson

Starting with his MVP season in 1997 through 2001, there were few hitters in the game that inspired more respect than Walker. Over that five-season span, Walker hit a ridiculous .357 with 156 home runs, despite injuries limiting him to just 454 at-bats per season. All of this from a guy that was also one of the game’s premier defenders (as evidenced by his seven Gold Gloves in right field).

In 2004 though, the Rockies were on their way to a 94-loss season and Walker, then 37 years old, had expressed a desire to compete for a title before he was forced to retire. Colorado honored his request, sending him to a loaded St. Louis squad for a trio of prospects.

Ultimately, the Cardinals were probably the “winners” of this deal. Walker helped them reach the 2004 World Series, where they were ultimately defeated by the Boston Red Sox. Walker retired after the 2005 season, and unfortunately never got his World Series ring.

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As for Colorado, the only real win from the trade was the good PR of doing right by one of their aging stars. None of the three prospects they received in the trade ever appeared in an MLB game for the Rockies, and Narveson was the only one to stick in the majors (which happened with Milwaukee).

Ultimately, this trade will be remembered as the unofficial end of the “Blake Street Bombers” era. Lost to time however, is the alternate reality where the Walker trade worked out much differently: The Rockies had originally planned on shipping Walker to Texas, and the Rangers had agreed to the deal, but Walker used his 10-5 rights to veto the trade, ultimately forcing a move to St. Louis instead.

Why is that significant? Because if you believe the reports, the alleged deal would have sent then top prospect and future MLB all-star Ian Kinsler to Colorado.

It’s hard to blame Walker. The Rangers were atrocious at the time and would be for a while longer. But it’s also hard not to wonder what a middle infield of Troy Tulowitzki and Kinsler would have looked like.

#9: Dexter Fowler to the Houston Astros for Brandon Barnes and Jordan Lyles

Some trades look fine at the time, then become brutal to look at years later. Other trades look terrible from the start, and it turns out that’s because it just really was a terrible trade. This trade fits into the second category.

Fowler was drafted and developed by Colorado. In fact, it was the Rockies idea to turn Fowler into a switch-hitter, when he had only hit right-handed as an amateur. Fowler became the Rockies full-time center fielder in 2009, and after a few middling seasons, he seemed to break out in 2012, slashing .300/.389/.474.

Fowler’s defensive work in center field was questionable at times, and he didn’t steal bases the way many thought he would after his rookie year, but he was a solidly above-average outfielder who was still fairly young and inexpensive.

Then the relationship between Fowler and Colorado started going south. In 2013, a variety of sprains and bruises hurt Fowler’s numbers and kept him out of action for over 40 games.

A smartly-run organization would have recognized it as a disappointing down year in the long career of an otherwise valuable asset. Saying that the Rockies chose to go in the opposite direction feels like an understatement.

Then-GM Dan O’Dowd publicly questioned Fowler’s dedication to the team and the game, saying to 850 KOA…

“I think Dexter right now has got a big year in front of him. Whether that’s with us or whether that’s with somebody else at this point in time is too hard to say. I think it’s fair to say we are more willing to listen to calls about Dexter than we might have been in the past. He has a lot to prove this year within the industry. He’s got to show up and he’s got to do that… I think he’s got to get tougher. No doubt. He’s got to show up and play with an edge every day, not just when he thinks he has to.”

It was an insane thing to say, for a number of reasons:

1) Publicly acknowledging that you’ve soured on a player is just about the worst thing you could do for his trade value.

2) Rushing back from an injury to get back on the field for a last-place team (like Colorado was in 2013) isn’t being “tough,” it’s being moronic.

3) For years, O’Dowd and the Rockies had committed a large portion of their payroll to aging and/or injury-prone players, then acted as though the frequent DL trips were an unforeseeable tragedy, and not the obvious outcome. So turning around and specifically calling out Fowler (and only Fowler) for his injuries smacked of hypocrisy and blame-shifting.

Not surprisingly, when the Rockies traded Fowler a few days later, the return they received was uninspiring. Barnes had a few mediocre years as a back-up outfielder before being released last season, and Lyles is just hoping to make the team as a long reliever in 2017. Fowler, on the other hand, spent 2016 going to the All-Star game, winning a World Series, and cashing in with an $82.5M deal from St. Louis.

The good news for Colorado is that this trade allowed Charlie Blackmon to emerge as one of the game’s better center fielders. But that doesn’t make trading an above-average starting outfielder for two fringe roster guys a good idea.

I don’t have any evidence to support this, but I remain convinced that the horrid handling of this trade, and the near-universal criticism Colorado received in response, was one of the driving forces that finally forced the Rockies to take away O’Dowd’s GM powers.

#8: Jeff Cirillo to the Seattle Mariners for Brian Fuentes, Denny Stark and José Paniagua

When a player is going through a slump or coming off a down year, many fans like to suggest trading him. That logic, while understandable on the surface, is misguided. Good trades aren’t made by trying to give away assets that have already depreciated, they’re made by identifying which assets are going to depreciate (or improve) next.

This trade is an excellent example of how that’s done. Cirillo was an all-star third baseman for the Rockies in 2000, and despite suffering some regression in 2001, he was still an effective player, hitting .313 while playing solid defense.

But beneath the surface numbers, there were some causes for concern with Cirillo. His OBP dropped to a new career low, and he was well into his 30s. Colorado decided to bet that Cirillo’s best years were behind him, and moved him for a trio of players that were all in their 20s.

Paniagua was traded to Detroit before he played a single game for Colorado. Stark had a reasonably successful debut season with the Rockies in 2002 but was mostly ineffective in his brief stints at the big league level. What made this trade a winner for Colorado was the inclusion of the left-hander from Merced, Calif.

It wasn’t clear at first that Fuentes was anything special. At the start of the 2005 season, he was set to be the left-handed setup man for closer Chin-hui Tsao (remember him?). But after Tsao was sidelined with a shoulder injury, Fuentes stepped into the Rockies closer role and ran with it.

From 2005 through 2008, Fuentes saved 111 games for Colorado. He became the first Rockies reliever to be named an All-Star in 2005, then made the team again in 2006 and 2007.

Fuentes wasn’t your typical closer: he threw with a short, awkward side-armed motion and didn’t blow people away with velocity. But he still found a way to rack up strikeouts, and was nearly as effective against right-handed hitters as he was against lefties, a rare trait in southpaws.

By the time Fuentes became the Rockies closer in 2005, Cirillo had long since washed out in Seattle. His first season with the Mariners was a disappointment, but the second year was terrible. Cirillo barely hit over .200 and lost his starting job before being shipped to San Diego after the season ended; he never became a full-time MLB player again.

All told, the Rockies got six seasons from arguably the best reliever in team history, and the Mariners got to pay over $6M a season (still a big investment for a player in 2002) to watch Cirillo give them a .603 OPS at third base.

If you want a shining example of a team selling high on a player, you would be hard-pressed to do better than this. Maybe the Rockies saw Cirillo’s decreasing OBP and rising age and knew this was coming. Maybe they just realized he was going to get expensive and didn’t want to pay him.

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Whatever the reasoning was, we can look back on this move now, years after all the players involved have retired, and definitely say this: The Rockies got the better of the Mariners in this deal.