Colorado Rockies: making the case for acquiring Jose Abreu

Defensively, Abreu is not particularly an excellent defender but he has improved his defense since his rookie season. In 2014, he had -11 Defensive Runs Saves, according to Baseball Reference. However, last season, he had zero Defensive Runs Saved, which is league average.

Also, according to Fangraphs, Abreu’s UZR (or Ultimate Zone Rating, which compares similarly hit balls to others to determine if a specific fielder is better or worse than their counterparts) was 0.5. An even zero is considered to be league average so Abreu is just slightly above average on it.

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Baserunning

While Abreu is not really a threat to steal bases (he has stolen six bases in his four year career and he didn’t steal any in either 2015 or 2016), he is not necessarily a bad baserunner.

Through MLB.com’s Statcast technology, they have a database of the sprint speeds of players. 23 feet per second is considered poor and 30 feet per second is considered to be elite with 27 feet per second being league average. Abreu averaged 26.9 feet per second, or 0.1 below league average. Essentially, Abreu is at league average.

For comparison of players currently on the Rockies, Nolan Arenado averages 26.6 feet per second, or 0.3 feet per second less than Abreu. DJ LeMahieu averages 27.2 feet per second, or 0.3 feet faster than Abreu. As you can see by these comparisons, Abreu is not a bad baserunner but he won’t necessarily be breaking world records.

Final Thoughts

Jose Abreu is an elite power hitter that would help fill a spot for the Rockies at first base and he would give the team a big power bat in the lineup. Also, he would not be a liability in the field defensively and he is not a bad baserunner.

He has two years left before he becomes a free agent so with that, it would take a decent amount of prospects to get him. I would guess that the White Sox would want four prospects and at least one of them would have to be the Rockies top five prospects. Also, it should be considered that Abreu has made between $10 and $13 million in the last two seasons. Being arbitration eligible and making that the past two seasons, I would venture to guess that he will make north of $15 million in 2018.

Next: The case for signing free agent JD Martinez

The Rockies can afford that but it’s just a matter of whether they want to stretch their payroll on one player.