Colorado Rockies: Looking back on the Corey Dickerson trade

In January of 2016, the Colorado Rockies traded their young slugger Corey Dickerson to the Tampa Bay Rays for Jake McGee, with two minor leaguers trading hands as well. The move at the time was roundly criticized by the Rockies fan base, including one commentator that said it demonstrated how “out of touch the Rockies are with reality.” Looking back as we start the third season after the trade, it’s safe to say that Rox fans may have a slightly different take on the deal now.

The Trade

At the time, the Rockies were coming off a 71-91 season and had just signed outfielder Gerardo Parra – another move that mystified fans at the time. Parra was yet another outfielder – and a lefty hitter at that – when the Rockies already had too many of both of those.

Charlie Blackmon and Carlos Gonzalez had locks on two out of three outfield spots, and there were also top prospects David Dahl and Raimel Tapia ready to fight with Dickerson and Parra for playing time, and Dahl and Tapia are both left-handed hitters. Throw into the mix righties Brandon Barnes and Ryan Raburn and there just weren’t a lot of at bats to go around.

It was clear that someone had to go, and that someone was Dickerson. He was coming off an injury-riddled 2015 that saw him hit the DL three times with a combination of plantar fascitis and fractured ribs. Despite only getting 234 at bats, Dickerson was still able to be a productive hitter, slashing .304/.333/.536 for an OPS+ of 106. His 2014 had been even better as he worked his way to a .312/.364/.567 line and a 141 OPS+ in 468 at bats.

Dickerson’s hitting was never the question. The real issue was could he handle the spacious outfield in Coors Field defensively. Pitching in Coors is hard enough with competent fielders and Dickerson had just posted a negative fielding WAR for the third year in a row. Parra, by comparison was a former Gold Glover that had posted a defensive WAR of 3.6 as recently as 2013. Though his ’14 and ’15 metrics weren’t as positive (and his ’16 numbers would be abysmal), Parra was still regarded as a significant upgrade in the field.

As much as good defense benefits a pitching staff, actually having good pitchers can help too – however, good pitchers tended to avoid Coors like it was a staph infection. The ghosts of Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle haunted all attempts to sign top pitchers outright, so the Rockies have generally had to trade for any pitching talent that came their way.

In this sense, swapping Dickerson for McGee, a hard throwing strikeout artist that had posted four straight productive seasons, made perfect sense. McGee was coming off an excellent 2015, where he posted a 2.41 ERA and 48 strikeouts in 37.1 innings and an even better 2014 where he struck out 90 in 71.1 innings. The Rockies were trading from a place of depth to shore up one of their main weaknesses in a move that actually precipitated the bullpen revolution of the coming years.

The Throw-Ins

And then there’s the matter of those minor leaguers. Colorado sent third base prospect Kevin Padlo to Tampa Bay in exchange for a raw pitcher named German Marquez. In 2017, Padlo posted a .223/.324/.391 slash line for Tampa Bay’s High-A team, while Marquez just finished up a stellar rookie year for the Rockies. While his 4.39 ERA in 162 innings might not leap off the page at you, when put through the Coors filter, it’s actually pretty darn impressive. His ERA+, which takes his demanding home environment into account, was a robust 113 with a very solid 3/1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Since leaving the Rockies, Dickerson has done what he’s always done: hit. He had a solid 2016 with the bat, hitting 24 homers and posting a 106 OPS+ before busting out in 2017 with 27 homers, an OPS+ of 121, and his first All-Star game invitation. Despite his usual porous defense, Dickerson accumulated 4.2 total WAR with Tampa Bay before being unceremoniously DFA’d this offseason and shipped to Pittsburgh in a cost-saving move for the rebuilding franchise.

Marquez and McGee combined for 5.0 WAR in the two years since the trade, and both of them are still with the team. Marquez won’t be a free agent until 2023 and is only making $550,000 this season, so there’s no telling what his final WAR with the team will be, but it’s sure to be higher than the 3.6 WAR that he’s accumulated so far.