Colorado Rockies: Raimel Tapia still being overlooked

The Colorado Rockies bench has not been playing good baseball for the majority of the season. It took them quite a while to make roster moves. Yet, it still it appears the Rockies have once again overlooked the one guy that can help them off the bench: Raimel Tapia.

The Colorado Rockies finally started to see that their current bench wasn’t cutting it. The first move was optioning down outfielder Mike Tauchman. That lead them to calling up Noel Cuevas, who’s doing a lot better than Tauchman ever did even though he has less at-bats. Then came the most recent optioning of Ryan McMahon, which was a smart move by Colorado. The Rockies then called up Daniel Castro, who’s doing about same as Ryan McMahon.

Then, yesterday, the Rockies optioned Pat Valaika to Triple-A since they activated DJ LeMahieu off the DL.

I was extremely happy that the Colorado Rockies had finally made roster moves in order to better their bench. However, I find it utterly ridiculous that they have yet to call up Raimel Tapia. I mean what more does he have to show the Colorado Rockies in order for him to get called up? The kid is absolutely killing it in Triple-A right now. Tapia has a slashline of .295/.355/.519. What else do the Rockies want to see?

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With those stats he’s outplaying quite a few of the current bench players thus far. So far, the only two bench players that are actually helping the Colorado Rockies are David Dahl and Noel Cuevas. As for the rest them, just looking at their stats will prove my point. Pat Valaika‘s slashline was .103/.175/.155 before being optioned. That wasn’t ideal for someone whose had 64 plate appearances and had to cover second base when DJ LeMahieu was injured. Then there’s Tony Wolters, his is .146/.276/.208. Finally, there’s recent call-up Daniel Castro with .188/.188/.188.

In all honesty, the real mistake was made when Colorado Rockies picked Mike Tauchman over Raimel Tapia when Opening Day came around. Now, Tauchman didn’t work out at all batting wise as he’s also in Triple-A along with Ryan McMahon, who wasn’t cutting it either. There has been chance after chance that the Rockies could have called this man up. Yet, here we are entering May and still no Tapia in the big leagues.

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At the rate that the Colorado Rockies are going, we may see top prospect Brendan Rodgers get called up before Tapia. It seems like it will take a drastic change from the team to realize that this guy can help them. Until then, the Rockies will have an underperforming bench only being carried by two of the four men there.