What the Brad Hand trade means for the Colorado Rockies and NL West

The Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres came together on a big trade that send some shockwaves throughout the baseball world as the Padres sent their closer Brad Hand and reliever Adam Cimber to the Indians for the top catching prospect in all of baseball, according to MLB.com, in Francisco Mejia.

The Colorado Rockies (and the rest of the NL West) breathed a sigh of relief once relievers Brad Hand and Adam Cimber were shipped from the Padres to the Rockies friends and often, partners in banter between each other on the Twitter dot com, the Cleveland Indians. Especially in the case of Hand, the Rockies are happy they do not have to face him anymore. For the Rockies, since he joined the Padres in 2016, he has an ERA of 1.71 against them with six saves, a .181 batting average,  and 32 strikeouts in 21 innings of work.

Cimber is just a rookie but he provides the Indians with another much needed reliever.

Mejia is the best catching prospect in all of baseball, according to MLB.com, and was the Indians number one prospect and the 15th best in baseball (for comparison, Brendan Rodgers is the number six prospect in the sport).

Mejia was an All-Star for the International League this year. In 79 games with Triple-A Columbus, the 22-year old Dominican had 85 hits, including 22 doubles and 7 home runs, 45 RBI, and a slash line of .279/.328/.426. In 2016 and 2017, in the minors, he hit between .297 and .342 with between 11 and 14 home runs. In addition, this year, he has seen some action in both left and right field with some previous experience at third base.

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While you couldn’t have expected that the Rockies (or Padres) have such a massive trade happen within the division, the Rockies do need to take a page out of the Indians playbook in regards to the bullpen.

The Rockies are handcuffed a bit considering that they have these massive contracts that haven’t panned out thus far (Mike Dunn, Bryan Shaw, and Jake McGee). However, they need to address it. In fact, if anyone told you that, by ERA and FIP, that the Rockies two most consistent relievers this season would be Adam Ottavino and Scott Oberg, they would have been laughed out of town but they have stepped up in a big way for the Rockies this year.

However, they can’t operate a bullpen with three consistent people in it (the former two and Wade Davis). In an ideal world, yes, but you can’t expect the starters to go six or seven innings every game and use Ottavino, Oberg, and Davis every game.

Some trade partners with the Rockies could be the Reds, Pirates, Cardinals, Marlins, Rangers, Twins, White Sox, Tigers, Rays, Blue Jays, and Orioles as all of those teams are out of contention and have at least one reliever that could be traded this month or next.

We talked about some of the relievers from those teams that the Rockies could look at in this series of articles last month.

Final Thoughts

The Rockies should not be afraid to move the needle and push themselves to a NL West crown as, if you look at the standings entering Friday, they are only two back of the Dodgers and two back in the NL Wild Card race.

Next: How the Rockies can overcome the Manny Machado addition by the Dodgers

Especially with the Dodgers acquiring Manny Machado, the Rockies need to make some moves to help them in the stretch run and in October. If they don’t, they may not even play a single game in October