Colorado Rockies: A look at some potential free agent options to DH in the near future

According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the National League could adopt the designated hitter in the near future, if not in 2019. So today, we’ll look at some of the options that the Colorado Rockies have on the free agent market to fill that in 2019, if it is adopted, and 2020.

Considering that the free agent market has been pretty dormant this offseason and there are still plenty of options on the market that the Rockies could sign to help them as a DH and/or at a defensive position (or help move another Rockie to the DH slot).

For this exercise, we will not consider the two biggest options on the free agent market (Bryce Harper and Manny Machado) as they a) will likely be too expensive to sign for the Rockies and b) will not be DH’ing much, if at all. We will also not consider options currently in the Rockies organization as our own Kevin Henry looked at some potential options for the Rockies lineup this season with a DH yesterday.

Jose Bautista

We will go alphabetically on this list and the first one is Jose Bautista. He has struggled to hit for average the past two seasons as he has hit .203 in both 2017 and 2018 but he has averaged 18 home runs, 56 RBI, and a .323 OBP in that span as well.

Considering that Bautista only made a little over $1 million last year and he hasn’t signed yet, the Rockies could potentially get him for a minor league deal. He would likely be on the bench more than DH’ing but Mark Reynolds or Daniel Murphy would likely take the DH slot.