Colorado Rockies: A look at the roster crunch in the near future

Of pitchers on the MLB roster, there are a few guys who have struggled but I highly doubt that they will be DFA’d. These include Seunghwan Oh (9.33 ERA, 6.64 FIP), Mike Dunn (5.19 ERA, 4.82 FIP), and Chris Rusin (108.00 ERA, 51.15 FIP).

For Rusin, considering that he has only made one appearance, he just came off the injured list, and they waited for him to come off the injured list for two months, there is less of a chance of him being DFA’d than the other two (and their chances are also very low). Dunn is being paid $7 million this year so the Rockies won’t want to just eat that money and for Oh, we will discuss him in a little bit.

If you look at some position players that could be DFA’d, there are a lot more possibilities for that.

Pat Valaika has played poorly for the Rockies at the Major League level in the past three years but he has 16 home runs and a .354/.382/.722 slash line in Albuquerque. He has shown that he is essentially a Quadruple-A player (better than a Triple-A player but not a Major Leaguer) so he could be a possibility.

Outfielders Noel Cuevas, Yonathan Daza, and Sam Hilliard could be some potential options as they are on the 40-man roster but in Albuquerque but considering that each of them have an OPS of .905 or better, none of them are likely to be DFA’d.

On the MLB roster, the player most likely to be DFA’d is Mark Reynolds. He’s hitting .177/.302/.354 and an OPS+ of 62, and he could be on the chopping block. He has struggled mighitly as a pinch hitter and, to be honest, he likely shouldn’t have made the Rockies’ Opening Day roster as he was not one of the best infielders in spring training.

Overall, I would think that Reynolds or James Pazos (because his tenure in the Rockies organization plus his 12.27 ERA in 12 games in Albuquerque) is most likely. If Pazos is the one DFA’d, the Rockies would still have to option somebody off the Major League roster.