Former Colorado Rockies outfielder Mike Tauchman on the differences between the Rockies and Yankees

Former Colorado Rockies and current New York Yankees outfielder Mike Tauchman was a guest of MLB Network Radio this morning and did not seem to have a ringing endorsement for the way that the Rockies operate.

After posting a -0.8 WAR and a .153/.265/.203 offensive slash line in 52 games in parts of two seasons in Denver, the Rockies decided to trade outfielder Mike Tauchman at the end of spring training for reliever Phillip Diehl.

While Diehl has only appeared in two games at the major league level for the Rockies this year and a 7.41 ERA in 31 games in Albuquerque, Tauchman has broke out as a great player for the Yankees, after the team has been ravaged with injuries.

Tauchman was a guest on MLB Network Radio’s show Loud Outs with former MLB pitcher C.J. Nitkowski and former Rockies outfielder and current broadcaster Ryan Spilborghs on Saturday morning.

First, he was asked about how he felt about the trade from the Rockies to the Yankees and he said that he said that he was “pretty excited about it, overall.”

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He also talked about how different the culture is with the Yankees and the Rockies and it didn’t seem like he gave the Rockies a ringing endorsement, at least compared to the Yankees way of operating things.

"“I think that the great thing about it–playing for the Yankees–is just the way they pursue excellence,” said Tauchman. “From the owner down to the bat boys, everybody is kind of pulling the rope in the same direction and it’s about winning baseball games and that’s the expectation.I think when that’s the expectation–coming into that environment–it’s like…people become united under a single goal, which is winning a baseball game that day…Everybody is just united under the same goal of just winning and it’s just a bunch of guys that love playing so when winning is the expectation with the New York Yankees so you kind of come into that and learn pretty quickly that that’s all that matters.”Tauchman continued, “[s]o it kind of makes it fun when you’re always talking about the same thing, like ‘what are we going to do today?’, ‘how are we going to get better’?, ‘how are we going to win?’, and I think it just makes for a really good clubhouse environment and I’ve really enjoyed being over here…”"

You can listen to the clip of the audio, plus Nitkowski (and Tauchman) making fun of Spilborghs’ broadcasting skills here.

Entering Saturday, in just 63 games, Tauchman has played to a 3.2 bWAR with 56 hits, including 14 doubles, 12 home runs, 41 RBI, and a .301/.375/.581 slash line with a 150 OPS+. He also has 12 Defensive Runs Saved, per Baseball Reference.

For comparison, Tauchman’s bWAR would be 5th on the Rockies this season, sandwiched between Nolan Arenado‘s 3.4 bWAR and Scott Oberg‘s 2.5 bWAR.

Mind you, Arenado’s has played in 52 more games than Tauchman this season, or 46 percent more. If Tauchman were to keep on the same pace that’s he’s had with the amount of game’s Nolan has played entering Saturday, his bWAR would be 5.4.

That would be leading the Rockies by a wide margin. The highest Rockies player in bWAR this year is Trevor Story at 4.5. The Rockies outfield of Raimel Tapia, Charlie Blackmon, Ian Desmond, and David Dahl has a combined bWAR of -0.5.

At least with his play this season, the trade of Tauchman looks to be massive oversight on the Rockies part and been a huge win for the Yankees.