Colorado Rockies: A dream of an outfield trade addition

The Colorado Rockies would never do it (or be able to pull it off) but let’s dream for a minute.

The Mookie Betts–David Price trade nearly fell through between the Dodgers and Red Sox and they had to include the Twins in a separate deal (instead of the original three-team deal) to pull it off. But the Dodgers trade with the Angels to trade Ross Stripling and Joc Pederson to the Angels for Luis Rengifo and others fell through.

It has been speculated by some on social media that the Dodgers need to still trade Stripling and Pederson to avoid the awkwardness of returning to the team that nearly traded them. Mike Petriello of MLB.com was one of those people and he discussed some of the teams that need outfield help. One of the teams on his list was the Rockies, which received some backlash from those wearing purple tinted glasses.

The fact of the matter is that Petriello’s analysis is based in fact that the Rockies outfield is one of the weakest in baseball due to both offensive and defensive stats and lack of health. Just look at FanGraphs projections for the Rockies outfield. They project them to be 30th in left field, 26th in center field, and 17th in right field.

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Also too, some people forget that quality outfield options are usually better than a mass quantity of outfield options. The addition of Joc Pederson would not be like the Dodgers addition of Betts but he would still help tremendously.

In 2019, Pederson posted a 3.3 bWAR (3.0 fWAR) season with 36 home runs, 74 RBI, a .249/.339/.538 slash line, a 127 OPS+ and wRC+, and 8 fDRS/bDRS (11 DRS for both formulas if you only count his time in the outfield). That would make Pederson the Rockies best outfielder, even better than Charlie Blackmon just by his defensive stats alone.

A starting outfield of Blackmon and Pederson (one in left field and one in right: you pick) and David Dahl would provide the Rockies with more proven talent than they have right now.

A trade for Pederson would never happen, though, as the Dodgers wouldn’t trade Pederson in the NL West unless they got way more than they did in the proposed Angels trade. The Rockies don’t seem to believe that their outfield (or anything, for that matter) is a problem for them so that alone would nix a possible deal.

But we can always dream that the Rockies would do something this offseason. Alas, it hasn’t happened this offseason..at least yet.