Colorado Rockies: Why they should have kept Roberto Ramos

While he was never a top prospect in the Colorado Rockies organization, they should have held on to Roberto Ramos.

Millions of baseball fans, including fans of the Colorado Rockies, in the United States and all across the globe have been longing for live baseball in any form that they can get for the past few weeks and thanks to the Korean Baseball Organization and ESPN, we now have that as their opening day was televised on Monday night/Tuesday morning in the United States.

One of the players on the LG Twins, which will be televised at 3:30 AM MT on Wednesday morning is Roberto Ramos, who was in the Rockies farm system through last season.

He never made it to the major league level but he played the last season at Triple-A Albuquerque and his performance there is why they should have kept him.

In 2018, he split the season between Advanced-A Lancaster and Double-A Hartford, and between the two, he hit .269/.368/.574 with 32 home runs and 77 RBI along with 24 doubles in 121 games. Since he played well there, the Rockies elevated him to Albuquerque and he played even better. He hit .309/.400/.580 with 30 home runs and 105 RBI with 27 doubles.

He also played in the Mexican League this offseason for Naranjeros de Hermosillo and played well. That is of note because the team was managed this season by none other than Vinny Castilla, former All-Star third baseman of the Rockies and current special assistant to Rockies GM Jeff Bridich. Castilla exclusively spoke to us this past summer about managing the team and his hopes for coaching in the future, among other things.

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Who knows if Ramos’ numbers would transfer to the MLB level since he posted those numbers in the extremely hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but Ramos just turned 25 years old this past December so he would have still had plenty of time to still develop in the minors if need be. Even if Ramos didn’t put up those numbers in the majors, he still may have been an improvement at first base since it has been one of the weakest positions for the Rockies in recent years.

In fact, the “primary” first basemen of the Rockies since 2010 (primary first basemen being the player that played the most games at first base for the Rockies that season) have only had two seasons with a bWAR of 2.0 or higher (Todd Helton‘s 2.2 bWAR in 2011 and Justin Morneau‘s 3.4 bWAR in 2015). Since Morneau’s 2015 season, the “primary” first baseman has amassed a total bWAR of 3.0 in four seasons.

Daniel Murphy only has one year remaining on his contract anyways so the Rockies could have had Ramos take over first base full-time in 2021 if they had any reservations about Ramos in 2020.

However, the Rockies sold his contract to the LG Twins and he’ll be playing in a game that you can view on your television at 3:30 PM MT and at 12 PM MT (for the rebroadcast). Hopefully, the Rockies will be able to figure out their first base issues in 2020 when games do eventually return.