The Colorado Rockies projected arbitration salaries will hamstring potential offseason moves

The Colorado Rockies have 11 arbitration-eligible players this offseason and their salaries will hamstring possible acquisitions this offseason.

MLB Trade Rumors recently published their projections for the arbitration-eligible players this offseason and the Colorado Rockies have 11 arbitration-eligible players.

With those 11 players, the raises that those players will certainly get will hamstring the Rockies possible offseason acquisitions. For MLBTR, with the shortened season, they ran three different projections.

The first number listed for each player below is from taking each player’s 2020 stats at face value. The second number listed is what the player is projected to make after extrapolating their 2020 stats out to a full, 162-game schedule. The third number is for the non-first-time eligible players. It finds the raise they’d get in a 162 game season, then gives them 37 percent of that raise. The final number (in parentheses) is the salary that they would have made in 2020 before the pandemic. That number is via Spotrac.

• David Dahl: $2.5 million/ $2.7 million/ $2.6 million ($2.475 million)
• Jairo Diaz – $800K / $1.2 million / $800K ($573,500)
• Carlos Estevez – $1.5 million / $2.3 million / $1.5 million ($1.08 million)
• Kyle Freeland – $3.5 million / $5.5 million / $3.9 million ($2.88 million)
• Chi Chi Gonzalez – $1.2 million / $1.2 million / $1.2 million ($628,810)
• Jon Gray – $5.6 million / $6.5 million / $5.9 million ($5.6 million)
• Ryan McMahon – $1.7 million / $2.8 million / $1.7 million ($573,500)
• Antonio Senzatela – $2.2 million / $4.9 million / $2.2 million ($573,500)
• Raimel Tapia – $1.5 million / $2.6 million / $1.5 million ($573,500)
• Tony Wolters – $1.9 million/ $2.2 million / $2.0 million ($1.9 million)
• Mychal Givens – $3.4 million / $4.3 million / $3.6 million ($3.23 million)

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If each of those players makes the highest number in there (the second number), they would make $36.2 million when in 2020 (before getting pro-rated salaries), they would have made $20,087,810. With pro-rated salaries, those players made $7,439,929.63. In other words, those 11 players combined could see their salary increase by nearly $29 million.

If Daniel Murphy’s option is not exercised (and it won’t be), the Rockies’ total payroll would roughly be $145 million. For what it’s worth, Baseball-Reference has the Rockies projected 2021 payroll at an even higher number at $157.8 million but that includes $6 million more to Daniel Murphy (exercising his option).

For context, Baseball Prospectus estimates the Rockies 2019 payroll was $145,248,500. So the Rockies are, at best, even with what their 2019 payroll was even though Ian Desmond will take a pay cut in 2021 and the “super bullpen” is off of the books.

The Rockies indicated between the 2019 and 2020 offseason that they were tapped out on finances as they did not make any additions to their MLB roster whatsoever. With the pandemic costing the Rockies and the other MLB teams millions in revenue, the Rockies may even be looking to cut payroll.

In other words, unless they make a trade to get rid of some payroll, the Rockies are not going to make any big signings or, perhaps, any MLB free agent signings at all. That could be a big problem for the Rockies considering their lack of depth and how they have played on the field (71 wins in 2019 and equivalent to a 70 win team in 2020).