How the Colorado Rockies may have doomed trade returns for years to come

The trade tides have turned a lot in the past few seasons.

Less than three years ago, the Tampa Bay Rays found a team that was ignorant enough to acquire a below average major league starting pitcher for MLB.com’s 8th overall prospect (entering 2016) and the 17th and 76th overall prospects (entering 2017). That trade ended up blowing up in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ face, as expected the second after the trade was announced, and, as a result, it cost their GM his job (and rightfully so).

Now, the Pirates are, arguably, a worse team than the Rockies as of this publication. And you wonder why they haven’t won their division since 1992, when Barry Bonds was still on their team.

The Rays, who have one of the lowest payrolls in the sport year-in and year-out, got to the World Series last year and won 96 games the year before because two of those three players. In 2019, they were third and sixth on the Rays in WAR and the guy who was sixth (Tyler Glasnow) missed 20 starts in 2019 due to injury.

Teams learned from that trade and, perhaps, partially due to the pandemic, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.

Rockies shortstop Trevor Story is a free agent next offseason. Say that the Rockies play like how they are constructed (despite Monfort’s believe that they are an “extremely talented” team and Rockies GM Jeff Bridich saying that the team is “certainly not a total tear down and rebuild”) and are one of the worst teams in baseball and they decide to trade him before the trade deadline.

Why would a team give the Rockies anything of value when they have shown that they will trade for five, lower level prospects and give the receiving team of the best player in Rockies franchise history more than $50 million?

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There’s a reason why Monfort said in his opening statement that they “don’t discuss financial details.”

Simply put, they would get hammered even more by the media, fans, and the general public for allowing a heist to happen.

Had the money not been involved in the deal, it makes a lot more sense from a baseball perspective. Fans still wouldn’t be happy especially since Arenado didn’t want the opt-out and that’s what triggered this series of events but it would be more understandable. But you get rid of, arguably, the best player in franchise history for five mid- to low-level prospects and your payroll goes up? That’s bad business.

Our colleagues over at Blog Red Machine, FanSided’s site for the Cincinnati Reds, pitched a few trade ideas for Trevor Story and FanSided’s Chicago White Sox site, Southside Showdown, proposed three possible trades for the White Sox acquiring Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon.

On the surface, all six trade proposals, in my opinion, are around market value, even if the Rockies have to pay a small portion (I’d say $5 million or less) of Blackmon’s remaining contract, which could go up as high as $60.5 million if each of his two player options are exercised and he achieves all of his incentives.

But why would their front offices do those trades if they know that the Rockies will make a trade for either player if they can get them for half of that?

How are the Rockies going to replenish their farm system, one that is ranked as one of the worst in the game if they can’t acquire top minor league talent for their best major league players and the Amateur Draft was truncated to just five rounds in 2020 and between 20 and 30 in 2021 (previously, it was 40). The Rockies will have fewer teams to provide players for but it is a huge problem for them. What is the plan? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

At least for the foreseeable future, we don’t know and, frankly, we may not know the plan for months or even years, if at all.