Top 5 players to play for the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins

The Colorado Rockies are in the middle of a three-game series with the Miami Marlins at the dreaded loanDepot Ballpark, so let’s look at the good things in life, like shared baseball players.

This series is not primed to be enjoyable for Rockies fans, but let’s take solace in knowing that these two sister clubs, both joining the league in the 1993 MLB Expansion, have shared an array of skilled players through the years.

Let’s break down the top 5 players to play for the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies.

Total Number of Shared Players: 58

Players to play exclusively for the Rockies and Marlins:

Marcos Carvajal

Jesus Tinoco

Honorable Mentions:

Craig Counsell

Mike Dunn

Livan Hernandez

Todd Hollandsworth (who is a color analyst for the Marlins now)

Todd Jones

Byung-Hyun Kim

Tyler Kinley

AJ Ramos

Jose Reyes

5. Walt Weiss

We literally just talked about Walt Weiss in the last installment of this series, so I won’t spend too much time on him. While not drafted by the Marlins, they traded for Weiss on draft day with the A’s. Weiss was the Florida Marlins’ first starting shortstop and saw one of the most productive seasons of his career in his one year with the Marlins.

After the 1993 season, Weiss became a free agent and signed with the Colorado Rockies. With this signing, Weiss became the first player in MLB history to play for both of the 1993 expansion teams. Weiss made history with both clubs as an early star for both teams and later manager for the Rockies, but you’ve been keeping up with this series so you knew that already, now on to number 4.

3. Charles Johnson

Charles Johnson has the distinction of being the Miami Marlins’ first-ever true draft pick, and what a pick he would be. Johnson was elite on defense, becoming the fourth catcher to win a Gold Glove in his rookie year. Johnson would win four more Gold Gloves in a row. Johnson was critical in the 1997 World Series run throughout the entire season, earning the second-highest WAR on the team during that run.

His heroics came through in the playoffs with him batting .357 with a home run, 3 RBIs, and 4 Runs. Johnson had the second most important play of the World Series, according to Championship Win Probability added when his 1-out single in the bottom of the 9th of game 7 moved Moises Alou into scoring position. Alou would then score on a Sac Fly to tie the game. The only play more important than that, you may ask? The one that made the Marlins walk off the Cleveland Indians in the 11th inning, when Craig Counsell scored off an Indians error to win the game.

That World Series would not end Johnson’s highlights with the club. He left after the 1998 season but would return in 2001, earning his second All-Star appearance during his comeback tour. Seemingly always looking for people to catch, the Colorado Rockies traded for Johnson in 2003.

At this point, though, Johnson’s age would start to catch up to him. He was still productive for the Rockies, posting a 1.4 and 1.9 WAR during his two-season with the club, while age may have been catching up to him, that is good enough to have the 5th highest catcher WAR, in Colorado Rockies history. To date, Johnson still has the most games played at catcher in Miami Marlins history, earning him at least number 3 on this list.

2. Preston Wilson

ROY runner up with the Florida Marlins, All-Star with the Colorado Rockies, what else could you ask for in a list like this.

I guess you will have to keep reading to find out who is better than him.

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1. Juan Pierre

From 2002 to 2007, nobody played more baseball than Juan Pierre. Appearing in 162 games in each year from 2003 to 2007, Pierre was a very speedy player. Pierre led the league across several statistics throughout his time in the majors, but by far the most important was stealing. In his career, Pierre led the league in steals three times, once with the Colorado Rockies, once with the Florida Marlins, and finally with the Chicago White Sox.

(Fun fact: Pierre led the league with 46 steals in his first full season in 2001, he would only lead the league two more times in his career despite stealing more than 46 bags in 6 seasons after that).

The Rockies traded Pierre to the Marlins in 2003 for two of the other members on this list, Charles Johnson and Preston Wilson. From that trade, Pierre netted 8.4 WAR for the Marlins in the following years, Wilson and Johnson would net 4.6 WAR for the Colorado Rockies combined. Pierre was also critical to the Marlins 2003 World Series run, leading the league in Games, PA, AB, SH, and Steals (65), earning him the 5th highest WAR on the team.

The heroics were buoyed into the postseason when he batted over .300 with 22 hits, 4 doubles, 2 triples, 8 walks, 3 Stolen Bases, and 7 RBIs. In-game one of the World Series, Pierre was the one to break the tie with a two-run single in the 4th inning to make it a 3-1 game (the Marlins would win that game 3-2). He did great things for both the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins.

This is not Pierre’s first appearance on one of these lists, heck, it’s not even his first appearance in the number one spot. Looking forward, I don’t think this will be his last appearance either.

Data for this article was found using Baseball-Reference and Wikipedia