The Colorado Rockies are hot, but don't fall for this Fool's Gold quite yet

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Aug 6, 2021; Denver, Colorado, USA; Colorado Rockies right fielder Charlie Blackmon (19) celebrates his two run home run during the fourth inning against the against the Miami Marlins at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /

Needless to say, the backlash from the Colorado Rockies’ inaction at the July 30 trade deadline came ruthlessly from all directions. The front office chose to believe in the Rockies’ young rotation with the belief that they can stymie up this lineup in the offseason and build a contender from there.

After all, a consistent thought with them throughout the past couple of middling seasons has been that the lineup is good. They just need to play better.

That thought process was, to put it lightly, not viewed very favorably by an overwhelming amount of the baseball world.

But now, we are seeing the version of the Colorado Rockies that the front office hoped for

Since the trade deadline came and went, they are definitely seeing the version of the Rockies they’ve been envisioning as they’ve gone 7-2 coming into Tuesday’s series opener in Houston.

As of Tuesday, no team has scored more runs (70) or hit more home runs (25) since the trade deadline. In fact, their position players have the highest fWAR (4.3) and wRC+ (158) since the trade deadline. The pitching staff, meanwhile, has the third-highest fWAR in the same timeframe (2.1). All combined, no team has been better than the Rockies since the deadline.

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Obviously, this is an extremely small sample size but it’s still insane to see that the Colorado Rockies, in any length of time, lead the league in fWAR with a wRC+ of 158. The highest wRC+ for any Rockies team, for a frame of reference, was 97 in 2014.

Now it’s completely unrealistic to expect them to hit this well for an entire season and the level of competition hasn’t exactly been stellar over this span. But the Rockies being this dominant begs these questions: Does this only help reinforce the front office’s belief that the Rockies can be a competitive club if they just simply play better? And is that actually a good thing for this franchise going forward?

DENVER, CO – JULY 02: Trevor Story #27 of the Colorado Rockies walks through the dugout during a game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Coors Field on July 2, 2021 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images) /

For starters, the Rockies only have $18.3M committed to this roster for the 2022 season and $7M of that is slated for Scott Oberg (whose baseball future is, unfortunately, in doubt). A host of Rockies are going to have their salaries determined through arbitration, and Charlie Blackmon has a $21M player option for next season, but this paints a picture that the Rockies will have a ton of money to play with but with next to zero guarantees on key players returning.

Trevor Story is all but gone. Jon Gray says he wants to stay, but that doesn’t mean someone hungrier on the market won’t snatch him away. C.J. Cron could be enticing to a large amount of AL teams who need a DH. It’s very realistic that none of them return to the Rockies and that would amount to essentially 25% of the Rockies total production (by fWAR for this season) leaving them. That is a HUGE detriment to a team that’s still 20 games back of the NL West lead and 12.5 games back of a Wild Card spot with no guarantee any big-name bats would want to come here.

So if the plan is still to go after big-name bats, there certainly will be options. But there is no guarantee any big name will want to play in Colorado after watching them destroy relationships with the franchise’s better players seemingly year after year:

Ubaldo Jimenez
Troy Tulowitzki
Nolan Arenado
Trevor Story

CINCINNATI, OH – JUNE 11: Brendan Rodgers #7 of the Colorado Rockies is congratulated by his teammates after scoring a run during the game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on June 11, 2021 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati defeated Colorado 11-5. (Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images) /

This means in 2022 the Rockies are, once again, going to need their younger guys to step up and elevate. Brendan Rodgers has taken a huge leap forward this season, but is he going to be a 5 fWAR player and replace Trevor Story’s production from the playoff seasons? That’d be nice, but then we’re also still missing out on Nolan Arenado’s production of nearly 6.0 fWAR per season during the playoff years. How are the Rockies going to fill that if those big bats don’t come here?

The Rockies have a huge jump to make to go from being competitive at times to being a threat in the playoffs, something they barely reached the edge of in 2018. There’s always a chance that they can be competitive and relevant with this group of players, but it’s incredibly risky to move forward with that approach given how pathetic they’ve played on the road this year.

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So while we’re all reveling in this awesome streak the Rockies are in right now, we cannot be fooled into thinking this is sustainable to any degree over a full season. And if the Rockies’ front office feels this is the true potential of the team, and that the Rockies may be OK even if they don’t land a few big bats in the offseason, then be prepared to stay in this purple purgatory for at least another five years.

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The Colorado Rockies are hot, but don’t fall for this Fool’s Gold quite yet

But now, we are seeing the version of the Colorado Rockies that the front office hoped for

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