Colorado Rockies: 1 trade target from every MLB team to consider

Seattle Mariners – Marco Gonzales

The chance that the Seattle Mariners trade Marco Gonzales would, seemingly, be fairly low but when you’re dealing with Dealin’ Jerry Dipoto, you never rule anybody out as the former Rockies front office man and the former Rockies reliever is always trading players.

Gonzales, 29, is from Fort Collins so he knows how to pitch at altitude, and his father, Frank, is actually the Rockies pitching coach at Double-A Hartford.

In the last four seasons, Gonzales has made 99 starts for the Mariners and has an ERA of 3.88 (109 ERA+). He averaged 2.1 walks and 7.2 strikeouts per nine innings in the four seasons.

Texas Rangers – Isaiah Kiner-Falefa

Isaiah Kiner-Falefa would be good for the Rockies for three reasons: He is versatile, he is a phenomenal defender, and he has good speed. He can play catcher, second, third, and short. He won a Gold Glove in 2020 and in 2021, he had 11 DRS. He had a sprint speed of 28.1 ft/second in 2021 (for comparison, Raimel Tapia’s was 28.3) and Kiner-Falefa had 20 stolen bases.

That’s why he had a 4.0 rWAR despite his weak bat (85 OPS+). That would be the biggest problem for the Rockies, as already have a lot of versatile players who are good defenders and baserunners but not good hitters.

But they could decide to cut some of those players since they haven’t developed at the plate. Kiner-Falefa, arguably, is a better hitter than some of those players and, he can also play catcher, which the Rockies have been known to carry a player that is a third catcher. In fact, as we mentioned in this article earlier this week, the Rockies have carried an infielder with catching experience (or vice versa) every season in the last decade except for 2021.