Colorado Rockies: Five takeaways from Bill Schmidt’s Ryan McMahon/shortstop comments

1) If the Colorado Rockies are thinking of playing Ryan McMahon at shortstop, Trevor Story isn’t coming back.

This is not breaking news as long as you haven’t been in a coma for two years (and if you have, boy, have you missed a lot): Trevor Story is almost definitely not returning to the Colorado Rockies.

Trevor Story was not going to accept the qualifying offer as he will likely get a five- to six-year deal on the free-agent market for $25 million or so per season. Saunders reported on Twitter that Story was going to reject the qualifying offer and test the free-agent market but he also reported that as many as eight teams have checked in on Story so far. The Rockies are not one of those teams.

As Schmidt told Saunders, you can “never assume anything” in baseball but the chances that Trevor Story returns to the Rockies are negligible … at best.

2) The Colorado Rockies want to utilize Brendan Rodgers at second base.

Bill Schmidt admitted as much when he spoke with Saunders: The Rockies view Brendan Rodgers as their primary second baseman.

“I’m not saying Brendan can’t play short, and we’ll give him a look,” Schmidt said to Saunders. “But we think what’s probably best for him is to play second.”

In a small sample size, most defensive metrics actually suggest that Rodgers is actually best at shortstop and McMahon is best at second, not second and third, which were the primary positions the two played last year.