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

3) The Colorado Rockies don’t trust the bats of their potential shortstop replacements

Long-term, the Colorado Rockies are looking at Ezequiel Tovar to play shortstop but he hasn’t even played in Double-A yet. So he is likely two years away from being in the majors.

But they do have some other options in the higher minors or in the majors. The problem is that the Rockies know that they have to have more offense and replacing Trevor Story is going to be difficult in and of itself but adding to the offense will be another big task.

So bats like Garrett Hampson and Alan Trejo aren’t going to cut it. One or both might make the team but until that they show that they can get on base at a decent clip, the Rockies know that those two aren’t going to cut it to replace Story.

4) If they are exploring Ryan McMahon playing shortstop, the Colorado Rockies are not a big fan of the free-agent shortstop market (in their price range).

The Rockies, like every team, know that there are some great shortstops in this free agent class. Arguably, it’s the best shortstop free agent class ever. It includes Story, Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Javier Baez, and Chris Taylor. Francisco Lindor was also going to be in that class if he didn’t get an extension from the Mets.

The Rockies are not going to be in play for any of them with the exception of Taylor. We made the case for the Rockies to sign Taylor in late October.

The Rockies probably think that McMahon would have the best bat for them at short and for good reason because the numbers show that McMahon is a better hitter than all of them not named above.

Instead, the Rockies could do something else.