3 trade targets from the San Francisco Giants for the Colorado Rockies

Despite winning the NL West for the first time since 2012, the San Francisco Giants don’t look like they are an exceptionally strong team entering 2022. The Giants were viewed as a team that would be similar to the Colorado Rockies in 2021, not a team that would win 107 regular-season games.

But the Giants have one of the oldest teams in baseball (oldest in all of baseball for position players and third-oldest in the NL for pitchers) so it is definitely reasonable to assume that they will not win 107 games in 2022. The Giants have already lost their franchise catcher and, perhaps, future Hall of Famer Buster Posey due to retirement and their only addition was starter Alex Cobb.

Even if the Rockies regress in the win column, the Dodgers will continue to be the Dodgers, the Padres will be better than they were for the final four months of the season, and the D-Backs likely won’t lose 111 games in 2022.

But the Colorado Rockies have said that they plan on adding this offseason, whenever the lockout ends because they think they can be playoff contenders in 2022. As GM Bill Schmidt said, “[t]here are pieces here to win. We just need more pieces.”

Schmidt has said that they are open to making some trades as well, which was the genesis of our trade targets series.

The San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies are unlikely to make a big trade

Given the state of each team and considering that they are divisional rivals, the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies are unlikely to make a big deal between each other. That’s not to say it won’t happen (the Rockies sent former All-Star Ellis Burks to the Giants in July 1998) but since then, they have made one trade and one trade that was a “conditional deal” so a deal is unlikely to happen, or be a big one.

Here are three trade targets from the San Francisco Giants that the Colorado Rockies should further examine.

San Francisco Giants reliever Tyler Rogers would be a perfect fit for the Colorado Rockies

San Francisco Giants reliever Tyler Rogers would be a perfect fit for the Colorado Rockies, just like his brother, Minnesota Twins reliever Taylor Rogers. Both brothers were our picks for each of their respective teams back in October when we named just one trade target the Rockies should have from each team.

The brothers are twins but Tyler made his debut more than three years after Taylor and Tyler is a right-handed pitcher.

Tyler Rogers, 31, made his debut with the Giants in 2019 and had great start to his career. In 17 games, he had an ERA of 1.02 with a 2.18 FIP, a 0.849 WHIP, and he averaged 1.5 walks and 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings.

He had some mixed results as he had a bit of a high ERA (4.50) and ERA+ (96) but his FIP (3.26) suggests some bad luck. He led the NL in appearances (29), he had a 1.321 WHIP, and he averaged 1.9 walks and 8.7 strikeouts per nine innings.

In 2021, he also led the NL in appearances (80) and he had 13 saves. He had a 2.22 ERA (184 ERA+), a 3.28 FIP, a WHIP of 1.074, an average of 1.4 walks and 6.1 strikeouts per nine innings, and an rWAR of 2.4.

Like his brother, he could be huge help in the Rockies bullpen for two reasons. First off, he is from Colorado so he has more experience in pitching at altitude than most. Secondly, the thing that helps pitching at altitude is his high groundball rate. Since 2019, his groundball rate is 58.6 percent. That is seventh-highest among relievers with at least 100 innings in that span.

San Francisco Giants reliever José Álvarez could help fill a needed role in the Colorado Rockies bullpen

San Francisco Giants reliever José Álvarez could help fill a needed role in the Colorado Rockies bullpen.

As we discussed yesterday with San Diego Padres reliever Tim Hill, the Rockies only used two left-handed relievers (with the exception of four innings from Zac Rosscup) in 2021: rookies Lucas Gilbreath and Ben Bowden.

There were times in the season where they went without any left-handed reliever.

Bowden had been a top prospect but had his MLB career delayed due to injury and the pandemic but Gilbreath, who was the better of the two in 2021, didn’t make an appearance above Advanced-A ball before making his MLB debut last May. He was also a starter in the minors, not a reliever.

Álvarez, 32, would be a left-handed bullpen veteran as he has pitched in parts of nine years in the majors. He pitched with the Giants for the first time in 2021 after pitching with the Angels, Phillies, and Tigers in the previous eight seasons and he had a great year. In 67 games, he had a 2.37 ERA (173 ERA+). He also had a FIP of 3.15, a 1.113 WHIP, and he averaged 2.6 walks and 5.8 strikeouts per nine innings.

Since 2015, he has had an ERA+ of 109 or better and (with the exception of 2020), he has appeared in at least 64 games per season.

Since 2019, Alvarez’s groundball rate of 49.6 percent is 33rd-highest among relievers with at least 100 innings pitched. He is in the last year of a two-year deal with San Francisco.

Well, there it is. We have looked at all 29 MLB teams that the Colorado Rockies could trade with and we’ve looked at 154 players that the Colorado Rockies could (or should) trade for off other teams 40-man rosters.

Now, hopefully, the lockout can end soon so the Rockies will have some time to make moves before the winter gives way to spring.