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 infielder Mauricio Dubon could be a fit on the bench for the Colorado Rockies

San Francisco Giants infielder Mauricio Dubon could be a fit with the Colorado Rockies.

Dubon, 27, has spent parts of three seasons in the majors with Milwaukee (two games in 2019) and the Giants (after the trade deadline in 2019).

In 2021, Dubon played in 74 MLB games and he hit .240/.278/.377 with five homers, 22 RBI, and an OPS+ of 76. 2020 was his best season as he hit .274/.337/.389 with four homers and 19 RBI in 54 games. He had an OPS+ of 100.

In 2019 between the Brewers and Giants, he played in 30 games and he hit .274/.306/.434 with four homers and nine RBI.

Dubon could be a target for the Rockies because they have been big fans of versatility with their players. In the majors alone, Dubon has played at least a dozen games at second base, shortstop, third base, and center field. He also played a handful of games in left and right field in the minors.

The Rockies have some players that could play infield and outfield spots currently or in recent years (Garrett Hampson, Chris Owings, Taylor Motter, Ryan Vilade, Ian Desmond, Pat Valaika, Gerardo Parra) but Dubon has seen the most success at the MLB level with the bat (Vilade only has three games at the MLB level and Owings has had the best bat but he has been injured for the vast majority of the last two years).

Dubon doesn’t even have two years of service time so the Rokcies would have their fair share of control with him.

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.