Colorado Rockies trade Raimel Tapia to Toronto Blue Jays for a center fielder

According to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the Colorado Rockies have traded outfielder Raimel Tapia to the Toronto Blue Jays.

In exchange, the Rockies have acquired outfielder Randal Grichuk. In addition, the Rockies will send infield prospect Adrian Pinto to the Jays.

The Colorado Rockies have traded Raimel Tapia to the Toronto Blue Jays

Colorado Rockies outfielder Raimel Tapia is on his way out as he has been traded to the Toronto Blue Jays along with minor league infielder Adrian Pinto in exchange for outfielder Randal Grichuk.

Grichuk, 30, will almost certainly become the team’s everyday center fielder but he has played right field a lot as well.

The Rockies are hoping that Grichuk will continue his trend in where he plays really well in even years. He has had an OPS+ above league average in each of the last three even seasons but a below average OPS+ each odd year. His two best seasons came in 2018 and 2020.

In 2018 for Toronto, he hit .245/.301/.502 with 25 homers and 61 RBI with 32 doubles as well. Even in 2021, in 149 games, he had 22 homers and 81 RBI so he will provide some power to the Rockies lineup despite not having a great contact or on-base percentage.

Grichuk is owed at least $10.33 million for each of the next two seasons, which incentives potentially putting it up to $12.33 million in 2023 depending on his number of plate appearances.

The writing was on the wall for Tapia, 28, after the Rockies signed Kris Bryant to play left field. He led the majors by an astonishing 12 percent in groundball rate as he hit groundballs 67.4 percent of the time.

In 2021, he had 533 plate appearances and he hit .273/.327/.372 with an OPS+ of 80. He had six homers, 50 RBI, and 26 doubles. His best season at the plate came in 2020 when he hit .321/.369/.402 with an OPS+ of 98 in 51 games.

Defensively, he improved a lot in 2021 as he had 8 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) when, in 2019, he had -2 DRS, including -5 DRS in left field, which is his primary position.

Pinto, 19, was just signed by the Rockies fairly recently due to his age. He just made his professional debut with the Rockies Dominican League team in 2021 when he hit .360/.487/.543 in 54 games. He plays second, shortstop, and a handful of games in center field.

We will udpate this article and/or the site with more as more develops on the trade.