Colorado Rockies news and links for Monday, December 14, 2020
Nolan Arenado AND Trevor Story to the Dodgers? Inconceivable, right? That’s the trade idea that The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal threw out Sunday morning. The idea wasn’t based on any report or coming from any league source, instead Rosenthal came up with the trade idea to torture Rockies fans. I’m partly joking of course, the real reason Rosenthal brings up such a scenario is to make a point about the creativeness that teams have when they want a star player.
I found this idea interesting as to what ways teams get creative. The Yankees creatively throw money around. The Dodgers creatively improve players… and then throw money around. The Rays creatively use a quarter of the above teams’ budget to get to the World Series.
Rosenthal himself believes his trade idea is unrealistic because of numerous factors, but his point still stands. There are ways to get even a tiny bit better in any circumstance.
As to how this applies to the Rockies, we first need to understand the restraints in which the team has to be creative under. They’re obviously trying to save money but as to how far they want to shrink payroll, we don’t know. The Rockies haven’t addressed the team’s direction in months.
So as far as we know, the most creative and smart approach would be to maximize the talent they can get with whatever amount of money they’re limited to. How do the Rockies do that?
As much as Rockies fans are frustrated by the lack of major league signings, they’ve already been doing this. The most creative way the Rockies can improve on their tight budget (if they keep the core they have) is by identifying cheap low-risk talent that they believe they can maximize. This means more minor league signings and buying low through trades for players like Robert Stephenson and Yoan Aybar. They need to find more Daniel Bards. Fill the entire team with Daniel Bards.
Whether or not you believe in the Rockies’ front office ability to identify talent is another topic.
With a couple months to go in the offseason, they’ll keep being creative in trying to contend on their budget up until the trade deadline. It may not be a sexy offseason, but once you accept that the Rockies are shrinking their budget, you see that Bridrich is doing what he can without blowing up the core. Is he doing a good job with this strategy? Is this strategy even a good one with star players on the verge of leaving? We’ll find out next season, but it could be too little too late.
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Big names, big trade possibilities for MLB’s creative thinkers | The Athletic ($)
This is Ken Rosenthal’s article mentioned above where he discusses the creative trade ideas (like Arenado, Story for Corey Seager plus prospects) that teams come up with when it comes to elite players. He also talks Angels pitching, Blue Jays and league expansion.
Rockies’ outfield faces big questions ahead of 2021 season | The Denver Post ($)
Patrick Saunders takes a look at the options in the outfield after the departure of David Dahl. After Raimel Tapia and Charlie Blackmon, guys like Sam Hilliard, Garrett Hampson, Ian Desmond and Yonathan Daza all figure to get opportunities especially if the Rockies choose not to bring back Kevin Pillar.
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