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Jordan Walker sets record, but Cardinals’ road trip continues to crumble as Rockies rumble – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Christian Yelich hits 499-foot home run in Brewers’ loss to Rockies
DENVER — The Brewers wasted no time making mile-high memories with a moonshot for the ages on Tuesday night, as Christian Yelich drove the fourth pitch of the game from Rockies starter Chad Kuhl a Statcast-projected 499 feet to the third deck at Coors Field.
It’s the longest dinger of the 2022 season so far. It’s also the third-longest tracked by Statcast (since 2015), surpassed by only Nomar Mazara (505 feet) and Giancarlo Stanton (504). And while it launched a dominant seven innings from Brandon Woodruff and the Brewers, who led by five runs heading to the bottom of the eighth, it didn’t keep Milwaukee from suffering a brutal 10-7 loss in 10 innings.
“It felt pretty good, but obviously a tough night afterwards for us,” Yelich said of his epic long ball, as the Crew dropped to three games back in the National League Wild Card race. “It’s one of those ones where everything kind of lines up for you, catching a really good spot. Oddly enough, it was my first home run [at Coors Field] in nine or 10 times playing here [100 previous at-bats], so I guess if you’re gonna wait that long, make it count.”
It was the second-longest home run of the Statcast era at Coors Field, behind Stanton’s 504-foot shot on Aug. 6, 2016, when he was with the Marlins. Ironically, when Stanton set that mark from the cleanup spot, Yelich was hitting in front of him as they were 3-4 in the order.
“Stanton got that one pretty good,” Yelich recalled. “He hits balls like that all the time, but I do actually remember that one. It was a pretty good one.”
Tuesday’s blast was Yelich’s fourth career leadoff homer, and his second of the season. It is the longest home run of his career, far eclipsing his previous mark of 462 feet.
“At least give me the extra foot,” Yelich joked about just missing the 500-foot club. “It’ll be cooler tomorrow after the tough loss wears off, but yeah, we need the extra 12 inches.”
The towering blast was Yelich’s 12th of the year and first since Aug. 28 against Chicago, and it elevated a rough road trip that saw him hitting .143 (1-for-7) entering the game. He ended up 2-for-5, suffering a tough break when his ninth-inning liner with a runner on first was hit right at Rockies rookie third baseman Elehuris Montero for an inning-ending double play.
The previous longest home run of the season was by the Marlins’ Jesús Sánchez, who went 496 feet also at Coors Field.
The only blemish on Woodruff’s line was a third-inning solo shot to left from Montero.
“You can put this one up there [with my best of the season],” Woodruff said of his outing. “I was just executing, and I think if I can do that anywhere, I can throw like that all the time. Just make quality pitches.”
But after Woodruff exited, the first four Colorado batters in the eighth doubled their team’s hit total, capped by a three-run blast from Yonathan Daza in his first game back from the injured list to bring the Rockies within a run. Randal Grichuk tied the game, 6-6, with a two-out solo shot to left.
“That was the effort that we needed from Woody,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Seven innings here, he pitched a heck of a game. He put us in a great spot to win the game. So I went to Luis [Perdomo], and it happened fast, obviously. Just nothing good happened after that, frankly.”
Woodruff questioned himself about his exit, but he didn’t second guess his manager or his teammates.
“Trust me, I don’t feel good about it,” Woodruff said. “But that last inning, I had a quick inning, but the ball wasn’t coming out the way I’d like, and I was kind of getting close to the end there. Honestly, it was the right time. Start a clean inning with a reliever. It just didn’t go our way, and that’s the sucky part.”
After a scoreless ninth, Yelich started the 10th frame as the designated runner on second and scored on a Willy Adames double to left, but the Rockies tied it against reliever Taylor Rogers when Daza plated Ryan McMahon with his own double to left.
With one out and runners on first and third in the 10th, and the infield pulled in, Grichuk went deep, launching a 457-foot, three-run homer into the left-field bleachers.
“You just have to [bounce back], you don’t have a choice,” Yelich said of the latest in a series of tough losses. “It feels like the last few months, every couple of days there’s a heartbreaking loss. But in this game, there’s nothing you can do besides come back the next day and find a way to win that one.”
Rockies, Daniel Bard Agree To Extension
1:05pm: Bard’s contract will guarantee him “about $19MM,” Feinsand tweets.
12:52pm: The Rockies and closer Daniel Bard are finalizing a contract extension, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link). Jon Heyman of the New York Post, meanwhile, reports that the Rockies have already reached an agreement on a two-year extension for Bard, a client of ISE Baseball (Twitter links).
All indications throughout the summer have been that the Rockies aren’t interested in trading the 37-year-old Bard and rather hoped to keep him beyond the current season. It now appears they’ve succeeded in that goal.
On paper, Bard seemed like the optimal trade candidate: a 37-year-old reliever on an expiring contract and in the midst of a dominant season for a last-place team. The Rockies, however, march to the beat of their own drum perhaps more than any team in the sport and have made a habit of hanging onto conventional trade candidates, even if it means losing key players for nothing, as they did last summer when declining to trade Jon Gray and surprisingly choosing not to issue him a qualifying offer.
Rockies owner Dick Monfort has outwardly spoken about his belief that the team has the makings of a winning club, even if the on-field results have overwhelmingly suggested otherwise in recent seasons. General manager Bill Schmidt, who was elevated from scouting director to the GM’s chair last year after GM Jeff Bridich’s dismissal, plainly told Danielle Allentuck of the Denver Gazette earlier this month that he did not envision being a major seller at this year’s deadline because the organization believes in the talent on the roster. Manager Bud Black has echoed similar sentiments in recent days, rhetorically questioning why the team would trade a “Range Rover” (Bard) for a “Honda Accord” (a package of minor league prospects, presumably).
While it’s certainly fair to question the inherently risky decision to extend a 37-year-old reliever, it’s simultaneously easy to see how the Rockies have become enamored of Bard in the ninth inning. Merely making it back to the Majors after a seven-year absence would’ve been a feel-good story on its own, but Bard not only engineered one of the most improbable comebacks in recent memory — he’s quickly ascended to the ranks of the elite in MLB.
A late-season swoon sent Bard’s 2021 ERA soaring to 5.21 following the trade deadline, but he’s been an absolute powerhouse in Black’s bullpen this year, pitching to a 1.91 ERA with a 27.6% strikeout rate and a 53.8% ground-ball rate. Bard’s 12.2% walk rate is noticeably higher than the league-average mark of 9.1% among relievers, but his penchant for grounders and inducing generally weak contact (87.2 mph average exit velocity) has helped him to mitigate any damage that might arise from at-times spotty control. Bard is also averaging a blistering 98.1 mph on a sinker that can reach triple-digits and make hitters look downright foolish at times.
Relievers are volatile, as Bard himself has shown with his 2021 and 2022 results, so there’s plenty of risk that this deal turns out poorly for the Rockies. The current version of Bard, though, is about as good a reliever as you’ll find anywhere in the league — and the Rockies are clearly confident in his ability to sustain this output even as he approaches his 40th birthday.
From a payroll vantage point, Bard will add another notable salary to a 2023 roster that could well set a new franchise-record in payroll before the front office makes a single roster move. The Rox had $110MM on next year’s books already, and that was before factoring in Bard’s new extension and an $18MM player option that Charlie Blackmon seems likely to exercise. Colorado will also owe arbitration raises to each of Robert Stephenson, Garrett Hampson, Tyler Kinley, Peter Lambert, Austin Gomber and Brendan Rodgers. All of that should push the team right up against or somewhere beyond the current franchise-record mark of $145MM. Further additions this winter could send the Rockies into entirely new payroll territory.
The Rockies will take– and, based on social media reaction, already have taken — plenty of flak for their commitment to retaining a core of players that has generated only a .445 winning percentage dating back to the 2019 season. And while the team’s resistance to rebuilding and staunch belief that the makings of a contender are present can both fairly be questioned, it’s also somewhat refreshing to see a club continue to try to put together a winning club rather than lean into the type of arduous, multi-year rebuilds that have proliferated the sport in recent years. Even if this group never breaks through and emerges as a true postseason contender in future seasons, the Rockies are at least trying — and that’s more than several teams can say each season.
Braves vs. Rockies – Game Recap – June 3, 2022
DENVER — — Max Fried pitched eight scoreless innings, Matt Olson hit a two-run single in the 10th and the Atlanta Braves beat the Colorado Rockies 3-1 on Friday night to become the last major league team to win three straight games this season.
In only the second game in Coors Field history to be scoreless after nine innings, Carlos Estevez (1-2) walked and hit a batter to load the bases in the 10th. His wild pitch allowed automatic runner Adam Duvall to score.
Olson then hit a liner to left field off Lucas Gilbreath, making a winner of A.J. Minter (1-0), who worked the ninth. Kenley Jansen gave up an RBI single to Yonathan Daza before earning his 13th save for the up-and-down Braves, who moved within a game of .500.
Fried used a mix of pitches that kept the Rockies off balance. He allowed just two hits and didn’t walk a batter until there was one out in the eighth.
“Everything was just nails. I mean slider, change, curve, his fastball. I saw him getting after it a couple innings like he was emptying the tank,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “You expect to win the game when he pitches.”
The lefty set down his first nine batters. Connor Joe led off the fourth with an opposite-field ground single to extend his on-base streak to 30 games. Fried worked around Randal Grichuk’s leadoff double in the sixth and helped snap Brendan Rodgers’ 20-game hitting streak.
Fried, who had a major league-high two shutouts in 2021 and was the winning pitcher in Atlanta’s World Series-clinching victory, threw 102 pitches and struck out four.
“I felt like I had a little bit of everything working,” he said.
The loss spoiled a striking turnaround through nine innings for Colorado’s struggling pitching, as Chad Kuhl and three relievers combined to hold the defending World Series champions off the scoreboard.
The Rockies entered having allowed 39 runs and 51 hits in three games over two days. As manager Bud Black faced questions about his coaching staff before the game, Colorado was in danger of becoming the first team since the 1928 Phillies to give up 12 or more runs in four straight games.
Kuhl got off to a rough start, walking two and allowing two singles in the first. But the Braves didn’t score thanks to second baseman Rodgers throwing out Ronald Acuna Jr. at home on a first-and-third steal attempt.
Kuhl settled down from there. He was at 60 pitches through three innings but needed just 28 more to get through six. Dansby Swanson had three of the five hits allowed by Kuhl, who has given up only three runs in his past three starts.
“Fastball command was key. I felt like I was attacking and getting strike one a lot,” Kuhl said. “When you throw a lot of pitches through one or two innings, you’re thinking get through five. But I was able to get through six.”
Alex Colome, Tyler Kinley and Daniel Bard each pitched a shutout inning, making it the first scoreless game to go to the 10th in Denver since Sept. 14, 2008, when the Rockies beat the Dodgers in a game started by Hall of Famer Greg Maddux for Los Angeles.
“Being able to pitch here is a challenge,” Fried said. “I just wanted to be myself, pitch my game, move the ball around and change speeds.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Braves: Acuna, still getting to full strength following right ACL surgery, started in right. He didn’t play Wednesday and was the DH on Thursday.
Rockies: Daza (elbow) was in the lineup after not starting the past two games. … Black confirmed two prospects, 3B Colton Welker and LHP Ryan Rolison, need season-ending shoulder surgery.
ALBIES SITS
Braves 2B Ozzie Albies didn’t start in what Snitker said was simply a day off. Albies later pinch-hit and has played in all 53 games this season.
PITCHING WOES
Black said the team is not considering replacing pitching coach Darryl Scott despite a 5.34 team ERA entering Friday, second-worst in the majors.
“He’s a good coach,” Black said.
ARBITRATION DAY
Duvall became the third Braves player to have an in-season salary arbitration hearing, an oddity caused by the lockout. Duvall, who went 0 for 4, is asking for $10,275,000 this season. The Braves countered with $9,275,000.
Relief pitcher Luke Jackson and 3B Austin Riley have lost their cases. Fried’s case will be heard later this month.
“All of our guys have handled it like the professionals they are,” Snitker said.
SLOPPY
Daza dropped a fly ball to center in the sixth, giving the Rockies a major league-high 43 errors.
UP NEXT
The Rockies on Saturday night debut their green City Connect alternate jerseys, patterned after the Colorado license plate, when LHP Kyle Freeland (1-5, 4.96 ERA) faces Braves RHP Spencer Strider (1-2, 3.45).
——
Phillies vs. Rockies: Odubel Herrera, Zach Eflin lead Phils’ win
This was what you would call a complete victory.
The Phillies pitched well Tuesday night.
They hit well.
And, yes, they fielded well.
The result was a 10-3 win over the sloppy Colorado Rockies at Citizens Bank Park.
Are the slow-starting Phillies beginning to heat up?
You be the judge.
They have beaten the Rockies two nights in a row, pounding out 20 hits and scoring 18 runs.
Seven of the Phillies’ hits these last two nights have been for extra bases. Maybe manager Joe Girardi was right when he predicted after Monday night’s game, “I think a lot of these guys are really going to start to heat up. I really believe that in my heart and we’ll see some bigger outputs from the offense for sure.”
Odubel Herrera had two of the Phillies’ extra-base hits Tuesday night, an RBI double and a two-run homer.
“When your nine-hole hitter is hitting doubles in the gap and hitting homers, it’s a good night,” said Bryce Harper, who had a single and a double. “I thought we looked really good all the way through.”
There was more than just offense to this Phillies win. Zach Eflin pitched six innings of two-hit ball, surrendering just a second-inning single and a sixth-inning solo homer to Charlie Blackmon, who had two of them on the night, the 13th and 14th of his career against the Phillies.
Eflin struck out three and walked one. He has gone 28 straight starts, dating to August 2020, without walking more than two batters.
Eflin recorded his 500th career strikeout in the second inning but knew nothing of the milestone. In fact, he didn’t want to throw the ball to the dugout and only did so when catcher J.T. Realmuto insisted on it.
“I was pissed,” Eflin said with a laugh afterward. “They were telling me to throw the ball out, but I had no idea. I didn’t want to throw it out because I really liked that ball.”
Eflin didn’t know he’d reached 500 K’s until he appeared on the postgame radio show.
“It’s pretty cool,” he said.
Eflin was more enthused about making his fourth start of the new season before the end of April than he was the souvenir ball in his locker. He had right knee surgery in September and early estimates had him out until May.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t rewarding,” he said. “I put a huge amount of work into it in the offseason.”
Defense, hardly the Phillies’ strength, also played a huge role in the win. Nick Castellanos, starting in right field in place of Harper, who remains unable to play defense because of an elbow strain, made a terrific leaping catch at the wall to take extra bases away from Dom Nunez in the third inning, and resurgent Alec Bohm continued his impressive rebound from a three-error game on April 11 with a strong game at third base.
“He’s playing with confidence,” Girardi said of Bohm. “He’s been outstanding. I’m proud of how he’s handled it. He could have gone a lot of different directions after that day but he’s gone in the right direction and it’s really important for his career and us.”
The defense that helped the Phillies most was the shoddy brand of glovework turned in by the Rockies for the second night in a row.
One night after making three errors, the Rockies made two more. Seven of the Phillies’ runs so far in this series have been unearned.
The Phillies benefited from two Colorado errors and a wild pitch from German Marquez in scoring three times in the second inning. The Phils actually pushed across two runs on the wild pitch.
“Errors, wild pitches and heads-up baserunning,” Girardi said. “We took advantage of it and got the lead, then we tacked on (runs), which is important.
The Phils scored four more times in the fourth inning on hits by Bohm, Herrera, Jean Segura and Rhys Hoskins, and three more times in the sixth, two coming on Herrera’s homer.
The victory left the Phillies at 8-10 heading into the third game of the four-game series Wednesday night. Ranger Suarez will get the ball for the Phillies and look to continue an excellent run of starting pitching by the club. Over the last three nights, Aaron Nola, Kyle Gibson and Eflin have combined to allow just three runs in 18 2/3 innings.
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Rockies Sign Kyle Freeland To Extension
The Rockies have hammered out another extension, announcing agreement with Kyle Freeland on a five-year contract. The deal reportedly guarantees the MSM Sports Management client $64.5MM and comes with a vesting player option for the 2027 campaign. If Freeland tosses 170 innings in 2026, he’ll trigger a $17MM player option for a sixth season.
Freeland had been controllable via arbitration through 2023, so the deal buys out at least three free agents seasons. The southpaw will earn $7MM this year, $10.5MM in 2023, $15MM in 2024, then $16MM in both 2025 and ’26. Were Freeland to finish in the top five in Cy Young award balloting in either of the next two years, he’d earn the right to opt out after the 2024 campaign.
The deal evidently came together quickly, as Freeland told Nick Groke of the Athletic just last week there’d been “no movement” on an extension and that the club hadn’t put forth an offer. Within a few days, he and the team agreed to a long-term deal that figures to keep him around for at least an additional three seasons. It’s a particularly nice development for Freeland, a Denver native and career-long member of the organization.
Colorado selected Freeland with the eighth overall pick of the 2014 draft out of the University of Evansville. He was regarded at the time as a possible mid-rotation starter who could move through the minors quickly based on his polished strike-throwing ability. That projection more or less proved to be the case, as he was in the majors two and a half years later after performing well in the minors.
Freeland stepped immediately into the Colorado rotation, starting 28 of his 33 appearances as a rookie. He posted a 4.10 ERA in 156 innings that season, overcoming a mediocre 15.6% strikeout rate with an excellent 53.9% ground-ball percentage. The southpaw followed that up with a stellar sophomore campaign that has been the best season of his career to date. He made 33 starts and tossed 202 1/3 innings in 2017, posting a 2.85 ERA despite starting 15 games at the most hitter-friendly ballpark in the league. That mark still stands as the lowest single-season ERA for a qualified starter in Rockies’ history, offering plenty of evidence that Freeland could thrive despite the environmental challenges inherent for a Colorado pitcher.
Four years later, the Rox are presumably still placing a lot of emphasis on that showing. Freeland struggled mightily in 2019, allowing a 6.73 ERA. Colorado even optioned him to Triple-A Albuquerque for a month and a half that year. Over the past two seasons, he’s been solid but unspectacular, posting a matching 4.33 ERA in both 2020 and 2021.
Freeland’s general profile — few strikeouts or whiffs offset by plenty of grounders and plus control — hasn’t much changed throughout his time in the majors. Yet since his excellent 2018 showing, he owns a 5.32 ERA in 304 2/3 innings (including two starts thus far in 2022). Colorado surely considers the 2019 season an outlier, but even going back to the start of 2020, Freeland’s 200 1/3 innings of 4.58 ERA/4.65 FIP ball are more fine than exceptional.
The Rockies clearly believe the 28-year-old (29 next month) is capable of a return to something more closely approximating his early-career form. It’s the continuation of a pattern for general manager Bill Schmidt and his staff, who have worked diligently to keep many of the team’s veterans around for the long haul. Within the past eight months, Colorado has worked out multi-year extensions with Antonio Senzatela, Elias Díaz, C.J. Cron, Ryan McMahon and now Freeland. Those players join marquee free agent pickup Kris Bryant and staff ace Germán Márquez as the long-term core in Denver.
Márquez, Senzatela and Freeland are each under club control through at least 2024, leading a rotation the Rox envision as the backbone of the club. Senzatela’s October extension — a five-year, $50.5MM guarantee that contains a 2027 club option — is the most recent deal for a starter with between four and five years of service time. Freeland’s contract tops that of his teammate even though he’s nearly two years older and has been less effective over the past couple seasons. Freeland and Senzatela are similar pitchers stylistically, but the former has been a bit more home run prone and had an ERA about two tenths of a run higher (4.33 for Freeland, 4.11 for Senzatela) between 2020-21.
That’s not to say Senzatela fared poorly. His deal was generally regarded as a player-friendly pact at the time it was signed. Setting aside Jacob deGrom, the previous pitcher to sign an extension in that bucket was Cubs righty Kyle Hendricks. He signed a four-year, $55.5MM pact in March 2019. Like Freeland, Hendricks was headed into his age-29 season and thrived on his control and ground-ball propensity. The Cubs’ starter had posted five straight sub-4.00 ERA campaigns to open his big league career, though, making him a safer long-term bet than either of Colorado’s pitchers.
The Hendricks comparison makes the Rockies’ decision to commit $64.5MM to Freeland puzzling, although it’s not especially surprising. Colorado brass has shown repeatedly they value their own players more than many outside the organization might. While it has been some time since Freeland’s excellent first two seasons, he has shown himself capable of thriving despite the unique challenges the Rockies face at Coors Field. That’s no doubt of appeal to team brass, and the extension comes with the ancillary benefit of avoiding the hassle of an arbitration hearing.
Prior to today’s agreement, the team and player were set for a hearing next month to determine his 2022 salary. Freeland had filed at $7.8MM; the Rockies had countered at $6.425MM. They’ll settle a bit shy of the midpoint for this season and price in a raise for what would’ve been his final year of arbitration-eligibility before paying $15-16MM annually for what would’ve been his three free agent seasons.
The Rockies’ 2022 payroll isn’t much affected by today’s extension, but they’ll add another notable salary to the books for next season and beyond. Colorado’s 2023 player tab now checks in around $110MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource, while Freeland ($15MM), Bryant ($28MM), McMahon ($12MM) and Senzatela ($12MM) all have notable 2024 salaries. Márquez has a $16MM club option that year. The Rockies have never eclipsed $150MM in Opening Day payroll, but they might be headed towards that mark in the next couple seasons. They’ll hope to build around the core in which they’ve invested in an ever-competitive NL West.
Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported the Rockies and Freeland had agreed to a five-year, $64.5MM deal, as well as the sixth-year option. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported it was a $17MM vesting option, which Danielle Allentuck of the Colorado Springs Gazette reported Freeland needs 170 innings pitched in 2026 to trigger. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported Freeland could opt out after 2024 with a top-five Cy Young finish in either of the next two seasons. Thomas Harding of MLB.com was first with the full breakdown of terms.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Blue Jays Trade Randal Grichuk To Rockies
3:32PM: Toronto will send Colorado $9,716,333, according to Rob Gillies of The Associated Press. Those payments are split up as $5,383,333 this season and $4,333,333 for the 2023 season.
1:57PM: Both clubs have officially announced the trade.
12:01PM: The Blue Jays and Rockies have agreed to a trade sending outfielder Randal Grichuk from Toronto to Colorado in exchange for outfielder Raimel Tapia, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). The Jays will acquire infield prospect Adrian Pinto from the Rockies, and they’ll also send cash to Colorado to help cover Grichuk’s contract, Feinsand adds.
Grichuk, 30, has been viewed as a trade candidate for more than a year now as the Rockies have deepened their outfield mix and Grichuk’s performance has slipped. Signed to a five-year contract covering the 2019-23 seasons, Grichuk is still owed $9.33MM both this season and next, while Tapia and the Rox settled on a $3.95MM salary earlier this week. He’s arbitration-eligible and controlled through the 2023 season himself. The difference in salary between the two players clocks in at about $14.7MM.
Grichuk signed a five-year, $52MM contract back on April 2, 2019 — fresh off a 2018 season in which he’d batted .245/.301/.502 with what was then a career-high 25 home runs in 462 plate appearances. It was something of a head-scratching deal even at the time, as Grichuk’s perennial OBP struggles worked to offset his power and solid glovework in the outfield. That’s not to say he wasn’t a useful player, but the Jays already controlled Grichuk for two seasons and were effectively committing about $39-40MM on top of what he might’ve earned in arbitration to buy out his first three free-agent seasons.
Since putting pen to paper, Grichuk has posted a .242/.286/.448 batting line with 65 home runs in 1414 plate appearances. Among the 159 players with at least 1000 plate appearances in that three-year stretch, he ranks 158th in on-base percentage. To his credit, Grichuk curbed his strikeout rate from 26.4% in 2018 all the way down to 20.9% in 2021, but the gains in contact didn’t result in a better average and his walk rate dipped to a career-low 5.0%. It’s clear that there’s above-average pop in his bat, but defensive metrics have also soured on Grichuk’s work in center over the past couple seasons. Meanwhile, the Jays have signed George Springer and received breakouts from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Teoscar Hernandez since signing Grichuk to that long-term pact.
There were reports even while the lockout was still ongoing that Tapia could be on the move when transactions resumed. Adding Kris Bryant as the new primary left fielder surely only hastened the Rockies’ efforts to move Tapia, who’d previously occupied that position. Grichuk can serve as a primary center fielder or right fielder in Colorado, and he’ll bring the Rox quite a bit more power than Tapia ever offered — albeit at the expense of some speed, on-base percentage and (arguably) defensive value.
In Tapia, the Jays will get a much-needed lefty bat to help balance out an entirely right-handed outfield mix (and a generally right-leaning lineup overall). The 28-year-old has served as Colorado’s primary left fielder since 2019, logging a .282/.327/.394 slash line that appears solid on the surface but falls well shy of average after weighting for home park and league (79 wRC+). Tapia has strong bat-to-ball skills but an extreme ground-ball approach that has resulted in just 16 home runs through 1186 plate appearances since 2019. He can swipe a base when needed (37 steals with a 77.1% success rate across the past three seasons. Like Grichuk, he’s not one to take many walks (6.3% since ’19), but he’s also a tough strikeout, evidenced by last year’s career-best 13.1% mark.
Tapia has received solid marks in left field from metrics like Defensive Runs Saved (4), Ultimate Zone Rating (6.0) and Outs Above Average (7) since emerging as a regular in the lineup at Coors Field. He’s at least capable of playing center in a pinch, having logged 189 innings there in his career (15 this past season, none in 2020, 83 in 2019). Those ratings, plus his left-handed bat, make him a better fit for Toronto’s roster than the right-handed-hitting Grichuk was.
While Tapia may not be the star the Rockies envisioned when he ranked among the sport’s 50 best prospects in the 2016-17 offseason, he’s emerged as a solid defensive outfielder with better-than-average speed and bat-to-ball skills. The Jays will likely hope to coax some more fly-balls out of Tapia, thus generating some extra power, but even if his batted-ball profile remains unchanged, he can be a useful fourth outfielder for a club that is deep in slugging right-handed options.
As for the 19-year-old Pinto, he’ll give the Jays something of a prospect wild card to plug into the low levels of their farm system. Baseball America rated Pinto 19th in a fairly thin Rockies system this spring, labeling the 5’6″ second baseman as a “breakout candidate” who could take substantial steps forward as he moves from the Dominican Summer League to a full-season affiliate.
Pinto hit .360/.486/.543 in 224 DSL plate appearances last season, walking at a massive 17% clip against just an 8% strikeout rate while leading the league with 41 stolen bases. BA’s scouting report lauds his “outstanding” hand-eye coordination, advanced pitch recognition skills and plus-plus speed. Players of his size and stature will always have their share of skeptics, but the Jays probably feel better about paying Grichuk to play elsewhere if they’re viewing part of the transaction as an effective purchase of Pinto from the Rockies.
Rockies Extend Ryan McMahon – MLB Trade Rumors
The Rockies and infielder Ryan McMahon have agreed to terms on a six-year contract extension that will guarantee McMahon $70MM, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan. McMahon is represented by Wasserman.
Prior to hammering out this new six-year pact, McMahon was arbitration-eligible for the second time in his career and projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $5.5MM this coming season. The contract buys out his final two arbitration seasons and four would-be free-agent seasons. There’s no way of knowing exactly what McMahon would’ve earned in 2022-23 via arbitration, but using that projection and a rough estimate for the 2023 season, the contract is paying McMahon around $13-14MM per free-agent season. The terms fall roughly in line with some older deals we’ve seen for infielders with four-plus years of service time, including Brandon Belt (six years, $79MM) and Brandon Crawford (six years, $75MM — also negotiated by Wasserman).
McMahon, 27, had a the best season of his career both at the plate and with the glove in 2021. The former second-round pick batted .254/.331/.449 with 23 home runs, 32 doubles, a triple and six stolen bases (in eight attempts). Park-adjusted metrics like wRC+ (95) and OPS+ (98) both felt McMahon’s overall contributions with the bat were a bit south of league-average, but given the strength of his glovework, he still proved plenty valuable.
McMahon not only provided the Rockies with versatility, logging 368 innings at second base and 842 innings at third base — he did so while playing both positions at award-worthy levels. McMahon logged a whopping nine Defensive Runs Saved in just that tiny 368-inning sample at second base, and he racked up 13 DRS at the hot corner despite not playing a full slate of games there. Virtually any metric one might prefer agreed that McMahon was outstanding with the leather; he registered Ultimate Zone Ratings of 6.1 and 2.9 at third base and second base, respectively, while Statcast credited him for 10 outs above average at third base and another two at second.
It’s easy to imagine that with a full season of games at the hot corner in 2021 — Brendan Rodgers is expected to man second base, with free-agent signee Jose Iglesias taking the reins at shortstop and Kris Bryant playing primarily left field — McMahon might find himself taking home some hardware for that defensive excellence. He was a Gold Glove finalist in 2021 as it is, although the man standing in his way is a very familiar face: longtime teammate and five-time Platinum Glover Nolan Arenado, now with the Cardinals.
Like any long-term deal, the signing isn’t without its risks for the Rockies. While McMahon’s strong defense and solid walk rate (9.9% in 2021; 10% in his career) give him a high floor, the offensive gains made in 2021 will need to be sustained for the deal to pan out in Colorado’s favor.
McMahon buoyed his production by finally curtailing some pronounced strikeout issues that had dogged him throughout his MLB tenure. From 2017-20, McMahon whiffed in 30.8% of his plate appearances — including a career-worst 34.2% in 2020’s shortened slate of games. That rate fell to a much more manageable 24.7% in 2021. McMahon has always had power and a knack for making hard contact, so as long as he can keep the punchouts down, there’s good reason to believe he can continue to be a reasonably productive bat — at least against right-handed pitching. The lefty-swinging McMahon slashed just .229/.312/.353 against southpaws in 2021 (173 plate appearances) and is a career .239/.310/.433) hitter against same-handed opponents.
The Rockies underwent a front office shuffle early in the 2021 season, dismissing longtime general manager Jeff Bridich and elevating scouting director Bill Schmidt to the GM post on an interim basis. Rather than perform a search and look for external candidates, owner Dick Monfort instead dropped the “interim” tag from Schmidt’s title before the season even ended.
Schmidt, who’s been running the Rockies’ scouting department since 1999, quickly went to work ensuring that several members of the Colorado roster would remain in place. Trevor Story had seemingly made up his mind to move on before the year ended, and the Rox were unable to sway righty Jon Gray in extension talks. However, they’ve also succeeded in brokering long-term deals for Antonio Senzatela (five years, $55MM), catcher Elias Diaz (three years, $14MM) and now McMahon — in addition to re-signing first baseman C.J. Cron before he even reached the market (two years, $14.5MM). That group now joins the team’s marquee addition, Bryant, among a restructured Rockies core.
Rockies To Sign Kris Bryant
5:25pm: The deal includes a full no-trade clause, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter link).
5:22pm: The Rockies are in agreement with Kris Bryant on a seven-year, $182MM deal, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter links). Colorado has made no secret of their desire to land a big-ticket bat in free agency, and they’ve done so with the second-largest guarantee of the offseason to date. Bryant is a client of the Boras Corporation.
Bryant will step in as the new face of a franchise that has traded away Nolan Arenado and seen Trevor Story hit free agency over the past two offseasons. It’s the largest free agent investment in franchise history, one that’ll tie the four-time All-Star to Denver through his age-36 season.
Coming into the offseason, few would’ve expected Colorado to make this kind of major splash. The Rockies have finished fourth in the NL West in each of the past three seasons, and they’re coming off a 74-87 showing in 2021. Some outsiders have called for Colorado to tear things down and commit to a full rebuild, but ownership and the front office have maintained that they don’t view the team as being all that far from contention.
From the outset of the offseason, Colorado has reportedly been targeting a major offensive upgrade to their outfield mix. The Rockies reportedly checked in with players like Kyle Schwarber and Michael Conforto as well, but it became clear in recent days that Bryant was their desired target. Whether they’d spend at the level it took to land him was in question, but owner Dick Monfort has signed off on a seven-year deal with a $26MM average annual value to bring in one of the game’s most recognizable stars.
Bryant, of course, earned that notoriety during his days with the Cubs. The second overall pick in the 2013 draft, he immediately entered pro ball as one of the top prospects in the game. Bryant lived up to those expectations, tearing through the minors for a season and a half. The Cubs delayed his big league debut a few weeks into the 2015 season to push back his path to free agency by a season, but he debuted in mid-April and hit the ground running as a star.
The University of San Diego product hit .275/.369/.488 with 26 homers in his first season, claiming the National League’s Rookie of the Year award. Bryant did strike out a slightly alarming clip that year, but he significantly improved his contact output during his second year. The star third baseman hit .292/.385/.554 in 2016, winning the NL MVP and helping the Cubs to a 103-win season and their first World Series title in 108 years.
Chicago never became the multi-year dynasty some fans had expected, but Bryant continued to excel on generally good teams for the next few seasons. He combined for a .284/.390/.511 mark between 2017-19, ranking 17th among position players in FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement over that stretch. Bryant seemed on the path towards a free agent megadeal, but his production plummeted in 2020. During that year’s shortened season, he posted a lowly .206/.293/.351 line over 34 games. What kind of production the Cubs could expect from him — as well as how his free agent market might ultimately shake out — seemed very much up in the air going into 2021.
Bryant didn’t regain his MVP form last season, but he did bounce back from his 2020 downturn. He hit .267/.358/.503 over 374 plate appearances on the North Side, offensive production that checked in 29 percentage points above the league average. That wasn’t enough to keep the Cubs from a June-July skid that took them out of postseason contention, though, and it became clear they were likely to move the impending free agent by July 30. Minutes before the trade deadline, the Cubs shipped Bryant to the Giants for prospects Alexander Canario and Caleb Kilian.
His production dipped a little bit in the Bay Area. Bryant hit .262/.344/.444 in 212 plate appearances in black and orange while struggling in Oracle Park’s spacious outfield. Nevertheless, he hit the market coming off a productive .265/.353/.481 season line. Heading into his age-30 season with an MVP pedigree, he looked to have reemerged as one of the top prizes of this year’s class. MLBTR ranked Bryant as the winter’s #4 free agent in November, projecting him to receive a six-year, $160MM guarantee.
Bryant’s actual deal comes in above that mark, as he lands a seventh year and $22MM more, as well as the no-trade protection. Only Corey Seager, who got $325MM over ten years, has received a larger guarantee among free agents this winter. (Carlos Correa and Freddie Freeman still have an opportunity to surpass that mark). The loftiness of that investment perhaps suggests the Rox had to pay a premium to convince Bryant to join a club that’s not a clear immediate contender. For all of ownership’s and the front office’s confidence, Colorado still looks to have a weaker roster than those of the Dodgers, Giants and Padres in a loaded NL West.
There’s also the fact that Colorado’s last two position player superstars haven’t departed the organization on the best of terms. Arenado and the organization had a messy fall-out before they traded him to the Cardinals, with Arenado famously saying he’d felt “disrespected” by then-general manager Jeff Bridich. Story, meanwhile, said he was perplexed by the organization’s decision not to trade him at last summer’s deadline; there’s been no indication he’s considered re-signing since hitting the open market.
Bryant and the Rockies no doubt hope their long-term relationship will end more happily. It’s the biggest move yet made by first-year GM Bill Schmidt, who took over baseball operations when Bridich stepped down last April. There’s obviously plenty of risk in any kind of investment of this magnitude, and Bryant’s profile isn’t without some areas for concern.
As mentioned, his 2021 campaign — while a marked improvement over his 2020 numbers — wasn’t a return to peak level. Bryant’s 123 wRC+ last season was a personal low in any of his six career non-truncated seasons. By definition, that’s still strong work (23 percentage points above the league average offensive output) but it’s not the kind of production that’ll garner MVP support. And Bryant has never had the kind of eye-popping batted ball metrics one might expect from a player who has had so much success.
His 88.2 MPH average exit velocity last season was right in line with the league mark. His average exit speed on balls hit in the air (91.4 MPH) was only a hair above average (90.9 MPH). Bryant fares better in metrics like hard contact rate (40% vs. 35.4% league mark) and barrel percentage (10.3% against a 6.6% league average), but both marks are more good than elite. He’s always drawn a fair share of walks and hasn’t been especially prone to strikeouts since his rookie year, but his peripherals have more closely aligned with a player who ranked 44th in wRC+ last season (out of 135 players with 500+ plate appearances) than with a superstar caliber performer.
There’s no question manager Bud Black will pencil Bryant into the lineup on an everyday basis, although precisely where on the diamond remains to be seen. He has primarily played third base in his career, but Colorado has a Gold Glove caliber defender at the hot corner in Ryan McMahon. It seems likely that Bryant will spend the bulk of his time in the corner outfield, at least next season. He has generally rated as a competent defender in the corners, although he didn’t seem comfortable manning Oracle Park’s tricky right field during his couple months in San Francisco. Bryant has a little bit of experience in center field, but he’s never been a regular option there and would be miscast in the spacious Coors Field.
More to come.