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The Rockies were rumored to be considering the depressingly Rockies move of giving up draft pick compensation to sign Mark Trumbo and his .303 career OBP and that pie pan he wears in the field. Instead, they're now being linked to Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Abreu. There are several other 1B options out there. Chris Carter is Trumbo at 1/2 the price and no loss of draft pick. Bottom line is the release of baseball vagabond Stephen Cardullo (boo Rockies) leaves Gerardo Parra as the only "first baseman" on the roster. A reunion with Mark Reynolds is on the table, which would move squarely back into depressing territory.

Nope. They did a very Rockies thing after all. They're going to forfeit the 11th pick in the draft to give Ian Desmond a five year $70 million contract as a reward for two great months last year before AL pitchers located the holes in his swing. Now they'll wind up giving away Blackmon or Gonzalez for less than he's worth.

Very strange signing in my opinion. The Rockies really are not a bad team. They have a more than potent offense and some good, young pitchers. They need a first baseman and a catcher (and more pitching). Otherwise, look at their hitters:

C -
1B -
2B - LeMathieu
3B - Arenado
SS - Story
LF - Dahl
CF - Blackmon
RF - Cargo

At the end of the day, they probably could have signed Trumbo for not that much more than the 5/$70M they gave Desmond. (I wonder if Encarnacion would have taken 4/$80M to play in Colorado.) One wonders whether they made this move with the intent of switching Cargo (or Desmond?) to 1B or if they have something else in the works. Unfortunately, if I was a Rockies fan, I also would view this as a prelude to a bad trade. I would be very reluctant to trade any of the above six players. We'll see.

Mike

I guess they're ticketing Desmond for 1B, but I still hate this signing. Desmond was declining badly before last year and he really did all his damage in May and June. Now I'm waiting for the second shoe to drop.