Well, the Rockies finally made their long-anticipated outfielder-for-pitcher trade. And, perhaps predictably, everyone seems to think it sucks. Mostly it sucks, it seems, because it’s emblematic of the Rockies’ incoherent or altogether missing “plan.” And that’s what I’d most like to discuss. But before we get to that, let’s touch on the particulars at hand.

Value, in General

In case you missed it, the home town team traded Corey Dickerson and Kevin Padlo to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for Jake McGee and German Marquez. Padlo and Marquez are both minor league prospects with more-or-less equal upside. Given the relatively even prospect value, trading Padlo, a hitter, for Marquez, a pitcher, makes sense for the Rockies. In the end, though, it’s just trading one lottery ticket for another – I’ll have more detailed analysis on who won the prospect phase of this trade ready round about the year 2022.

No, this trade really boils down to trading Corey Dickerson, the Rockies’ now-former starting left fielder, for Jake McGee, the Rays’ now-former relief pitcher. Trading a good everyday player like Dickerson for a reliever – even a good reliever like McGee – usually isn’t wise. But remember: we’re living in a time that will likely be remembered as the Age of the Bullpen. Whether this era last two years or two decades, I have no idea, but right now, in the Winter of 2015/2016, the Royals and their epic bullpen are coming off two consecutive years of vastly exceeding expectations – including wining the whole enchilada in 2015 – and top-shelf relievers are all the rage. And make no mistake: McGee is a top-shelf reliever. (Of course, so was Boone Logan when the Rockies acquired him, but surely McGee is no Logan. Surely.)

In terms of total short-term value, the deal is roughly equal. Dickerson’s celling is higher – as is almost any good position player’s ceiling relative to a reliever, since the position player has so many more opportunities to contribute – but there are mitigating circumstances. Dickerson has already developed a troubling reputation for succumbing to injury. Plus, we’re still not sure if he’ll ever hit lefties. If he’s only playing against righties, on top of missing a somewhat predictable batch of games to one malady or another, he’s really only sort of an everyday player. Funny enough: at least one notable projection system pegs Dickerson and McGee as having nearly identical value for the 2016 season.



Personally, despite the caveats previously stated, I think that’s a sort of a worst-case scenario for Dickerson and a sort of best-case scenario for McGee, but what do I know? Maybe not enough. There’s evidence suggesting that a measure like Wins Above Replacement (WAR), despite what it purports to be, doesn’t adequately capture the value of relievers.

Value, vis-a-vis “The Plan”

The thing is, McGee would have to be worth a lot more than Dickerson over this season and the next – if not in WAR, in some other way at least – because it’s the other component of this value proposition that makes the trade look decidedly bad for the Rockies: McGee is only two years away from free agency, while Dickerson is under team control for another four. Also: money. McGee is making more of it – about $4M more this year, and an amount in 2017 to-be-determined by the arbitration process, but an amount that will almost certainly be more than Dickerson’s check. Now, paying that extra cash – and, even more importantly, giving up those extra years of team control compared to the player traded away – would be excusable for a team trying to “win now,” as the saying goes. Good teams overpay for top relievers all the time.

But bad teams usually don’t. And that’s what has the national punditry scratching their heads, and some opinion leaders in the fanbase downright angry. What’s the point, after all, in making incremental improvements to a non-contending team? The Rockies clearly had a surplus of talent in the outfield, especially after signing Gerardo Parra (which was interpreted by some at the time as a round-about way to essentially “buy” a prospect), but why burn a trade asset for a short-term upgrade instead of acquiring a piece that has a chance to pay dividends in a future season that actually matters? Seasons that “actually matter” are, of course, seasons in which the team could plausibility achieve ultimate glory by winning the last game of the year.

To critics, there are no clear answers to these questions; or, alternatively, there are answers, but those answers are wholly unsatisfying. There is some speculation that the Rockies’ hidden agenda in acquiring McGee is to turn around and flip him at this season’s trade deadline for actual prospects – the kind of prospects most observers expected them to acquire in the first place. There is some logic to this, since it’s easier to find trade partners for relievers mid-season than position players (every contender in the league can find room for an excellent reliever, but only a few will have a need for a player who can only play left field or DH). But even so, why wouldn’t the Rockies just cut to the chase? There were openings for left fielders this offseason. So if acquiring prospects is indeed the ultimate goal, why take on the injury and performance risk – and especially Coors Field performance risk – associated with McGee as a placeholder of value, if that’s all the Rockies view him as? Again, there are no clear answers to these questions, and thusly, the cry arose: What the hell are the Rockies doing here?! We’re supposed to be rebuilding, right?! So are the Rockies just failing to implement their plan?! Is the Rockies’ plan inherently flawed?! Is there just no plan at all?! I mean…. ?!

The Plan

I don’t think the Rockies’ plan is incoherent nor absent. I think it’s just contrary to what most commenters believe it ought to be. Rightly or wrongly, the front office appears to want to win as many games as possible as soon as possible. General Manager Jeff Bridich said as much just last week. Most commenters may think that’s silly, because dispassionate projections don’t like the Rockies’ chances to win a World Series this year, but what if a championship isn’t the only goal? What if, at the moment, it isn’t even the primary goal?

Of course, every baseball executive now and forever more will say some version of “our goal is to win a championship,” but like so many other things front office people say, that doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth. Look, I don’t believe Rockies owner Dick Monfort is a particularly good owner relative to his peers, but doubting his desire for this team to win big strikes me as rather ridiculous. His problem is one of execution. Anyway, while I’m sure winning a World Series is on his and every other Rockies decision-maker’s to-do list, I think it’s clear the club’s most immediate goal is something else: relevancy.

And the truth is, personally, I’m on board with that. After so many years of baseball inconsequence at 20th and Blake, establishing a goal less ambitious than a World Series – something each team, by rights, should only achieve every 30 years – but also much more attainable, makes sense to me. Winning a title would be the best thing – I’d definitely like to see the Rockies be the last team standing at least once before I become dead – but you know what else is pretty cool? Getting to watch a Rockies game in August that means something. The former might not be attainable the next couple of years, but the later could be. I’m not trying to persuade any fan to settle for mediocrity, but I also think fans sometimes underestimate how satisfying a mediocre season actually is while it’s happening. A .500 team late in the summer is fun. Every one of those games matters. And by the way, for the dreamers out there, never before as it made more sense – and I’m talking mathematical, objective sense – to simply be relevant. Relevancy also confers auxiliary benefits in terms of signing new players and keeping the existing ones around – including a certain new face of the franchise, Nolan Arenado.

I think this is the plan, like it or not. And understanding that relevancy is the goal, not a bust-to-boom moonshot a la the recent Astros, means understanding everything the Rockies have done going back to the non-trade/extension of Jorge de la Rosa in the summer of 2014, and even before then.

Yes, the trade of Troy Tulowitzki was inconsistent with this goal. At least at first blush. Most Rockies fans, whether they loved the trade or hated it, took that to be the first step towards a full rebuild – again, think Astros. I certainly thought so at time. How could trading the best player in franchise history – at just 30 years old, by the way – be traded for a bunch of prospects and it not be part of rebuild?

But what if the Rockies traded Tulo simply because they didn’t see a lot of surplus value in him (and his contract) at that juncture, and wanted to get as much as it could out of a leaky boat before it sank? Personally, I didn’t care for the trade when it happened, I like it even less now (for obvious reasons), and I wouldn’t like it any more if this was the front office’s thinking at the time. I expect Tulo will be a good player worth his contract for several more years.

But, in the end, that’s just a personal hunch. There isn’t anyone in a better position to predict Tulo’s future success as a player than the folks in the Rockies’ front office – not the dispassionate projection systems, and especially not the very-much-passionate fans, including yours truly. If the front office traded Tulo not to rebuild, but simply because they saw an expensive player on the brink of a steep and sudden decline, we should never have interpreted that trade as part of an Astros-style rebuild in the first place. And after yet another injury sustained in Toronto – yes, it was a fluke and not a long-term concern (aren’t they all) – not to mention poor performance – yes, probably related to the injury (isn’t it always) – maybe the front office will be proven correct. And maybe in short order.

All signs point towards the plan – at least in the near term – to achieve relevancy, not titles. And while it’s easy to be critical of this plan (mediocrity!), or downright cynical about this plan (market share!), and I wouldn’t blame any fan to feeling either, I’d personally love to have me some Rockies relevancy. I don’t want my team to suck until Brendan Rodgers (hypothetically) arrives four years from now. I don’t ever want my team to be as unwatchable as those Astros were. I like watching baseball. Besides, the Rockies’ prospect army has already been assembled and is massing on multiple fronts from Albuquerque to Hartford to Boise. We’ll be fine down the road. Or those prospects will fail, as they’re wont to do, and we won’t be fine down the road. We don’t get to choose these things.

In the meantime, if the Rockies plan to make baseball in Colorado little more fun, I appreciate that. And if they succeed in doing so, even without a World Series, I suspect you’ll appreciate it, too, whether you planned to or not.