Just as Rockies fans were thinking this year would be a repeat of previous offseasons of limited activity, Colorado went out and acquired free-agent outfielder Gerardo Parra from the Baltimore Orioles. The Rockies now find themselves with four outfielders capable of starting for most any Major League team, opening the door for a possible trade of Carlos Gonzalez, Charlie Blackmon or Corey Dickerson.
Parra, a 28 year old from Venezuela, is a two-time Gold Glove winner who “can play in both corners,” Rockies MLB.com writer, Thomas Harding said. Harding joined Gil Whiteley Tuesday on Mile High Sports AM 1340 to discuss the Parra acquisition and a potential looming trade.
In 2015 Parra first played for the Milwaukee Brewers before the joining Baltimore Orioles. When Parra joined the Orioles, he switched from the National League to the American League, which is what Harding attributes to his drop in productivity in the final third of the season. Parra performed significantly better in just the 100 games for Milwaukee where he hit .328 compared to 55 games in Baltimore where he posted a .291 batting average.
Harding describes Parra as, “a very good baseball player; two Gold Gloves – in ’11 and ’13 – and a guy who moves pretty well.” With those kind of statistics, big things are expected of him when he joins the Colorado Rockies for the 2016 season.
At this point, Parra will be joining a very crowded outfield alongside Gonzalez, Blackmon, Dickerson, not to mention Ben Paulsen and Bandon Barnes. “The Rockies had an abundance of outfielders and they just signed another,” Whiteley said following up with a question for Harding, “Is that the precursor to them getting rid of ‘CarGo’ [Carlos Gonzalez]?”
Harding isn’t sure that a CarGo trade will ultimately play out, or if it will be someone else from the crowded outfield, but he is confident a move will be made. “There seems to be a lot of attempt to make a move here. That’s the thing, they didn’t have to move an outfielder before signing Parra,” Harding said in response to Whiteley’s question.
While Parra will be a great addition to the teams offense and defense, Harding and Whiteley agreed that the Rockies need another pitcher. “In a macro sense they need another starting pitcher to build that depth. For 2016, which I’m looking at as a rebuilding year, so I look at it with a grain of salt, they definitely need one more arm in the bullpen… a quality left hander,” Harding said.
Listen to the full discussion between Whiteley and Harding in the podcast below…
Catch Gil Whiteley every weekday from 11a-1p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of what’s new and what’s next in Colorado sports.