Do not fret, Rockies fans.
There may not be smoke, but that doesn’t mean there’s no fire.
With 2018 Cactus League play well underway, most of the focus for the Colorado Rockies organization is on exceeding the 87 wins and National League Wild Card berth earned in the 2017 season. But General Manager Jeff Bridich acknowledged at Cactus League Media Day in mid-February that he and his front office team will be thinking about a trio of very pressing longer-term matters.
All of the hype and high expectations surrounding the 2018 Rockies season is tempered by the reality that this very well could be the final season Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon and DJ LeMahieu are all on the field together in purple pinstripes.
Arenado is under team control through 2019, while Blackmon and LeMahieu are slated to become unrestricted free agents after this season. Blackmon and LeMahieu each signed one-year contracts this offseason to avoid arbitration, but the 2017 and 2016 batting champions, respectively, should be looking at long-term contracts in the eight- or even nine-figure range. Arenado, meanwhile, could fetch upwards of $350 million — depending on the market — on his deal.
Bridich said recently that contract conversations with the team’s biggest contributors wouldn’t necessarily have to wait until the offseason.
“All the guys who are coming up on free agency or soon to be over the next couple of years,” Bridich said on Feb. 20, “as I’ve said before, those are conversations to be had. And we’ll certainly cross those T’s and dot those I’s with the players, with the agents, but it will not from the club perspective be public conversation. And really, that’s out of respect for the process. That’s out of respect for the player. That’s out of respect to the organization and the rest of the players in the organization and what our goals are and what we aim to stay focused on.”
On Sunday, Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported that Arenado is content to play out the 2018 season without negotiating a long-term deal.
Bridich and the trio of All-Stars are presently focused on competing in a stacked National League West division that sent three teams to the playoffs in 2017. Arenado and Blackmon finished fourth and fifth in NL MVP voting last season, each picking up a Silver Slugger award to go along with Blackmon’s batting title and MLB-record 103 RBI from the leadoff spot (104 total). LeMahieu, meanwhile, earned his second career Gold Glove and batted above .300 for the third consecutive season.
The Rockies made out like bandits in 2017 paying salaries of $11.75 million (Arenado), $7.3 million (Blackmon) and $4.8 million (LeMahieu) for those three. Yet the organization clearly appreciates and acknowledges their worth, which why Bridich doesn’t want the negotiations to become a public matter — whenever they happen.
“It’s just how I feel we should do business in this area. So, I’m not really going to comment on any sorts of these conversations over time,” Bridich continued. “Publicly, I think these players know how much we respect them, how much we appreciate them. I think we’ve had good relationships and solid professional relationships with these guys. So, certainly they are people that we appreciate, players that we appreciate and those relationships mean that it’s worthy to have these types of conversations. Apart from that, it’s not going to be anything publicly that we’ll comment on.”
The Rockies in 2017 faced a similar situation with longtime right fielder Carlos Gonzalez. The 2010 batting champ and three-time All-Star was in a contract year, and while negotiations occurred, news of those conversations that happened during the spring did not leak to the public until August. Gonzalez struggled through the first four months of the season, hitting just .228 from April-July, and the pressure of playing for a new contract weighed heavily on the slugger. Gonzalez remains a free agent now two weeks into Spring Training.
Bridich addressed the concerns about how looming contracts and contract negotiations could negatively affect a player during the season.
“Is there a concern that it could become a distraction? Sure,” he said. “I think that’s natural for human beings — we’re all human beings involved in this, right? It can potentially be distracting.”
He and his staff will be sensitive to those dangers, and put communication front and center throughout the process.
“I think that if you do get involved in certain conversations, contractual conversations, I think it’s something to talk about upfront. I think you have to be on the same page as people and say, ‘Look, is this something we need to talk about in terms of timeline and timeframe?’ and all that kind of stuff. If you handle it that way, you’re on the same page as people, you can figure it out.”
Just don’t expect any of the parties involved to be communicating that too outwardly to the public.
There are bigger matters at hand to talk about in the short term.
Matters like getting back to the playoffs and winning games once there.