The Major League Baseball trade deadline is fast approaching. When your team is in last place, in about a zillion games out of first, you clearly land firmly in the “sellers” category. The good news is that with the expanded playoff format, more teams remain in playoff contention at this point in the season. As the month of July comes to an end, there are still 10 teams in both leagues that are in realistic playoff contention
Fewer sellers and more buyers just drives up asking prices. It’s supply and demand.
So at the deadline, the Colorado Rockies are in an advantageous position this season. They have several tradeable players who could bring back a decent return. Mickey Moniak, Antonio Senzatela, and yes, even the popular Jake McCarthy are available. Pretty much anyone not named Cole Carrigg, T.J. Rumfield or Gabriel Hughes are “touchable” at this point.
Then there’s All-Star catcher Hunter Goodman.
Reports say the Rockies are accepting calls about Goodman, but that Colorado’s asking price is north of extremely high. As it should be.
There’s every reason not to trade Hunter Goodman.
Let’s start with a history lesson. If you’ve followed the Rockies for most of their three-plus decades of existence, you know that the catching position has been a black hole for most of that time. When they selected the club’s 25th Anniversary team some years ago, Chris Iannetta (career batting average of .230) was the choice behind the plate. Until Elias Diaz was selected for the 2023 National League All-Star team, catcher was the only position on the field – including starting pitcher – that had gone unrepresented by the franchise in the mid-summer classic.
The Rockies have historically had decent players like these guys behind the plate, but never a star… until now.
Goodman is just 26 years old and under team control, contract-wise, for four more seasons. He’s eligible for salary arbitration next spring (assuming there is baseball business being done next spring) but can’t be a free agent for three seasons after that.
So the Rockies have a young, power hitting star at a position of need – the most demanding position in all of sports – who’s not costing them millions of dollars, and who they would be very hard-pressed to replace even when they return to contender status.
And some people think they should trade him?
Contending baseball teams need to be very strong up the middle – that’s catcher, shortstop, second base and center field. With Gold Glover Ezequiel Tover at short (and yes, he’s been lousy at the plate, but defense matters a lot, too) and young Cole Carrigg in center, Colorado is just a standout second baseman away from being that kind of defensive team. Yes, they need more than two or three young, high-quality starting pitchers, and yes, Goodman could perhaps net them a couple of those… maybe. But it’s on the new Rockies front office to press forward with making deals for players they can replace, without sacrificing players like Goodman that they can’t.
