If you squint hard enough, perhaps you can see the Rockies competing for a wild card in 2028.
Colorado president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta believes the beleaguered franchise took another step toward returning to contention on Monday, as the Rockies swung three deals ahead of the MLB trade deadline.
The Rockies shipped center fielder Brenton Doyle to the White Sox in exchange for two prospects; sent reliever Antonio Senzatela to the Brewers for two prospects; and completed the whirlwind of a day with a final last-minute deal, giving reliever Victor Vodnik to the Marlins in exchange for infielder Connor Norby and a prospect.
But while the return on those trades can impact Colorado’s big-league team in the near future, and also possibly down the line, who the Rockies didn’t trade amid a sellers market says even more about how the front office feels about the current core of the team. All of the team’s position players, as well as a bulk of the pitchers, are under control through next season.
In the lineup, catcher Hunter Goodman, outfielders Jake McCarthy and Mickey Moniak, and outfielder/first baseman Troy Johnston — all the subject of trade speculation, especially Goodman — remain in purple pinstripes.
“We had a lot of players that were asked about, and we had a set price in mind of what it would take to acquire any of our players,” DePodesta said. “We think we’ve got a lot of good players here. We think we have the foundation of something that has a chance to be pretty good.
“So with that, it was going to take a lot to pry any of those pieces away. And I don’t think we got particularly close on any of those players because our internal price was going to be higher than what the market would bear.”
While the Red Sox — one of the teams interested in trading for the slugging Goodman — paid a premium for a catcher DePodesta says the Rockies didn’t hear any offers that warranted trading Goodman, who is tied for second in baseball with 33 homers. Goodman has a lot more power than Rutschman, but the former is below-average defensively, while the latter
Boston sent three of its top five prospects to the Orioles in exchange for Rutschman, who has one year of club control left as opposed to Goodman’s three.
“So far this year, (Goodman) has been as good as any offensive catcher in all of baseball,” DePodesta said. “He’s here hopefully going forward for a little while now, and we still have control of him for a few more years. We think he’s the centerpiece of our offensive team right now. So if we did entertain (a trade), it was going to have to be a really substantial deal to do that because we value him really highly.”
One player involved in each of the three of Wednesday’s deals will start in Colorado’s organization in Triple-A.
Right-handed starting pitcher , the White Sox’s No. 8-ranked prospect who was the centerpiece of the return for Doyle, could help the Colorado rotation as soon as 2027. That is an area where the Rockies need the most help in order to become relevant again. Southpaw reliever Mark Manfredi (who came from the Brewers as part of the trade for Senzatela) and corner infielder Connor Norby (big-league experience in return for the Vodnik trade) will join Adams in Albuquerque.
Meanwhile, the Rockies stood pat on Moniak — who is under club control through next season and was the subject of ample trade interest — because DePodesta believes the 2016 No. 1 overall pick by Philadelphia is “an important part of what we’re doing (with our turnaround) … his value both on the field and off the field is really important to us.”
A club source says the Rockies have been working on an extension for Moniak that would eliminate his final arbitration year and add two years to his contract, keeping him in Colorado through the 2028 season. On Monday evening, MLB.com’s Thomas Harding first reported for a price tag of $16.25 million, which a club source confirmed. Moniak is playing on a $4 million salary this year.
The deal will be made official on Tuesday.
“He is a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat for us. He’s a leader in our clubhouse. He’s a veteran who’s been around a little bit longer,” DePodesta said. “He’s also been in some different organizations. So he knows what it should look like. He also knows maybe what it shouldn’t look like, which is just as valuable. And that’s important, not just for his peers in the clubhouse, but also for me and for (manager Warren) Schaeffer as we try to shape our culture here.”
Because of the control that the Rockies have over the majority of their roster, DePodesta says he entered 2026 viewing the season as the start of a multi-year runway to see how the club could improve. That gave Colorado “a lot less sense of urgency” to sell off more players at the deadline.
“(These position players who were the subject of trade interest) are playing well for us,” DePodesta said. “There’s no reason for us to move them unless it gave us a real opportunity to improve ourselves.”
DePodesta added that when he came to Coors Field on Monday, he wasn’t set on any of the three trades that ended up finalizing prior to the 4 p.m. deadline. The Rockies had extensive conversations with the White Sox and Brewers over the past week, but the specifics of those trades came into focus on Monday, and the Vodnik deal with Miami was largely put together over the course of the day.
To cap off a day of ample roster activity, the Rockies recalled outfielder Jordan Beck and right-handed reliever Nick Frasso from Triple-A ahead of the series opener against the Rays at Coors Field. Frasso, who was acquired via a July 20 trade that sent reliever Seth Halvorsen to the Dodgers, will be the ninth Colorado player to debut this season.
