At 36-51, the Colorado Rockies are bottom feeders over halfway through the 2014 season. They are right there with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros with the worst record in baseball. For a couple stars in Colorado, this losing seems to be growing thin on them.
According to Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post, Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez have spoken candidly about the potential of being traded. For his part, Tulo had the following to say.
In Todd Helton, there’s someone who’s easy to look at his career here and how it played out. I have the utmost respect for Todd, but at the same time, I don’t want to be the next in line as somebody who was here for a long time and didn’t have a chance to win every single year,” said Tulowitzki, reviewing the 17 years Helton spent as the face of a franchise that never won a division title.
“He played in a couple postseason games and went to one World Series. But that’s not me. I want to be somewhere where there’s a chance to be in the playoffs every single year.
Not too often do you hear players who are under contract talk openly about the urge to play for a contending team, especially when the team he is on isn’t currently in contention and hasn’t been for quite some time.
Gonzalez, on the other hand, talks openly about a potential move to a winning team.
I think it’s easier for me to deal with than Tulo, because Tulo has been here for his entire baseball life. I’ve already been traded twice,” said Gonzalez, a member of the Arizona and Oakland organizations before making his Rockies debut in 2009. “The first time I got traded, it was hard.
The second time, it was even harder. But I’ve learned. Once, I thought it was a team didn’t love the way I played. Now, I know baseball is a business, and anything can happen from one day to another.
This has to be somewhat worrisome to general manager Dan O’Dowd and company. These are two legitimate stars in the prime of their careers. And they don’t seem to be happy with the direction of the franchise.
Tulowitzki has a no-trade clause, which means he could veto any potential deal. But let’s be real for a second here. Tulo isn’t going to get in the way of a trade to a team like the New York Yankees, who might very well be looking for a shortstop following the 2014 season, at which point Derek Jeter will have played his final game in pinstripes.
The shortstop boasts a MLB-best .350 batting average with 18 homers and 36 extra-base hits. As it relates to Gonzalez, he has struggled a great deal this season with just eight homers and a .255 average.
Is this an indication that Colorado is in the process of going through full scale rebuild mode? That decision might very well be left up to owner Dick Monfort, who hasn’t necessarily showed much interest in parting ways with either of these players. At some point, they may need to seriously consider two blockbuster trades in order to replenish what is a weak farm system. If so, Tulo and Gonzalez could very well be on the move at some point in the not-so-distant future.
Photo: MLB.com