The Rockies have shown a bit of improvement but are still one of the worst teams in the league. They won’t be trying to compete in 2027. The big question of the offseason is how aggressively they will be shopping players from the major league roster.

Guaranteed Contracts

• Kris Bryant, 1B/OF: $52MM through 2028
• Ezequiel Tovar, SS: $51.5MM through 2030 (includes buyout of 2031 club option)
• Mickey Moniak, OF: $16.25MM through 2028
• Willi Castro, IF/OF: $6.8MM through 2027

Option Decisions

• None

2027 guarantees: $48.05MM
Total future commitments: $126.55MM

Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses)

• Jimmy Herget (5.069)
• Jake McCarthy (4.074)
• Ryan Feltner (4.071)
• Brennan Bernardino (3.153)
• Hunter Goodman (3.010)

Non-tender candidates: Herget, Feltner

Free Agents

• Kyle Freeland, Jose Quintana, Tomoyuki Sugano, Jordan Romano, Tyler Freeman (assuming his contract isn’t added back to the roster), Keegan Thompson (assuming his contract isn’t added back to the roster)

It has been almost a year since the Rockies hired Paul DePodesta as president of baseball operations. The hope for many fans was that this would signal the start of a new way of doing business. For many prior years, the front office seemed to be loyal to its players to a fault, reluctant to trade them at peak value or when it made logical sense to do so.

Trevor Story and Jon Gray were not dealt at the 2021 deadline even though both were impending free agents on a club that was out of contention. Around that same time, C.J. Cron and Daniel Bard had bounced around the league a bit. Both had some success in Colorado and were extended instead of being traded. Those deals quickly went south.

At this point, it’s unclear if DePodesta is charting a new path, as there’s conflicting evidence. On the one hand, he has traded Angel Chivilli, Seth Halvorsen, Victor Vodnik and Brenton Doyle. All of those players were controllable for years to come, so those felt like moves that would not have happened in earlier eras for the Rockies.

But those were also complementary pieces. Three of them are relievers and Doyle is a glove-first outfielder. For more everyday guys, the Rockies still held tight. Hunter Goodman, Jake McCarthy and Mickey Moniak were all in plenty of trade rumors this year but they all stayed through the deadline. Moniak was signed to an extension. Those felt more like classic Rockies decisions.

The McCarthy and Moniak calls were particularly puzzling. Both were picked up for cheap and were having good seasons. Moniak was signed in 2025 after he was released by the Angels. He’s mostly a platoon bat who can only hit righties but he has power in that split. He was only under club control through 2027. McCarthy was acquired from the Diamondbacks coming into 2026 after a down year with the Snakes. He is having a great bounceback season and is controlled through 2028.

It’s not likely the Rockies will be good next year or in 2028, so those players should have been flipped for younger and controllable players to help further into the future. Instead, they were both held and Moniak signed for an extra season. Moniak has been awful since the ink dried on that deal, with a .172/.210/.321 line, 4.9% walk rate and 32.9% strikeout rate dating back to August 4.

Holding Goodman was more understandable, in a sense. He is still controlled for three seasons after this one. He’s only going to qualify for arbitration for the first time this offseason. There was no strict urgency to trade him at the deadline but there did seem to be a good market. Trading catchers midseason is sometimes awkward because the backstop has to learn an entirely new pitching staff but the Red Sox paid a huge price to get Adley Rutschman from Baltimore while the Yankees were aggressively trying to buy. The Rockies didn’t take advantage.

Will those players be more available this offseason? With Moniak, perhaps the Rockies aren’t getting good offers. Most of his production has come at Coors Field, so there could be skepticism about him performing well after a trade. He has also tailed off badly since the deadline/extension, tanking whatever value he previously had. But McCarthy and Goodman should have plenty of appeal to other clubs around the league. It’s hard to say how willing the Rockies are to entertaining offers.