{"id":74706,"date":"2024-05-28T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74706"},"modified":"2024-05-28T01:56:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T05:56:00","slug":"rockies-catcher-trade-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/28\/rockies-catcher-trade-mlb\/","title":{"rendered":"33-Year-Old Rockies Catcher is Generating Trade Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Colorado Rockies are tied with the Miami Marlins for a National League worst of 19 wins. After Colorado went on a<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/17\/rockies-win-streak-roll\/\" target=\"_self\"> hot streak,<\/a> winning seven in a row, they&#8217;ve just won four out of their last six games. While the Rockies look to continue improving, some of their players have been generating trade buzz. 33-year-old Rockies catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/diazel01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">El\u00edas D\u00edaz<\/a>\u00a0has generated trade interest from around the league.<\/p>\n<p>D\u00edaz is set to be a free agent after the 2024 regular season. Although the veteran catcher has played great for Colorado this season, trading him allows space for the Rockies promising, younger talent. It&#8217;s been prominent for Colorado this season to move up in the standings and don&#8217;t hit a new <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/05\/2024-rockies-may-hit-new-low\/\" target=\"_self\">franchise low<\/a>. The Chicago Cubs have been one team rumored to be eying out D\u00edaz for a catcher upgrade. In Bob Nightengale&#8217;s wrote in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/columnist\/bob-nightengale\/2024\/05\/26\/tarik-skubal-detroit-tigers-al-cy-young-odds\/73859281007\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent piece <\/a>this is what he had to say about the Rockies situation with their catcher:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Teams are keeping a close eye on Colorado Rockies catcher Elias Diaz, who is having his career-best season, hitting .311 with four homers, 23 RBI and an .804 OPS. He\u2019s a free agent after the season.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>33-Year-Old Rockies Catcher is Generating Trade Interest<\/h2>\n<p>D\u00edaz has played in 44 games with the Rockies this season. In 158 at-bats, the 33-year-old Rockies catcher has recorded 48 hits, four being home runs, with 23 batches and a batting average of .304. On May 22nd, the right-handed catcher went three for five with two runs batted in during a 4-3 win over the Oakland Athletics. His 23 runs batted in are tied with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/blackch02.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Charlie Blackmon<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/tovarez01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ezequiel Tovar<\/a> for second-most for the Rockies. At the same time, D\u00edaz&#8217;s .304 batting average ranks second for the Rockies behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/stallja01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jacob Stallings<\/a>. The Rockies catcher has been a much-needed asset for the team throughout this regular season. He certainly has elevated the Rockies play and could help out a potential playoff-contending franchise.<\/p>\n<h3>What Would the Rockies Do If They Traded El\u00edas D\u00edaz<\/h3>\n<p>If the Rockies decide to trade D\u00edaz away, Jacob Stallings would become the Rockies starting catcher. Colorado may look to trade, sign, or even draft a catcher with extreme potential since Stallings is 34 years old. Although Stallings leads the team with a .323 batting average, he&#8217;s played in 20 fewer games than D\u00edaz. The 33-year-old Rockies catcher&#8217;s future is still undetermined, and with the rumors swirling around, optimistically, D\u00edaz can stay focused and help the Rockies win as many games as possible. Colorado is depending on D\u00edaz&#8217;s great play. Someone like former National League MVP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryankr01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Bryant<\/a>, who has had a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/23\/kris-bryant-returns-rockies-need-boost\/\" target=\"_self\">bleak return<\/a> since coming back to the team. Whatever the Rockies decide to do, it must be what&#8217;s best for the team.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: <em>Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Colorado Rockies are tied with the Miami Marlins for a National League worst of 19 wins. After Colorado went on a hot streak, winning seven in a row, they&#8217;ve just won four out of their last six games. While the Rockies look to continue improving, some of their players have been generating trade buzz. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4893,"featured_media":74725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1071],"tags":[382,106,3068,6154,28449,105],"class_list":["post-74706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rockies","category-mlb","tag-charlie-blackmon","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-elias-diaz","tag-ezequiel-tovar","tag-jacob-stallings","tag-kris-bryant"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}