The Rockies are signing catcher José Briceño to a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training, reports Thomas Harding of MLB.com. The 28-year-old backstop has 134 major league plate appearances on his resume.
Briceño broke into pro ball with the Rockies as an international amateur back in 2009. After five years in the Colorado system, he was traded to the Braves, who shipped him to the Angels a year later. Briceño made it to the big leagues with Los Angeles in 2018, putting up a .239/.299/.385 line as a rookie. Despite that fairly respectable showing, he’s only picked up six big league plate appearances since then.
Owner of a .251/.286/.464 mark in parts of four Triple-A seasons, Briceño joins a Rockies’ catching mix that has room for improvement. Neither Tony Wolters nor Elias Díaz has offered much at the plate in recent seasons, while Dom Nuñez only has 43 career plate appearances under his belt.
Oh great another depth catcher and not a major league catcher
Get used to it. There are going to be a ton of minor league signings this offseason. Probably more than major league deals!
I know. This is about the Rockies, who pretty much hardly ever sign anyone to MLB deals.
As for catchers, this is the team that last signed 34 year-old Chris Iannetta as the answer to constant catching woes.
“and I’ll do it again!”
I lol’ed…Good one
What do you expect? Jeff Bridich is the worst GM in baseball and thats not a joke. In 6 years he has made one good addition in Marquez. If he was in any other industry he would be fired by now.
I can;t wait until the day that Chris Iannetta is no longer the best catcher in Rockies history. The same Chris Iannetta that probably wouldn’t show up in the top 5 of just about every team. Second base used to be the weak link on the Rockies career list until DJ LeMahieu came along, but now it is by far catcher.
If only Wilin Rosario panned out. Could’ve been a fun kid to watch.
If Bridich wasn’t a moron and let go of Roberto Ramos, we would probably be in a good spot at catcher. He went to Japan and went ballistic over there.
Roberto Ramos was a 1B, not a C.
Rosario was a good hitter, he just wasn’t a catcher and was never going to be. The one that really hurt was Ben Petrick not panning out.
I actually think Yorvit Torrealba was their best, or maybe their first, Joe Girardi.
They certainly need an upgrade over Wolters, who has no power at all.
Crazy how things turned out for Elias Diaz. A fairly decent 2018 with 82 games played. After that, fell on his face and hasn’t found himself again. Such promise and hasn’t lived up to par. I thought in Colorado he would improve offensively and display similar numbers to 2018. What a bust.
Pirates fans have been saying the same thing about Elias………sad
On the bright side, Colorado has a really nice ballpark. On the downside, it is in Colorado, and that is a recipe for MLB failure. One may inflate some numbers to fool another team into overpaying, though.
Idk, I actually think being a hitter in Colorado works against players, when it comes to how other teams see them.
Naturally, as a hitter, you’re typically, almost automatically going to hit better in your home park, that is just common sense. However, I think GMs too often get caught up trying to figure out whether said player’s success is due to it being Colorado or not. So much so, you see an amazing player like Charlie Blackmon still in a Rockies uniform, instead of being ok n another squad already. I mean, he certainly isnt the only example, but he’s the latest example of Colorado’s ballpark hurting its own players value..
Weren’t Jose Briceno and Dom Nunez two of the caballeros who helped out Zorro????
This made me laugh. Thank you!