Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt spoke with reporters (including the Denver Post’s Kyle Newman and Just Baseball Media’s Patrick Lyons) at the “Rockies Fest” fan event this weekend, addressing such topics as the health of several notable Colorado players. German Marquez was one of those players, as Schmidt said the right-hander is recovered from the stress reaction in his right elbow that prematurely ended Marquez’s 2024 season.
Injuries have limited Marquez to five starts and just 24 innings for the Rox over the last two seasons. The bulk of that injury layoff came in the form of Tommy John rehab, after Marquez underwent the procedure in May 2023. He made it back to the big leagues by July of last season, but Marquez’s return lasted just a single game, and four innings in Colorado’s 8-5 win over the Mets on July 14. Elbow inflammation soon sent Marquez to the 15-day IL after that one outing, and the stress reaction was discovered shortly thereafter.
Marquez has spent all nine of his Major League seasons with the Rockies, posting a 4.40 ERA over 996 innings from 2016-22. The Rockies acknowledged Marquez’s durability and success at handling Coors Field with a five-year, $43MM contract extension in April 2019, with a $16MM club option for the 2024 campaign. The option never ended up coming into play, as Marquez inked a new two-year, $20MM deal with Colorado in September 2023 that covered the 2024-25 seasons, and gave both sides a little more flexibility as Marquez recovered from his TJ surgery.
With the first season of that deal unfortunately going down as a wash, Marquez now faces extra pressure as an impending free agent. Marquez’s first priority is just getting healthy and getting back onto a mound, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Rockies make a move to lock him up on another extension if he pitches well in the early part of the season. Despite his lengthy track record in the majors, Marquez doesn’t turn 30 years old until next month.
Any kind of rotation stability is sorely needed in Denver, both due to the infamous thin-air conditions and because of how hard the Rox have been hit by pitching injuries over the last few years. Marquez is penciled into a rotation that also includes Austin Gomber, Ryan Feltner, Kyle Freeland, and Antonio Senzatela (who also missed most of 2023-24 due to Tommy John rehab). Between this group and some Triple-A arms nearing their big league debuts, Schmidt is hopeful the Rockies have amassed enough depth to withstand any further injuries or any struggles from the regular starters.
Some more pitching could be on the way in the form of relievers, as Schmidt indicated that the Rockies could yet add to their bullpen before Spring Training. Diego Castillo, Jimmy Herget, Tommy Doyle, and Jake Woodford are among the pitchers with MLB experience who have been brought into the organization on minor league deals or waiver claims, and it remains to be seen if the Rockies’ pitching explorations will lead to any guaranteed contracts for bullpen help.
Infielders Thairo Estrada and Kyle Farmer are the only players the Rox have signed to guaranteed deals, both brought into the fold on one-year contracts. It isn’t necessarily surprising that a team coming off 204 losses in the last two seasons isn’t aggressively spending, but the Rockies are continuing their unusual path of not entirely rebuilding, but also clearly focusing on younger talent.
Charlie Condon is one of those key building blocks for the future, and Schmidt said the team hadn’t yet decided where Charlie Condon will play in the minor leagues next season. The third overall pick of the 2024 draft began his pro career in inauspicious fashion by hitting only .180/.248/.270 over 109 plate appearances for high-A Spokane, but Schmidt said Condon was trying to play through a bruised thumb that “he kind of didn’t tell us” about.
This injury could well explain those struggles, even though it isn’t unusual for even star prospects to face some growing pains in their first taste of professional baseball. Condon was also moving right into his pro career on the heels of 60 games with Georgia during the 2024 NCAA season, with Condon crushing college pitching to the tune of a .433/.556/1.009 slash line and 37 homers over 304 PA. In recently-released top-100 lists, MLB Pipeline rated Condon as the 29th-best prospect in the sport, and Baseball America ranked him 42nd.
They’ve made plenty of moves to solidify themselves in the cellar of the NL West
“The Rockies acknowledged Marquez’s durability and success at handling Coors Field with a five-year, $43MM contract extension in April 2019, with a $16MM club option for the 2024 campaign.” I’ll give them durability. But success? With a 5.07 ERA and a 1.395 WHIP at Coors I’m not sure I can call that success.
You’re not thinking. A 5.07 ERA at Coors is very solid. He takes it down a run and a quarter in Away games, a 3.83 ERA in something like 500 innings in spite of continually having to adjust his repertoire and a FIP around 3.40 in those games.
Savant has Coors giving up 1.21x as many runs as everywhere else. With that FIP of 4.04 in spite of pitching half his games in Coors while averaging 181 innings fr 2017-2022, if this was the 2022-2023 offseason Marquez would be an acknowledged star in line for $200m-250m in FA if he pitched in a neutral park, let alone a pitcher’s park like Citi.
Corbin Burnes’ FIP 2022-2024. was 3.49 and the Backs were lucky to get him at 6/210m.
It was that one year him and freeland did good and Rockies jumped on it like flies on poop and of course it backfired in their faces Rockies style
Great, committed, supportive fanbase for a team that seemingly takes their fandom for granted. Imagine if they had a clue as to what they were doing?
You mean tourist season when people hit up Coors before heading up in the mountains. They’re kind of like Cubs fans…with a lot less experience. I’m not trying to be mean. I know the Rockies deal well. Elevation will zap even the best professional baseball people…which Colorado doesn’t have anymore. Tough gig. Even without meddling ownership.
You gotta wonder. Who would you rather be current day the whitesox or rockies? The whitesox seem like a better option which is crazy to consider.
100% White Sox. At least they realized they had to rebuild and change their ways. The Rockies and their owner never integrated analytics into their org and have been left in the dust
The idea that the Rockies haven’t ever used analytics isnt true. They were BUILT on the former baseball ops people who built Montreal and have gone on to Atlanta. Montreal was amazing at integrated scouting and analysis. Colorado’s issue is a meddling owner drove away some very talented baseball people. Those people built a World Series team at elevation. No easy feat.
As a team, or a business? Rockies fan base is not divided. Let me know when CWS out draw the Rockies.
@sytmeedone – Even as a business I’d still choose CHW. It must be so frustrating to have to deal with the issues playing at high elevation causes. In my 28 years of life, I don’t know if they’ve ever had a solid starting rotation. The only pitchers I can really remember having more than 1 good season are Ubaldo Jimenez and maybe Aaron Cook? It is probably the most challenging GM job in the MLB, especially considering the owner holds both hands behind their backs by not allowing them to trade good players when they stink
Jeff Francis too. And they made the World Series with that staff. They drove off a lot of the people who built those Expos teams…and went to build Atlanta.
I think Fangraphs rated Condon as a FV45+. Essentially, a non-top 100 prospect. More Jhonkensey Noel than Adam Dunn. Platoon 3B/cOF with big power and big swing and miss.
Everyone relax over 100 high A PA, give the guy a chance.
2024 was a solid draft class
I like jac, jj, kurtz, konnor griffin, bryce rainer
Cam smith & c moore could become solid contributers too
Rockies are lousy organization. They exist. That’s about it. Owner not really interested in winning, but is loyal to his employees, so that is a credit.
Hard to do any winning when a team, I’m not going to say, throws money at every player they can get. Should be a system similar to NFL and NBA. Can’t let huge markets basically cheat with money
Rockies are not signing free agents pitchers…not happening. No one wants to pitch at 5,000ft
Hey hey hey, maybe Condon is just…playing it safe
What a joke. 100 PA and the guy is a “bust” unreal
I hope to god he comes into the majors and wins ROY and smashes 50 home runs and bats in 110 runs when he finally gets there just to prove this dude all the way wrong! Everybody should always be excited about new prospects and the excitement and talent they bring while hoping they have long illustrious careers, no matter which team you root for. Hoping for the downfall of prospects and saying they’ll be a bust after literally just finishing college not even a whole year ago is pathetic! Watching prospects grow into great major league talent and helping carry their team to success is one of the great things about baseball! 100 plate appearances is not enough to call him a bust because he could learn from it and possibly become the next superstar!
Senzatella yuck batting practice pitcher