Can the Rockies Help the Cubs Boost Their Playoff Odds Sky-High?

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The Chicago Cubs need help. They need multiple pieces of help. As they teeter on the verge of becoming sellers themselves, though, there remain a couple of surefire sellers who have pieces that might help the North Siders turn things around. One such team is one of the most familiar cellar-dwellers in baseball.

Image courtesy of © Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Believe it or not, we are significantly closer to the 2024 MLB Trade Deadline than we are removed from Opening Day. While the Cubs aren’t quite where they’d like to be, they find themselves just a half-game out of the last playoff spot going into Wednesday’s action, thanks to a whole lot of mediocrity in the National League.

I sure don’t have a lot of faith in this current iteration of the Cubs to make a run in the postseason, but as we all saw with the Diamondbacks last year, if you can get into the playoffs, you can certainly get hot and make a run. With the trade deadline just seven short weeks away, the Colorado Rockies are one of a few teams who will definitely be sellers, though they have surprised us all before. What players do they have that might interest the Cubs?

The most obvious, hand-in-glove fit, would be Elías Díaz. The Rockies’ catcher was named an All-Star last season for the first time in his career, and was even named the Most Valuable Player in the Midsummer Classic, though I would caution anyone against getting too excited about that. Díaz made it into the All-Star Game purely because every team has to have one representative, which is still a silly rule. He finished the 2023 season with a negative WAR of -0.2, and an 81 wRC+, according to FanGraphs. As a reminder, 100 is considered an average wRC+. 

To give Díaz credit, he is off to a much better start this season, with a 109 wRC+ and 1.4 WAR. However, those numbers seem to me to be heavily supported by some good fortune. His Barrel% and hard-hit rate are both down from last year, and his .350 BABIP would be a career-best mark. Thus, his .344 wOBA far outpaces his .285 xwOBA, where about .320 is considered average, suggesting that he is still a below-average hitter.

He has thrown out 11 of 37 potential base stealers, though, which is something the Cubs have come under fire for recently. Miguel Amaya has thrown out just five of 43 base stealers. Yan Gomez has thrown out three of 21, and as our own Matthew Trueblood has recently pointed out, it’s even worse than that: five of those instances of caught stealing were pickoffs, and not actual throws by the catcher. According to Baseball Savant, Díaz has been worth two runs above average when it comes to throwing runners out. Gomes has been worth zero, and Amaya has been worth -4.

With all of that said, I am not actually sure Díaz would be a great fit. Like Gomes, he is a free agent this offseason, so it doesn’t solve for anything in the medium term. I am not convinced he’ll be sufficiently better than either Gomes or Amaya to justify either designating Gomes for assignment and eating the money that the Cubs owe him, getting playing time over Amaya (who probably does have a future with the Cubs and needs to continue getting reps for development), or rostering three catchers. But I could probably be convinced. 

Elsewhere on the Rockies’ roster is Ryan McMahon, who is an interesting fit if the Cubs decide that they have seen enough of Christopher Morel at third base. The Rockies’ third baseman has hit 20 or more home runs in every full big-league season since he debuted, though park-neutral stats rate him as roughly an average hitter. He would certainly be an upgrade defensively, as he is fourth among third basemen in Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved since 2019, per FanGraphs.

The pop from the left side of the plate would be nice, as would a third baseman whose presence wouldn’t elevate my heart rate every time the ball was hit that way. With all of that said, he is probably a utility guy on a good team. He does have some experience playing both second and first base. I feel like the Cubs have the type of roster where they could utilize him well as a late-inning defensive replacement or platoon player. He is much closer to average as a hitter against righties (95 wRC+) than against lefties (78 wRC+). Alas, he is paid like a starter, and would be a longer-term investment: he is under contract for three more seasons (and $44 million) after this one.

Unfortunately, the Rockies are pretty thin in the bullpen, but they do have a couple of pieces that could be interesting to the Cubs. Victor Vodnik has pitched to a 2.68 ERA so far this year, mostly thanks to a high ground-ball rate and low home run rate. Nick Mears strikes out 26.7 percent of hitters he faces, but also walks 12.2 percent of them, so you’d have to take the good with the bad. They also have Kris Bryant, who is an interesting buy-low/change-of-scenery guy who is on a bad contract and could probably be had for very little. Kidding! I am kidding. I promise.

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