Today, the Colorado Rockies traded outfielder Raimel Tapia to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for outfielder Randal Grichuk.
Tapia played six years in Colorado, posting a 0.4 WAR with just 19 home runs, though he did hit for a lifetime .280 average during his time with the Rockies.
It appears that the Rockies have seen all they want to see out of Tapia as they ship him off to Toronto.
Grichuk joins the Rockies following a season in which he hit .241 with 22 homers.
As Rockies writer Nick Groke writes, the Tapia era in Colorado has ended before it ever really started.
It seems as if the Rockies just felt as if they had seen enough of Tapia, who was once a Top 100 Prospect.
Obviously, he never really set the world on fire in Colorado, and Grichuk is certainly an upgrade.
A Future Of Unknowns For Tapia
But one has to wonder how much playing time he’ll get with the Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays did want a left-handed outfield bat, and Tapia certainly provides that for them.
There was a lot of hype surrounding him in Colorado, and while his numbers are good numbers, they aren’t eye-popping by any stretch of the imagination.
He didn’t always get a whole lot of playing time in Colorado, so it’s likely that the Rockies felt that they didn’t really have a spot for him anymore.
And thus, as Groke said in his tweet, the Tapia era in Colorado has come to an end without much ever really happening.
We’ll see how he does in Toronto.
He is a solid contact hitter, so it certainly isn’t a bad move for them.
It just wasn’t meant to be in Colorado.
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