DJ LeMahieu’s return to Coors Field as a member of the Yankees this weekend has me thinking about what could have been. Or, rather, what should have been.
The 2018 Rockies featured Nolan Arenado at third base, Trevor Story at shortstop and LeMahieu at second base. It was a golden infield. It was a close-knit team. The Rockies finished 91-71 and came one victory shy of winning their first National League West title.
They lost, 5-2, to the Dodgers in the 163rd game of the season, beat the Cubs in a memorable Wild-Card game and then got swept by the Brewers in the National League Division Series.
A bummer? Sure, but the future looked bright.
And then?
And then the Rockies made two of the biggest front-office blunders in franchise history. Rather than recognizing LeMahieu’s essential value to the team and finding a way to re-sign him, they let him walk away. How could owner Dick Monfort and former general manager Jeff Bridich not recognize that LeMahieu was the toughest guy in the Rockies’ clubhouse?
Rather than build on a solid foundation, and rather than make some bold moves to take the team to the next level, Monfort and Bridich did next to nothing.
Next to nothing as in signing out-of-shape, poor-fielding, over-the-hill free agent Daniel Murphy to a two-year, $24 million deal. Oh yeah, the same contract the Yankees ended up giving LeMahieu.
Since the end of the 2018 season, the Rockies own a .429 winning percentage, have not sniffed the postseason and are at least two years away from putting a winning team on the field. Their window to win slammed shut.
On Feb. 2, 2021, a day after the Rockies traded Arenado to St. Louis in one of the worst trades in baseball history, I wrote: “Dick Monfort and general manager Jeff Bridich tried to explain themselves to the media. It wasn’t pretty.
“The surreal hour-long news conference took on the tenor of a public flogging as Monfort and Bridich attempted to explain why they sent Nolan Arenado to St. Louis, and also agreed to send along $51 million to make the deal fly. Monfort could only lament Arenado’s departure as he struggled to come to grips with a trade that had already been widely panned by Rockies fans.”
But there is something else I remember from that day.
“In hindsight, losing DJ LeMahieu was a big deal,” Monfort said. “In hindsight, I wish we could’ve figured out a way to keep DJ. We wish we could redo that. … I know DJ wanted to stay a Rockie. His agent said that.”
That all seems like a long time ago.
Arenado, 32, is still an All-Star, but the Cardinals are in last place in the NL Central and rank as one of baseball’s biggest disappointments. Arenado has said a trade wouldn’t shock him.
Story, 30, signed with the Red Sox after the 2021 season, but he hasn’t played at all this season as he recovers from elbow surgery. Charlie Blackmon, 37, is on the injured list with a broken hand. When he returns, he’ll be playing out the final year of his Rockies contract.
LeMahieu, 34, still has three years and $45 million left on the six-year, $90 million contract he signed in January 2021. He’s struggled mightily this season, slashing .224/.288/.359 with seven home runs and an OPS+ of 80. He’ll never be the player he used to be.
But in his prime, LeMahieu, dismissed by some as a product of Coors Field, became a star with the Yankees. He finished fourth in AL MVP voting in 2019 and third in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. He’s slashed .336/.386/.536 with 36 homers and 129 RBIs across 195 games across those two seasons.
Joel Wolfe, LeMahieu’s agent, once described LeMahieu perfectly: “DJ’s a throwback. He’s quiet, he’s a gentleman, but between the lines, he will rip your heart out. No flash. All substance.”
It still baffles me that the Rockies’ brass didn’t recognize that.
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