Yesterday, the Colorado Rockies made three moves before the trade deadline, sending Brenton Doyle to the Chicago White Sox, Antonio Senzatela to the Milwaukee Brewers, and Victor Vodnik to the Miami Marlins.
Following the 4:00 pm trade deadline, Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta spoke with media to give his thoughts on the moves.
Following are highlights from his comments. They have been lightly edited and reorganized for clarity.
Some general thoughts on the moves
I think if you had asked me three or four days
ago, and I was able to be honest with you, I would have told you I thought those were probably the three players that were most likely to be moved, just based on the sheer amount of interest we were getting. I actually didn’t know that we would move Brenton or Victor, given the control we had with them going forward, how we valued them. It was a matter of another team meeting that price for us. And I think ultimately, in both those deals, we felt like we got players back that really made sense for us.
And then obviously, with Senzatela, too, he’s meant so much in this franchise. He’s been here for 15 years, in the big leagues for, what, 10 of those or something like that? We really wanted to be able to deliver, putting him in a pen somewhere, and so I’m excited for him. I actually just got a chance to share that with him. I’m excited to root for him through October. Hopefully, they’re playing for a long time.
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We had a lot of players that were asked about. We had a set price in mind of what it would take to acquire any of our players. We think we’ve got a lot of good players here. We think we have the foundation of something that has a chance to be pretty good. So with that, it was going to take a lot, I think, to to pry any of those pieces away. And I don’t think we got particularly close on any of those players because I think our internal price was going to be higher than what the what the market would bear.
On the Rockies approach to the trade deadline and building this team
When we went into the whole process, we told everybody, “Listen, our entire position player club is under control going into 2027. We knew that when we broke spring training. We have a lot of good players. We want to see how those players come together. In June, we were a very good offensive club, one of the best in baseball. I think the best maybe offensive club we’ve had here in a month in a long period of time. So we do feel like it’s coming together, and it was designed back in the off season, specifically, so that we would have at least a two-year runway with with all those players if we felt like we could afford that. So that didn’t change. We weren’t trying to bluff anybody. At this deadline, it was, “Hey, we like these players, and we think they can be part of our future, not just our present.” So that’s the stance we took, I think, with all those guys. With the pitchers, again, it’s a little different, partly because I think bullpens in general are a little bit more volatile.
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So it’s mostly us presenting players that we would want to do in a deal, but sometimes it’s (the other team presenting options to the Rockies). In certain circumstances, especially if you’re looking for maybe a second player to finish a deal or something like that, they may offer players that they’d be willing to do. It’s not often that those actually land on a deal. We all look at players a little differently. I think we also probably all like our own players a little bit more than everybody else does. So I would say the overwhelming percentage of the time it’s, ‘Hey we have interest in Senzatela or Doyle or Vodnik,’ and we say, ‘Okay, well these are the players it would take to acquire that that talent.’
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We do think we’ve got a lot of talented players. I think we’ve all seen sort of green shoots of that this year in terms of the way we’ve played, Even in the second half, there are times where I think we we’ve won some games that maybe we didn’t win back in April and May. We want to continue to see some of that progress, but we certainly think we’ve got pieces here that can be part of a very competitive team going forward.
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I think the fact that we do have these guys going forward is certainly helpful and created certainly and a lot less sense of urgency for us at this deadline because we like these guys. They’re playing well for us. There’s no reason for us to necessarily move them unless it gave us a real opportunity to improve ourselves. So, for instance, with Brenton Doyle, we got a starting pitcher that has a chance to impact our rotation as early as 2027. Hey, we need to think about that. We’re not nearly as deep there as we were. Now, suddenly in the outfield with the way some of these guys have played, and not just the guys here, but even Sterlin Thompson and Zac Veen, and some of the guys in Triple-A. This gives us even more time to evaluate our guys and see which other ones maybe can help us fill some holes in other parts of our club if, in fact, we need it.
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We had very broad interest in those players, in each of those players. I would say in a couple instances, there were, literally, double-digit teams interested in some of those guys. So to try to comb through all those organizations and figure out what they’d be willing to do, what we’d be willing to do, and you also had some calls that didn’t come in until today or even until this afternoon. That makes it particularly hard. So we had to be ready to be agile and act quickly. . . . When I came in this morning, I wasn’t set on any of them. They all sort of came together. That said, we had pretty extensive conversations with a couple of those clubs, like Milwaukee and Chicago, going back certainly over the course of the last three, four, or five days, even about different concepts and even about different players. But we were pretty well versed in terms of what was going on there. The Miami one, I think, came together largely today with Victor.
On the players the Rockies acquired
A few of the players we acquired — I think maybe one in each deal — are all going to go to Albuquerque, at least to start. But we think all those guys are guys that could help us pretty soon. And whether that’s in the final two months of this year or whether it’s early in next season, I don’t know. We’ll find out more once once we get our hands on them. But I think all those guys could be could be impacting us here in Denver in relatively short order.
Mason Adams
I think that’s probably a good one, especially to talk about with Brenton, because probably the only way we would have moved Brenton was with a guy that we thought could be one of our starting pitchers in relatively short order. So we think Mason Adams has a chance to to be in our rotation. Again, I’m not sure exactly when that’s going to start, but that’s what we see him as going forward at some point, certainly being a very viable competitor for our rotation, whether it’s the end of this year, the beginning of next year, or sometime during the course of next year. He had Tommy John, so he missed all of 2025. But he’s back pitching now here in 2026, pitching effectively in Triple-A, and we think he’s got a bright future as a starter.
Aiden May
He’s further down. He’s in High-A ball right now, but it’s really good stuff. It’s sort of swing-and-miss quality, so he’s a little further away, but we like him as a starter as well going forward.
Mark Manfredi
As I’ve said before, I think with every pitcher that we look at here, we’re looking for different profiles. We’re not necessarily looking for the cookie cutter, but we are looking for different looks, different angles, different velocities, different pitch mixes, and I think those guys (Manfredi and Adams) sort of fit that as pieces for us. Manfredi is also a guy who I think has a chance to be here relatively soon. We’ve done a job on Brennan Bernadino this year as our only left-hander out there, so at least we have another option now — again, not just in the immediate term, but also in the relatively near term going forward into next year. But we think he can factor into our bullpen for sure from the left side, and it’s a very different look than Bernie.
Carlos Vielma
Our folks in our whole international department knew him and thought very highly of him. So when we were looking for a second player in that deal, we looked all over the organization and talked about some different players, but ultimately settled on him. I think he’s a really good-looking young player. He’s 16, right? So he’s still a long way away. But if you have a .500 on-base in any league, that’s pretty good. So he controls the strike zone really well. There’s a really good foundation there offensively, but obviously he’s a long way away. But what he’s done so far has been really impressive.
On the players they did not trade
We do think we’ve got a lot of talented players, and I think we’ve all seen sort of green shoots of that this year. In terms of the way we’ve played, I think even in the second half, there are times where I think we’ve won some games that maybe we didn’t win back in April and May. We want to continue to see some of that progress, but we certainly think we’ve got pieces here that could be part a very competitive team going forward.
Hunter Goodman
So far this year, he’s been as good as any offensive catcher in all of baseball. He’s here, hopefully, going forward for a little while now, and we still have control for a few more years. We think he’s a centerpiece of our offensive team right now. So, if we did entertain that, it was going to have to be a really substantial deal to do that because we value him really highly. Now, there were certainly teams that had interest and reached out, but no one that really ever got close at least in terms of how we think of him here in Colorado.
Jake McCarthy and Cole Carrigg
Cole and Jake both played really well. We were totally happy keeping Brenton. In fact, we were very excited to get him back from the IL, and he played really well for us over the weekend. So we were prepared to move forward with all those guys. We’ve talked about having or even wanting three center fielders out there playing defense for us every day. So that it wasn’t a situation that we were thinking, “Oh well, we’re going to move him.” But the fact that Jake has played so well and Cole has played so well at least freed us up a little to entertain it probably more than we would have five months ago.
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Jake’s done a great job. I think what’s been particularly interesting is what he’s been able to do against left-handed pitching. For the most part, he played much more against righties in his career, but to see what he’s done against lefties so he can be an everyday guy out there, it’s been really encouraging.
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I think both those guys bring great energy. They create a problem when they’re on the bases. You don’t want to walk those guys because of the havoc that they can they can wreak out there. They can also both hit homers. So it’s not like you can just pound the zone to try to keep them off base. So I think both those guys definitely fit what we’d like to do here, and can cover a lot of ground in the outfield as well.
Kyle Freeland, Michael Lorenzen, and Tomoyuki Sugano (菅野 智之)
Right now, Lorenzen has an option for next year. The other two are both free agents. Freeland has a vesting option, so I think we’ll see how that plays out. We value all those guys. Obviously, we signed them as free agents. We value the fact that they can start for us for the next couple months, and we think, collectively, they’ve all done what we hope that they would do. They have given us a veteran presence. They give us a chance to win most most of the days that they’re out there. So if there’s an opportunity for that to continue going forward. I think we’d entertain it.
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I think with each guy, it was probably a little different with Freeland, Sugano, and Lorenzen, both in terms of how we thought about and even in terms of how the market viewed each guy. But we think there’s real value in finishing out a season here for us. We wanted to accomplish some things this year. We have not yet accomplished them. I think we’re making progress toward those goals, but (we’re) not all the way there yet. So we still think those guys all contribute to, hopefully, reaching those goals before the end of the year.
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Mickey Moniak
Mickey’s an important part of what we’re doing here. Again, he had a very good year last year. I think he’s been off to a great start this year. Unfortunately, he missed a little time with the injuries, but he is a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat for us. He’s a leader in our in our clubhouse. He’s a veteran who’s been around a little bit longer. He’s also been in some different organizations, so he knows what it should look like. He also knows sometimes maybe what it shouldn’t look like, which is just as valuable, and that’s important not just for his peers in the clubhouse, but also for me and for Schaeff as we try to shape our culture here. So I think Mickey’s value, both on the field and off the field is really important to us.
Reporting from Thomas Harding following the trade deadline indicated that the Rockies are close to finishing a two-year extension with Moniak.
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Kris Bryant
He hasn’t been a big topic this week.
Rockies 2026 Trade Deadline Grades: Solid moves, but an underwhelming day | Purple Row
In case you missed it — because there was a lot going on yesterday — Skyler Timmins graded the Rockies trade moves yesterday.
MLB Trade Grades: Brewers add pitching depth at deadline, but is it enough?
Here’s what our sister site for the Brewers had to say about the Senzatela trade as well as the prospects the Rockies received in return.
MLB trade deadline: Give Getz, White Sox a C+ | South Side Sox
The White Sox SB Nation site weighed in as well.
The White Sox are Brenton over backward to make their outfield work | FanGraphs
No one does headings like Michael Baumann — and the analysis is pretty good, too.
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