Opening Day for the 2026 Colorado Rockies is roughly eight months away.
Or is it?
Today is Major League Baseball’s trade deadline for 2025, which means that after 6 p.m., no team can acquire a player from another team via trade to bolster its chances of reaching the postseason.
Looking at July 31 strictly from this perspective, it’s pretty meaningless for the Rockies.
But there’s another way to view it.
Today marks not only the last day for significant trades that may impact 2025’s ultimate outcome, but also the conclusion of the second trimester of the season—four months down and two to go.
As far as the Rockies and their fans are concerned, the only result to be decided by games in August and September is how many losses the team will have after the final game in San Francisco on September 28.
Will that total break the record set last year by the White Sox?
If the focus for the rest of this disastrous season were simply to avoid that ignominy, the Rockies would be wasting an opportunity to look to the future.
Looking at the next two months as a head start on ’26 adds two months and 54 games to next year’s spring training.
Fortunately, as evidenced by last Saturday’s callup of Warming Bernabel, that’s how the Rockies apparently are going to approach this period.
The 10th young Rockie to make his Major League debut so far in 2025, Bernabel joined Ryan Ritter, Braxton Fulford, Yanquiel Fernandez, Chase Dollander, Juan Mejia, Zac Veen, Carson Palmquist, Zach Agnos and Ryan Rollison in stepping onto the Coors Field turf for the first time. Maybe there will be more.
Significantly, Bernabel is referred to as a prospective first baseman even though he’s mostly played third in the minors, which raises the question: Where does that leave Michael Toglia?
Whether or not Warren Schaefer is Colorado’s next un-interim manager come 2026, he and the Rockies organization will know now what positions they opened up on the current roster through deadline trades.
And the first two-thirds of this season have provided a good indication of where other holes are in the Big-League roster.
Utilizing the remaining 54 games to assess the young talent that fans have been led to believe is soon to burst onto the scene could answer some pressing questions.
Is Eric Karros’ son Kyle, with his Dodgers pedigree, Ryan McMahon’s heir at third base, as his recent promotion to Triple-A Albuquerque suggests?
How close to ready is slugging Charlie Condon, and where does his reportedly big bat fit in the overall scheme of things?
Exposing them and others to the Big Leagues in games that count for the next two months, instead of waiting for lower-intensity spring training games next March, could accelerate their development.
Having acquired Bradley Blalock and Tanner Gordon for their potential, prepare them for legitimate places in next season’s starting rotation, if indeed they are capable of replacing the likes of German Marquez and Antonio Senzatela.
Trading Ryan McMahon last week is a hopeful sign, especially after
he went 10-for-32 with 4 homers and 9 runs batted in over his last nine games here.
I feared that Colorado’s decision-makers would misjudge this brief offensive outburst and decide that Mac was still a building block for the future. Or that the asking price would increase to unrealistic heights that not even a contender with an urgent need would feel was worth the price in trade.
Who knows if Griffin Herring or Josh Grosz, the return for McMahon, will ever appear in a Major League game? It likely will be two or three years before we find out, given their places in the Yankees farm system.
But adding pitching depth is worth a try. It appears that it may have worked in the cases of Blalock, Gordon and reliever Victor Vodnick—acquired in deadline trades with the Brewers and Braves the past two summers.
These Rockies would need a better winning percentage the rest of the way than every current division leader in both leagues in order to avoid losing 100 games for the third straight season.
Despite a winning homestand coming out of the All-Star Break, that’s not going to happen.
But how close to .500 can they come in the “next” season that starts here against the Pirates tomorrow night?
________________
Denny Dressman’s 17th book, a collaboration with Kansas City artist Anthony High titled Black Baseball’s Heyday – Capturing An Era in Art and Words, will be published in late summer. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.