Colorado Rockies: Examining three potential free agent gambles
By Nick Stevens
Who plays first base for the Colorado Rockies?
One of the many questions facing the Colorado Rockies in 2021 is who will play first base? Josh Fuentes is one option, but with just 54 major league games under his belt and enormous strikeout numbers in his limited sample size, he isn’t an everyday option.
Ian Desmond may be back in 2021 after opting-out of the 2020 season, but at 35 and coming off three negative-WAR seasons before missing all of 2020, Desmond doesn’t appear to be a reliable option either.
The class of first base free agents is small and largely consists of options like CJ Cron who will end up signing minor league deals late in the offseason, but there are two cheap options that may interest the Colorado Rockies.
One of those is Carlos Santana. Santana appeared in all 60 games for Cleveland last season, but hit just .199 with eight home runs and a wRC+ of 95. It was a notable dip from his .281/.397/.515 batting line, 34 home runs, and 4.4 fWAR 2019 season.
Santana has put up impressive numbers across his career, including a career 15.5% walk rate and 16.5% strikeout rate, but 2020 may have been a sign of decline, or, was it just 2020 being 2020?
MLBTradeRumors.com predicts a one-year/$6 million deal for Santana this offseason which is very reasonable for a bounceback candidate.
But we are talking about the Colorado Rockies, so that price may be a little high. Another cheaper option could be Mitch Moreland. Moreland hit .265 with 10 home runs between Boston and San Diego in 2020.