BSN Exclusive: The prospect Jeff Bridich could have "easily" traded but wisely didn't

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz – The Colorado Rockies have become famous, or perhaps a bit infamous depending on your disposition, for a slow and steady approach when it comes to the wheeling and dealing side of the business.

It’s ironic that General Manager Jeff Bridich has made fewer trades than any other GM in MLB since taking over the job with the Rockies considering some of the enormous, even franchise-shifting moves he has made.

Trading Troy Tulowitzki just a few months into his tenure, making a splash with the Ian Desmond deal, and breaking records with his reliever barrage last offseason, Bridich has made it clear that he does not fear being aggressive when it comes to roster transactions.

“It’s not like we set that out as a goal and [say] yay we’ve achieved that,” he told BSN Denver about the lack of recent roster manipulations. “There’s a lot of conversation especially if you take it as a four-year look in terms of how long I’ve been a GM, there have been so many discussions trade discussions with other clubs that don’t really lead to anything. The level of activity behind the scenes isn’t always equal to the trades that get done. Usually that activity behind the scenes is way heavier.”

This is why analysis that any given team “isn’t even trying” to make certain kinds of moves is almost always just plainly wrong.

And he knows that sometimes inaction is just as bold as action.

We saw this play out in the most recent offseason as he allowed pillars of the franchise in Carlos Gonzalez, DJ LeMahieu, Adam Ottavino, and Gerardo Parra walk and in the minds of some, without any kind of replacement.

But this was a specific decision designed to get the most out of the next generation of exciting and uber-talented young players.

“Some of it comes from the role that I held in the organization prior to being a GM [head of player development] and understanding a lot of who we have in our system,” he continued.

“And I also think some of it has to do with my yearly involvement in our drafting process and scouting amateur players taking an active role with Bill [Schmidt] and the rest of our scouts in that process so that I feel like I have some understanding of those young kids coming into the system and who they are now and who they might be in the future. A healthy appreciation for that I think plays into decisions made on whether to move those guys.”

Knowing what you have is just as important as knowing what you need.

We don’t often hear specifics about these moves that don’t get made but Bridich was willing to provide us with an example.

“I very easily could have traded somebody like Garrett Hampson two deadlines ago,” he says, “When we were looking for a couple of players to fortify a potential playoff roster he was a popular name.”

And it likely would have been a popular move amongst a fanbase who largely had never heard of Hampson, and who were yearning for their first postseason appearance in nearly a decade while the club had some pronounced problems that might’ve been addressed via trade.

“I think we’ve just been selective in our own players who we are comfortable with moving on from,” Bridich says, “At that time it really behooves us to know who we have and value first and foremost. [I] could have [said] ‘yeah hey he’s an A-baller’ but a big part of this job is to try to balance the now with the future. And Garrett Hampson‘s case the future at the major-league level wasn’t a distant one it was a soon-to-be future.”

That soon-to-be future has arrived and Hampson is now battling for the starting second base job while putting up fantastic spring numbers coming off a year in which he made such an impression as a rookie that the Rockies were forced to put him on their postseason roster.

We will never know how much farther the 2017 club might have gone with a rental they could have received for Hampson, but we do know that as it stands now, having him helps glue the entire team together.

“[Hampson on the roster] played out for us last year,” says Bridich, clearly elated he never bit on the offers for his versatile and exciting young ballplayer. “And we plan on having that pay off for us big time in 2019.”