Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt spoke with reporters (including the Denver Post’s Kyle Newman and Just Baseball Media’s Patrick Lyons) at the “Rockies Fest” fan event this weekend, addressing such topics as the health of several notable Colorado players. German Marquez was one of those players, as Schmidt said the right-hander is recovered from the stress reaction in his right elbow that prematurely ended Marquez’s 2024 season.
Injuries have limited Marquez to five starts and just 24 innings for the Rox over the last two seasons. The bulk of that injury layoff came in the form of Tommy John rehab, after Marquez underwent the procedure in May 2023. He made it back to the big leagues by July of last season, but Marquez’s return lasted just a single game, and four innings in Colorado’s 8-5 win over the Mets on July 14. Elbow inflammation soon sent Marquez to the 15-day IL after that one outing, and the stress reaction was discovered shortly thereafter.
Marquez has spent all nine of his Major League seasons with the Rockies, posting a 4.40 ERA over 996 innings from 2016-22. The Rockies acknowledged Marquez’s durability and success at handling Coors Field with a five-year, $43MM contract extension in April 2019, with a $16MM club option for the 2024 campaign. The option never ended up coming into play, as Marquez inked a new two-year, $20MM deal with Colorado in September 2023 that covered the 2024-25 seasons, and gave both sides a little more flexibility as Marquez recovered from his TJ surgery.
With the first season of that deal unfortunately going down as a wash, Marquez now faces extra pressure as an impending free agent. Marquez’s first priority is just getting healthy and getting back onto a mound, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Rockies make a move to lock him up on another extension if he pitches well in the early part of the season. Despite his lengthy track record in the majors, Marquez doesn’t turn 30 years old until next month.
Any kind of rotation stability is sorely needed in Denver, both due to the infamous thin-air conditions and because of how hard the Rox have been hit by pitching injuries over the last few years. Marquez is penciled into a rotation that also includes Austin Gomber, Ryan Feltner, Kyle Freeland, and Antonio Senzatela (who also missed most of 2023-24 due to Tommy John rehab). Between this group and some Triple-A arms nearing their big league debuts, Schmidt is hopeful the Rockies have amassed enough depth to withstand any further injuries or any struggles from the regular starters.
Some more pitching could be on the way in the form of relievers, as Schmidt indicated that the Rockies could yet add to their bullpen before Spring Training. Diego Castillo, Jimmy Herget, Tommy Doyle, and Jake Woodford are among the pitchers with MLB experience who have been brought into the organization on minor league deals or waiver claims, and it remains to be seen if the Rockies’ pitching explorations will lead to any guaranteed contracts for bullpen help.
Infielders Thairo Estrada and Kyle Farmer are the only players the Rox have signed to guaranteed deals, both brought into the fold on one-year contracts. It isn’t necessarily surprising that a team coming off 204 losses in the last two seasons isn’t aggressively spending, but the Rockies are continuing their unusual path of not entirely rebuilding, but also clearly focusing on younger talent.
Charlie Condon is one of those key building blocks for the future, and Schmidt said the team hadn’t yet decided where Charlie Condon will play in the minor leagues next season. The third overall pick of the 2024 draft began his pro career in inauspicious fashion by hitting only .180/.248/.270 over 109 plate appearances for high-A Spokane, but Schmidt said Condon was trying to play through a bruised thumb that “he kind of didn’t tell us” about.
This injury could well explain those struggles, even though it isn’t unusual for even star prospects to face some growing pains in their first taste of professional baseball. Condon was also moving right into his pro career on the heels of 60 games with Georgia during the 2024 NCAA season, with Condon crushing college pitching to the tune of a .433/.556/1.009 slash line and 37 homers over 304 PA. In recently-released top-100 lists, MLB Pipeline rated Condon as the 29th-best prospect in the sport, and Baseball America ranked him 42nd.
