Rockies Trade Rumors: Jeremy Guthrie Drawing Interest

Will Guthrie Increase His Value as He Re-Joins the Rotation?

Jeremy Guthrie has a chance to significantly increase his trade value as he re-joins the Colorado Rockies' rotation and is already drawing interest from other teams, reports Troy Renck of the Denver Post:

Now, Guthrie's challenge is to pitch himself onto a new team, netting the Rockies salary relief — he's owned roughly $4 million — and a prospect. I talked to an American League scout and front-office executive Tuesday who believe Guthrie will have takers. Toronto has some interest.

Guthrie, 33, is having the worst season of his career and holds a 6.56 ERA for 2012, up from his career ERA of 4.34. A closer look shows that his strikeouts have contracted to 4.5 per nine innings, down from a career 5.5 K/9. To make matters worse, his walk rate is up to 3.3 per nine from his career 2.7 BB/9 mark.

Guthrie rejoins the rotation Wednesday after being relegated to a relief role back on June 18 when the Rockies began experimenting with a four-man rotation. But with some success in the bullpen and Josh Outman's failures, Guthrie has pitched himself back into the rotation and perhaps, trade interest.

That said, Ken Rosenthal recently reported that the Rockies' interest in trading Guthrie has "cooled" since they believe he'll thrive in their new rotation.

Renck's report comes after earlier speculation that the Yankees could look for rotation relief by pursuing Guthrie, making this report the second one to mention a possible AL East destination for the right hander.