Past & Present: They were Rockies once

Whether they were in Colorado for a week, a month or a year, the Rockies have employed a good number of players that had storied careers elsewhere. Here are some of the more notable ones.

Dale Murphy

Rockies Tenure: April 9, 1993-May 21, 1993

Murphy played 15 seasons with the Braves and had a brief cameo in Philadelphia before playing the final season of his career with the Rockies in their first year of existence. The then 37-year-old Murphy played 26 games in Colorado, but went just 6-for-42 at the plate, a .143 average. His lone extra-base hit as a Rockie came against his former team, the Braves, on May 9 at Mile High Stadium.

Bret Saberhagen

Rockies Tenure: July 31, 1995-October 7, 1995

Ah, the infamous Bret Saberhagen trade. The two-time Cy Young Award winner (both with Kansas City in the 80s) came to Colorado in a deadline day deal with the Mets in 1995. Saberhagen, at age 31, made just nine regular season starts with the Rockies, allowing 30 earned runs and eight home runs in 43 innings, good for an ERA of 6.28, nearly double his career ERA of 3.34.

Saberhagen also started Game 4 of the NLDS against the Braves in '95, allowing six runs, five earned, in four innings in a 10-4 Rockies loss. He was technically on the team's roster in 1996, but missed the season with an injury.

Ron Gant

Rockies Tenure: April 4, 2001-July 3, 2001

Noted most for his performances with the Braves in the early 90s, Gant played 59 games in the Rockies outfield as a 36-year-old in 2001. Gant actually performed fairly well, batting .257 with an .813 OPS in his 171 at bats, with eight home runs and 22 RBI. The Rockies traded him to Oakland after a strong June in which he hit .305 with four of his eight homers.

Eric Byrnes

Rockies Tenure: July 13, 2005-July 30, 2005

Yes, Eric Byrnes was a Rockie for about three weeks in 2005. He played 15 games for the Rockies, going 10-for-53 at the plate with a pair of doubles and a pair of stolen bases. He came to the Rockies from Oakland with Omar Quintanilla for Joe Kennedy and Jay Witasick and was shipped to Baltimore 17 days later for Larry Bigbie. Nothing he did as a Rockies player comes close to his most memorable moment at Coors Field, lying face down in the dirt as the last out of the 2007 NLCS.

Steve Finley

Rockies Tenure: April 2, 2007-June 3, 2007

The 42-year-old Finley wrapped up his tour of the NL West, ending his career with the Rockies in 2007. He started 15 games in center field early in the season, hitting .181 in 94 at bats. Finley's tenure with the Rockies wasn't memorable, but it did make him one of two players, the other being Matt Herges, to play for all five teams in the NL West.

Jonathan Sanchez

Rockies Tenure: July 20, 2012-August 3, 2012

Sanchez, who threw a no-hitter for the Giants in 2009 and won a World Series with them in 2010, came to the Rockies in July 2012 via a trade with Kansas City. After three straight seasons with an ERA below 4.30 from 2009-2011, Sanchez posted a 9.53 ERA in three starts with the Rockies in 2012 before going down for the season with an injury.

Roy Oswalt

Rockies Tenure: June 20, 2013-Present

Oswalt, a three-time All-Star with Houston who has finished in the top five of Cy Young voting five times, has pitched 21 innings for the Rockies this season at the age of 35. He has managed to take the loss in all five of his appearances this year, four of which were starts, allowing 20 earned runs on 33 hits, good for an 8.57 ERA and 1.76 WHIP, so far with the Rockies.