The Colorado Rockies made several roster moves on Wednesday afternoon, with three players being claimed off waivers by other organizations and two being placed on outright waivers.
•RHP Chad Bettis has cleared outright waivers and has elected free agency.
— Rockies PR (@RockiesPR) October 30, 2019
•RHP Tim Melville has been outrighted to Triple-A Albuquerque.
The Rockies currently have 36 players on the 40-man roster and three players on the 60-day IL (Jon Gray, Scott Oberg, Brendan Rodgers).
Rather than being outrighted to Triple-A, Chad Bettis elected free agency right away. Tim Melville was outrighted, but he will become a minor league free agent unless he is offered an extension.
Players on the 60-day Injured List (Jon Gray, Scott Oberg and Brendan Rodgers) will need to be activated tomorrow (October 31st) or be let go from the organization.
Tyler Anderson burst onto the scene with an impressive rookie campaign with the Rockies in 2016, but nagging injuries have plagued him since the 2017, as Jordan Freemyer wrote in Anderson’s 2019 Ranking the Rockies post. Anderson will now take his talents to the San Francisco Giants, where he may get his fair share of starts against the division rival Rockies. MLB Trade Rumors had projected Anderson to earn $2.625 million in arbitration in 2020. It’s quite possible that the Rockies did not want to hand out the salary raise given Anderson’s questionable recent injury history.
Sam Howard did not look impressive in his brief time with the Rockies in 2018 and 2019, but was on track to provide potential left-handed relief depth to the team in 2020. The Pittsburgh Pirates will now have some additional lefty relief depth of their own.
As recently as the beginning of October, Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported that the Rockies may look to keep Pat Valaika “in the organization to try to revive his career” in 2020. It now appears that 2019 was Valaika’s last hurrah with the Rox, as he will be taking his talents to the American League with the rebuilding Baltimore Orioles. This move admittedly comes as a surprise to me, as I wrote in Valaika’s Ranking the Rockies profile that we should expect to see Valaika accrue time with the Rockies in 2020.
Bettis was also an arbitration eligible Rockies’ player, coming in with a projection of $3.8 million. He will now test the free agent market. Eric Garcia McKinley had listed Bettis as a prime non-tender candidate in his Ranking the Rockies profile.
Best of luck to all of these players in their future endeavors.