The Colorado Rockies have made several head-scratching moves over the years, and the one they made on Saturday fits into that exact category. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the Rockies are sending Nolan Jones to the Cleveland Guardians in exchange for Tyler Freeman.
Trade news: The Cleveland Guardians are sending infielder Tyler Freeman to the Colorado Rockies for outfielder Nolan Jones, sources tell ESPN. Freeman should play a lot with the Rockies, and Jones came up in the Cleveland organization and is headed back for a second stint.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 22, 2025
While it's certainly good to see the Rockies make a move after a very quiet offseason, this one is really tough to justify.
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Rockies part with former budding star in shocking trade with Guardians
In the 2023 season, it looked as if Jones, a player the Rockies had ironically acquired in a trade with this same Guardians team, was on his way to stardom. He slashed .297/.386/.542 with 20 home runs and 62 RBI in 106 games while possessing an elite throwing arm in the outfield and stealing 20 bases. He wound up finishing fourth in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting.
Part of what made Jones' breakout season feel real was that his OPS on the road (.935) was higher than his OPS at the hitters' paradise that is Coors Field (.928). He looked like a legitimate five-tool player, and an individual that a Rockies organization starved for talent could build around.
Unfortunately, Jones' 2024 was an extremely frustrating one. He slashed .227/.321/.320 with three home runs and 28 RBI in 79 games and was worth -0.7 bWAR. While he obviously struggled mightily, a big reason for that could be that he dealt with back issues all year. He had two separate IL stints due to lower back strains, costing him a substantial portion of the season.
Jones also was not as bad as the numbers suggested. He ranked in the 94th percentile in barrel rate and the 88th percentile in xSLG, according to Baseball Savant. He was hitting the ball incredibly hard, even at less than 100 percent. Obviously, it'd be ideal if he struck out less, but when Jones was able to make contact, he was making an impact.
Jones' season was obviously disappointing, but given the fact that he wasn't fully healthy for much, if not any of the year, shouldn't he have been given more time to bounce back considering what he was able to do in 2023?
You could talk me into trading Jones for the right return, but how is Tyler Freeman the right return? Freeman is a good defender at several positions, but he has a .632 OPS in his three-year career. If we're being honest, he's nothing more than a utility man, and yet, the Rockies traded a player who was receiving Rookie of the Year votes just two years ago to acquire him.
The Rockies could use an extra infielder with Thairo Estrada's injury, but that doesn't mean they had to trade Nolan Jones for an infielder of Freeman's caliber. Freeman's ceiling is substantially lower than that of Jones, and for a rebuilding Rockies team, that is a terrible thing.
Will Jones ever be anything close to what he was in 2023? I have no idea, but that doesn't mean the Rockies should just give up on him one year removed from a breakout campaign, especially when he spent the 2024 season injured in exchange for a bench player.
At the end of the day, there's a reason why the Rockies have never won an NL West division title, and trades like this one show how poorly they're run.