The Rockies’ hot stove continued simmering Saturday as they added a left-handed bat to their outfield.
Colorado acquired Jake McCarthy from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for Josh Grosz, one of the two minor-league pitchers the team acquired in its trade of Ryan McMahon to the New York Yankees just before the trade deadline.
McCarthy split the 2025 season between the major leagues and AAA Reno, After a solid 2025 in which he posted a .285/.349/.400 line for a .749 OPS over 495 plate appearances in 142 games, he slumped to a .204/.247/.345 line in 222 plate appearances over 67 major-league games last year.
One cause for optimism of a rebound for McCarthy is reflected in his average on balls in play, which slumped to .233 last year from a .329 figure in 2024. His strikeout rate rose slightly in 2024 — from 15.8 to 18.0 percent, although both figures are much improved from early in his career, although McCarthy’s walk rate in 2025 was a career-low 4.5 percent.
Still, McCarthy’s hard-hit rate was 27.6 percent, his highest figure since 2022; that, along with his BABIP figure, offers the Rockies hope of a rebound.
Grosz, meanwhile, struggled in seven appearances with High-A Spokane after arriving in the Rockies’ system, logging a 5.87 ERA and a 1.617 WHIP over seven starts while allowing 2.1 home runs per nine innings. He was the team’s No. 20 prospect in its system, per MLB Pipeline.
The other half of the return for McMahon, Griffin Herring, fared much better over his seven starts at Spokane, posting a 0.900 WHIP and a 2.70 ERA. Herring sits in the No. 9 spot on MLB Pipeline’s Rockies prospect list and is No. 3 among pitchers.
ROCKIES’ ACQUISITION OF McCARTHY GIVES THEM ANOTHER LEFT-HANDED BAT IN THE OUTFIELD
Of the Rockies’ nine outfielders on the 40-man roster, five are left-handers at the plate: McCarthy, the recently re-signed Mickey Moniak, Yanquiel Fernández, Sterlin Thompson and Zac Veen.
McCarthy’s addition could put pressure on Fernández in particular, who spent the last three months of the 2025 season with the big-league club, logging a .225/.265/.348 line over 147 plate appearances in 52 games.
Fernández slumped badly in September, logging a .152/.231/.261 line. He closed the season in a 5-for-43 funk, with a .492 OPS in the final month of the season after notching a promising .893 figure in August.
Veen, the Rockies’ first-round pick (No. 9 overall) in 2020, posted a .424 OPS (.118/.189/.235 line) over 37 plate appearances in 12 April games last year.
