The Rockies will re-sign pitcher Jorge De La Rosa and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, the Denver Post reports. De La Rosa was near the top of the Pirates’ list this offseason as the Bucs look to upgrade their rotation, but it appears De La Rosa wanted to stay in Colorado. His deal could be for $30 million if it ends up being for three years. That’s not an unreasonable price, but the Pirates would have had to pay more, and their awful defense would not have made him look particularly good.
It’s the Tulowitzki contract that will garner the most attention, however, because it’s absolutely crazy. The Rockies already controlled Tulowitzki’s rights through 2014, but that didn’t stop them from agreeing to a seven-year, $130 million deal that doesn’t even start for three more years and doesn’t finish until 2020. Who knows what kind of player Tulowitzki will be in ten years? Not the Rockies, surely, and with him already guaranteed to be with the team in several more years, they easily could have waited – and they probably wouldn’t have paid much more for 2015 through 2020 if they waited three or four years to sign him, either. One would think that the Todd Helton contract, which seemed to last forever as Helton got worse and worse, would have convinced the Rockies that contracts that drag on like Titanic on loop are incredibly stupid ideas, but apparently not.