{"id":404759,"date":"2026-01-10T19:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/404759\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T19:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:55:07","slug":"rockies-acquire-jake-mccarthy-from-diamondbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/404759\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies Acquire Jake McCarthy From Diamondbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockies have acquired outfielder Jake McCarthy<\/a> from the Diamondbacks in exchange for right-handed pitching prospect Josh Grosz<\/a>.\u00a0 Both teams have officially announced the trade.<\/p>\n

Selected 39th overall by the D\u2019Backs in the 2018 draft, McCarthy\u2019s tenure in Arizona has been marked by trade rumors and flashes of potential.\u00a0 McCarthy\u2019s first full MLB season in 2022 saw him finish fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting, off a .283\/.342\/.427 slash line, eight homers, and 23 steals in 26 attempts over 354 trips to the plate.\u00a0 This translated to a 116 wRC+, but McCarthy\u2019s production then drastically tailed off to a 78 wRC+ during the 2023 season, and he wasn\u2019t involved in any of Arizona\u2019s playoff rosters during the team\u2019s run to the NL pennant.<\/p>\n

The pendulum swung again in 2024 when McCarthy played in a career-high 142 games, and hit .285\/.349\/.400 with eight homers and 25 stolen bases over 495 PA.\u00a0 This past season, McCarthy had only a 60 wRC+ from a slash line of .204\/.247\/.345 over 222 PA, and he spent two months in Triple-A in a fruitless attempt to get his bat on track.<\/p>\n

With a 431-game sample size to work with, McCarthy\u2019s strengths and weaknesses are clear.\u00a0 He can play all three outfield positions at least passably well, and he is one of the very fastest players in baseball, ranking in no lower than the 98th percentile of speed since his debut in the Show.\u00a0 McCarthy makes a lot of contact, yet with very little hard contact or power, leaving him somewhat at the mercy of batted-ball luck.<\/p>\n

Coming up as one of several left-handed hitting outfielders in the Diamondbacks farm system, McCarthy has been a trade candidate for years.\u00a0 During the 2023-24 offseason, the White Sox were reportedly<\/a> given the option of acquiring either McCarthy or Dominic Fletcher<\/a> in exchange for Cristian Mena<\/a>, and Chicago opted to go with Fletcher.\u00a0 It is easy to second-guess the D\u2019Backs by arguing that McCarthy could\u2019ve garnered more of a return if they\u2019d moved him much earlier than January 2026, though McCarthy\u2019s up-and-down performance made him something of a difficult player for the Diamondbacks to gauge, let alone shop to trade suitors.<\/p>\n

Even with Lourdes Gurriel Jr.<\/a> set to miss most or all of the 2026 season recovering from a torn ACL, the Diamondbacks still felt comfortable moving McCarthy out of their outfield mix.\u00a0 McCarthy is out of minor league options, so sending him back to Triple-A again would\u2019ve first required a trip through the waiver wire.\u00a0 Today\u2019s trade allows the D\u2019Backs to get something back in return for a player who simply no longer seemed to be in their plans.<\/p>\n

Corbin Carroll<\/a> is locked into right field and Alek Thomas<\/a> will probably get the bulk of center field work.\u00a0 Any of Blaze Alexander<\/a>, Jorge Barrosa<\/a>, or utilityman Tim Tawa<\/a> could be utilized in left field, plus former top prospect Jordan Lawlar<\/a> played some center field in winter ball action and might also eventually get some looks in left field.\u00a0 The Diamondbacks could also explore adding another outfielder over the course of the offseason.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old McCarthy now heads to the Mile High City for a fresh start, though he\u2019ll be joining another somewhat crowded outfield picture.\u00a0 If anything, there had been an expectation that the Rockies might deal from their outfield<\/a> rather than add, given that it is perhaps the only real position of depth within the organization.\u00a0 That said, acquiring McCarthy could be the Rockies\u2019 way of retaining their outfield depth in advance of another trade later this winter.\u00a0 For now, McCarthy joins Mickey Moniak<\/a>, Brenton Doyle<\/a>, Zac Veen<\/a>, and Jordan Beck<\/a> in Colorado\u2019s outfield mix, with McCarthy probably lined up as the fifth outfielder.<\/p>\n

Since being hired as the Rockies\u2019 president of baseball operations in November, Paul DePodesta has swung two other trades, but this is the first that brought a brought a big league player back to Colorado in return.\u00a0 DePodesta has a long road ahead of him in trying to bring the Rox back to respectability, but adding a former well-regarded prospect like McCarthy is a way of both raising the talent floor, and seeing what McCarthy can perhaps do with a change of scenery.\u00a0 McCarthy is arbitration-controlled through the 2028 season, and is earning $1.525MM in 2026.<\/p>\n

Grosz is on the move for the second time in less than six months, as the righty was one of the two pitching prospects the Yankees sent to the Rockies for Ryan McMahon<\/a> at the last trade deadline.\u00a0 Grosz was an 11th-round pick for the Yankees in the 2023 draft, and he posted a 4.67 ERA, 25.2% strikeout rate, and 10.3% walk rate over 125 1\/3 innings at the high-A level in 2025 (87 IP with the Yankees\u2019 high-A affiliate, and the rest with the Rockies\u2019 affiliate).<\/p>\n

MLB Pipeline ranked Grosz as the 20th-best prospect in Colorado\u2019s farm system, projecting him as a multi-inning reliever or perhaps a back-end starter.\u00a0 Grosz\u2019s fastball (which sits 93-95mph with a good spin rate) is his best pitch but also \u201chis lone better-than-average offering,\u201d as per Pipeline\u2019s scouting report.\u00a0 The 23-year-old is something of lottery ticket that the Diamondbacks can continue developing as a possible rotation piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies have acquired outfielder Jake McCarthy from the Diamondbacks in exchange for right-handed pitching prospect Josh Grosz.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,214670,214671,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-404759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-jake-mccarthy","11":"tag-josh-grosz","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}