Thoughts on Miguel Olivo being traded to Toronto

It's Official: The Colorado Rockies have traded Miguel Olivo to the Toronto Blue Jays for a guy not yet identified and/or cash money.

There had been at least two incorrect reports from Tracy Ringolsby leading up to the official announcement of the trade. Sloppy reporting on his end, no question about that. But all reporters get caught with bad information from time to time. I don't think it makes him any less the credible source. Though you give credit to Thomas Harding and Troy Renck for sticking to their guns here.

Anywho... a lot of Rockies fans seem disappointed by the news, which I guess I expected, though not to the extent I've seen on Twitter.

Unfortunately the arguments for Olivo staying mostly center around him fitting in, being a nice guy, always smiling, wanting to be a Rockie, so on. All nice things, but things that play little part in winning a championship.

Really all you need to know is that Toronto will be Olivo's 7th different team since 2004.

• Chicago White Sox 
• Seattle Mariners 
• San Diego Padres 
• Florida Marlins 
• Kansas City Royals 
• Colorado Rockies 
• Toronto Blue Jays

Not to rip on the guy, but this isn't a monumental loss from any baseball standpoint. In fact, that Dan O'Dowd was able to swing a last minute deal is a pretty nice piece of GMing on his part. It saved the team a $500,000 buyout, which could be signficant in making another signing down the road.

Also, Olivo wasn't brought in to be a long term solution. He was brought in to play a backup role to Chris Iannetta for a year or two while the Rockies young catching talent developed.

It turned out he had an amazing start to the season, very likely all-star worthy, took the job, and then he regressed back into being the guy he's been his entire career -- an okay backup catcher that moves around a lot like all backup catchers do.

Unfortunately Chris Iannetta never got into a rhythm, so the Rockies had a gaping hole behind the plate the last three months of the season, but the way it was designed made sense.

I know names like Mike Napoli and Victor Martinez are being tossed around. I'm sure a couple more names will be thrown in that mix. We'll see what happens. There are many factors involved here including how the Rockies want to spend their money, roster flexibility, and how they view their catchers behind Iannetta.

It's a process and it's impossible to predict which way they'll go until some chips start falling around the league.

Also, in case you haven't heard.

The Rockies declined the option on Jeff Francis. They will attempt to re-sign him for far less money.

They also declined the option on Octavio Dotel, which had to be one of the easiest decisions O'Dowd has ever made.

And finally, O'Dowd declined the option of fries with his sandwich at lunch today. By my count he's 4-for-4 so far in the offseason.