Updated Rockies trade values: McMahon, Bird drop in value just before deadline

The Colorado Rockies have two potential trade candidates in Ryan McMahon and Jake Bird, but both players' trade value has dropped with the deadline just over a week away

BY TRENT FINNEGAN

Jul 21, 2025, 1:27 PM

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The Colorado Rockies and shipping away good talent to contenders who will benefit from them — a tale that’s been regurgitated over and over in recent years as the Rockies have sunk to the bottom of the MLB. This season, the story is the same as the Rockies are on pace to become the worst team in baseball’s modern era and they have a couple of older names who could be of value to contending teams.

Back in June, ESPN released a list of the top 50 trade candidates across the MLB, and the Rockies had two players find themselves on the list in Ryan McMahon and Jake Bird. McMahon, the 30-year-old third baseman, slotted in at No. 16 while Bird, 29, was at No. 38.

Fast forward a month, and both players’ value has decreased in ESPN’s latest rankings. McMahon has slid down to No. 22 while Bird has dropped all the way to No. 48. For fans who were looking to see the Rockies ship one of or both of those guys out of town in return for some younger talent that better fits the team’s timeline. McMahon now has just a 40% chance to be traded after being at 60% a month ago, while Bird hasn’t had a number next to his name in either ranking.

What happened?

For Bird, his production has fallen off a cliff after he got off to a scorching-hot start back in the spring. There was a point in time at the end of April when his ERA dipped below 1.00 and was at 0.95 after a victory against the Atlanta Braves in which he struck out the side in the one inning he pitched. Now, his ERA is north of 4.00 after five outings in July has put his ERA at 22.09 for the month. It’s been a month since he’s struck out multiple batters in a single outing after he did so on 17 different occasions in the first half of the season.

A team like the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers isn’t going to want a guy who’s trending in the wrong direction, so the Rockies likely won’t be able to get the same value out of him that they could have gotten a month ago.

For McMahon, his numbers have also taken a dive recently. He had a rough April, but was able to pick up his game in mid-May into June to get back to his normal slugging numbers. As it stands right now, he’s slashing .217/.311/.399 for the season, but has posted just a .978 fielding percentage in 97 games at third base with six errors. Given the value that third base has for any contending team, he will always be a target for contenders solely off the fact that he has played the position for so long and has had plenty of good moments, but the Rockies can’t afford to wait past July 31 when the deadline rolls around.

If Bill Schmidt and the rest of the Rockies brass’ want to maximize McMahon’s trade value, the sooner would be better. Given that the organization failed to maximize the value of Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu and Daniel Bard, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they failed to do so once again. Promoting Walker Monfort showed that the ownership can’t get out of its own way time and time again, but getting good value out of at least one of these two trade candidates could be a sign that the tide could slowly be turning.

The MLB trade deadline is July 31 at 4:00 p.m. MDT.