After a slow start, Trejo’s tenure with the Rockies came to an end in late June
Welcome to the 2024 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2024. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.
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No. 51, Alan Trejo: -0.8 rWAR
Alan Trejo was drafted in the 16th round of the 2017 MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies. He made his MLB debut on April 10, 2021 and played parts of four seasons with the Rox before being designated for assignment on June 28. In total, he played 173 games in purple pinstripes and slashed .228/.276/.334 during that time.
After a breakout defensive campaign during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Trejo played a career-high 82 games. However, his playing time dipped tremendously in 2024. He only played in 28 games — the same amount as his rookie season — and slashed just .143/.182/.143 with zero extra-base hits, two walks and 15 strikeouts over 67 plate appearances.
But Trejo had a role, at least in the early part of the 2024 Rockies’ season. Multiple players cited Trejo as a “hype man” in the dugout, despite limited playing time. It was first acknowledged by Cal Quantrill during an in-game interview early in the season, where he mentioned that Trejo helped him keep loose, and they played a lot of cards together in the clubhouse.
But another player who recognized Trejo as someone he leaned on early in the season was 14-year, and now retired, veteran Charlie Blackmon.
“Alan Trejo has really locked in with me,” Blackmon said on May 21. “He’s kind of my daily accountability partner, and he’s doing and making the most out of his opportunities, which are not very frequent right now. But I think he’s putting himself in the right mindset to be competitive and have success. He hit a ball that probably would’ve been a home run in his last start [on May 18 against the San Francisco Giants] that got robbed. He’s just an important part of the team chemistry, even though he’s not on the field necessarily every day, but could be at any point.”
And Trejo also identified himself as someone who likes to keep things loose and keep others loose, because he thinks it’s important.
“I’m just comedic relief,” he said. “A lot of people make fun of me all the time. I talk a lot of smack. I mean, it’s good. I like to hang out with the boys and try to play cards as much as we can and, more than anything, just keep everyone uplifted.
“I feel like everyone needs to have a vibe guy on the team,” he continued. “I feel like, especially when the season has been long and you haven’t won many games, you have to find a way to spark something from inside. And I just have to be that guy, and I enjoy being that guy. It’s been a good time being that guy.”
Now, his numbers are not good. As mentioned earlier, Trejo’s playing time was limited. He never played more than three days in a row, and he only did that three times in 2024. He had a very slow April and May, but turned it on in June.
Defensively, Trejo had a 0 DRS at all positions he played. He made some good catches, such as this one:
And this one:
But unfortunately, they were not enough to keep him around.
Trejo never fully found his footing as a member of the Rockies, likely due in part to inconsistent playing time. When a young player is relegated to more of a bench role, they can struggle to find a routine that might help them improve. Trejo showed what he could do during the 2023 WBC and perhaps should’ve been given more consistent playing time after that, but it just never came to fruition.
He’s in the Dodgers organization now, so we can only hope he doesn’t become a Rockie killer!