The former SF Giants infielder is staying the National League West on a one-year deal, in a new ballpark that might really help his offensive numbers
The San Francisco Giants gave up on Thairo Estrada at the end of August. Now he’s staying the National League West with his new team.
Thairo Estrada has agreed to a one-year Major League deal with the Rockies, per source.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) December 10, 2024
Estrada had a rough, injury-ridden season in 2024, slashing .217/.247/.343 in 96 games. The Giants outrighted Estrada to Triple-A in late August, a signal that they’d given up on the 28-year-old second baseman. He’d been slowly declining since his breakout 2021 season, where Estrada slugged .479 in 52 games, while playing stellar defense at second base and filling in at five different positions.
Last season, due to injuries or age, Estrada’s speed disappeared. He went from 21 steals in 2022 and 23 in 2023 to just two last season. Estrada is a ground-ball hitter, so his lack of wheels cost him infield hits and continued the uptick in his rate of grounding into double plays that started in 2023.
In the last two seasons, injuries to his hands and wrists forced him to miss a lot of time, and likely affected his hitting as well. Estrada had two stints on the injured list with a wrist sprain last year, plus a jammed thumb. In 2023, he also had wrist issues, but the biggest injury was a fractured left hand from being hit by a pitch. When he returned, Estrada’s walk rate cratered and he lost 45 points of slugging.
It’s a dramatic decline for a player who looked like a core player just a year and a half ago, and won the Willie Mac Award as the team’s most inspirational player in 2023. But the emergence of other infielders like Tyler Fitzgerald and Brett Wisely made Estrada expendable, especially when he wasn’t hitting. The Giants weren’t going to tender the arbitration-eligible Estrada a contract, so they sent him to the minor leagues.
In Colorado, Estrada will replace second baseman Brendan Rodgers, who was non-tendered by the Rockies. They’re both defense-first infielders — Rodgers won a Gold Glove in 2022 — but Estrada’s $3.25M is cheaper than what Rodgers was looking at in arbitration. It might be less than what Estrada could have gotten from another team, but the Rockies can offer two compelling reasons for Estrada to head for the mountains. Playing time and Coors Field.
Estrada should be the starting second baseman for the woeful Rockies, and his statistics should at least look superficially better at Coors. For his career, Estrada has slashed .348./.406/.565 at altitude, which is impressive even for Coors Field. His contract has a mutual option for 2026 for the same salary, so Estrada has a chance to really improve his earning potential with the Coors bump.
Plus, according to Alex Pavlovic, Estrada’s attempts to stay on the field made his numbers looks worse by playing through his ailments.
Good for Thairo, who found a nice spot to try and rebuild his value. He played through injuries all year and it killed his numbers. https://t.co/9VGYdmeijw
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) December 10, 2024
So Estrada is gone, but he hasn’t left the NL West, so his old teammates will get to see him 13 games per year, along with their old pal Kris Bryant, if he gets healthy. Estrada joins the fraternity of proud Giants-to-Rockies transfers that includes legends like Bryant, Bill Swift, Darryl Hamilton, Dustan Mohr, and so many catchers (Bobby Estalella, Kirt Manwaring, Yorvit Torrealba, Jeff Reed, Brent Mayne, Steve Decker, Austin Wynns, and Scott Servais).
He’ll always be remembered as a Giants, and he’ll almost certainly beat the Giants on a walkoff home run next year. Godspeed, Thairo!