“I mean, it was a weird day.“
That’s recent Arizona Diamondback and now Colorado Rockies outfielder Jake McCarthy when asked about scoring the Rockies first run of 2026 against the team that traded him away back in January.
“I’m used to coming out that other down the left field foul pole, and then being in the other dugout,” McCarthy said. “And there were some funny, funny faces that they were making at me. So, yeah, it was a weird day, but I’m excited to be here playing baseball again.”
Then he added this: “It was good.“
Clearly, playing for a new team is always a challenge, but for McCarthy, the adjustment has been relatively modest so far.
He’s still in the same spring training complex he played in as a D-back, given that the Snakes and the Rockies share Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. As he commented at Rockies Fest, the biggest adjustment would be turning into the correct parking lot when he went to camp.
“I kind of like going in the way I’ve always gone. So every now and then I see one of those guys, and I’ll just lay on the horn or something,” McCarthy said. “It’s a funny part of my commute every day.”
But so far, he’s impressed what’s happening on the Colorado side of Salt River Fields.
“I think there’s a lot of good energy around here, and a lot of talented players who are excited to make their marks,” McCarthy said. “So, I’m really happy to be a part of it, and I want to play a big role in it.“
Plus, given that the D-backs and Rockies play each other a lot during the course of an MLB season, Coors Field is not unfamiliar to him. Over the course of his career, McCarthy has played 14 games at Coors, and he’s accumulated a .375/.423/.500 slashline that includes seven stolen bases on 18 hits. (He’s had 48 at-bats.)
Then there’s the fact that McCarthy is fast — really fast — “one of the fastest players in Major League Baseball,” Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta commented after the trade became public. “He’s been a very good base runner.”
McCarthy’s sprint speed is 29.9 feet/second, the eighth best in MLB. (The very speedy Benton Doyle clocks in at 29.5 feet/second.)
Currently, McCarthy is getting to know his new outfield colleagues though he is quick to point out their familiarity.
“I think we all know each other pretty well through playing against each other for so long,” McCarthy said.
Right now, though, they’re working on becoming an outfield unit, something McCarthy sees strengthened by their diverse experiences.
“A guy like Mickey, he’s played for a couple teams. I just came from Arizona. Tyler Freeman was with Cleveland. So I think we all have different things: ‘Hey, I worked on this over at this spot that I really like.’ So it’s cool. We have conversations every day, just about things that help us get a little bit better.”
For McCarthy, this marks a change from his time with the D-backs when the outfielders had all come up together.
“For the most part, we had been D-backs for five or six years. So that was all that we knew — not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s cool hearing different sides of it.”
Fellow outfielder Mickey Moniak sees things coming together.
Of McCarthy, Moniak said, “He’s dynamic,” then added, “I think that’s the best way to describe our outfield unit as a whole – dynamic.”
After all, having McCarthy on the roster gives the outfield more options.
“We’ve got four guys who can play center field, along with [Tyler] Freeman when he’s out there – he can also play center field in the big leagues,” Moniak said.
Manager Warren Schaeffer is clear about what he sees in McCarthy:
And don’t overlook the experience McCarthy brings with him.
“[He’s] a guy who gets on base a lot,” Moniak said. “He’s had success in the big leagues, and brings that experience. He’s been in the postseason and been to the World Series. He fit right in from day one. I think it’s clear that bringing him in was a great move, and getting to play alongside of him is going to be a lot of fun.”
Center fielder Brenton Doyle referred to McCarthy as “awesome,” and said that the two are neighbors in the clubhouse. “
“I’ve had a lot of good opportunities to talk with him,” Doyle said, “and he’s a super, super awesome guy — great clubhouse guy — and super easy to get along with. So I think that play to our advantage on the field.”
And even though Coors Field will be his new home, it’s not unfamiliar.
“I think [the D-backs] did a pretty good job over there understanding that obviously with the elevation, the ball is going to go a little farther, and it’s a bigger outfield,” McCarthry said. “But I’ve always taken pride in playing defense, so in the 10 or whatever games I’ve played there, I think I’ve done a decent job of accounting for all of that. But I’m excited to play 81 games there, so it’ll be cool.”
Perhaps McCarthy’s biggest challenge over the course of his career has been its unevenness.
- 2022 — .283/.342/.427; 23 stolen bases; 2.2 fWAR
- 2023 — .245/.318/.326; 26 stolen bases; 0.1 fWAR
- 2o24 – .285/.349/.400; 25 stolen bases; 3.0 fWAR
- 2025 — .204/.247/.345; 6 stolen bases; 0.1 fWAR
It’s easy to see the difference between the even and odd years of McCarthy’s career.
At Rockies Fest, he said his focus was “just getting back to what makes [him] go as a baseball player.”
Then he added, “I think it could be dynamic, and I think that means getting on base for guys like [Hunter Goodman] and playing good defense, especially in a field like this. I think there were parts of last season that maybe I got away from that a little bit. So again, just eager — eager to kind of get back on track.”
In a way, McCarthy and a rebuilding Colorado Rockies are a good pair for each other when it comes to “getting back on track.”
“I think it’s a great opportunity to sort of prove people wrong,” McCarthy said.
“I think it’s really exciting to be on the way up and be a part of something. So I just think everyone in this room has a great opportunity.”
This week on the internet
Okay, here’s today’s question: Would you give the Rockies a fist bump or keep walking?
2026 MLB Team Preview Series: Colorado Rockies | Pinstripe Alley
I am always curious about how fans of other teams see the Rockies. This is from our SBN sister site for the New York Yankees, Pinstripe Alley.
Are other teams exploring the possibility of calling pitches from the dugout? The Marlins and Giants are thinking about it, and Warren Schaeffer is quoted in the article:
My new pitching coach feels very strongly about it, and he’s presented me with the reasons why, and they are very intriguing reasons,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “It’s something that’s being discussed across the game internally. It’s the most important part of the game, what pitches are thrown. There’s nuance there in terms of trusting your catcher and all the preparation he puts into the game. But at the end of the day, I’m definitely open to it. It would take a lot of communication. The whole team would have to be in on it. And there’s lots of ways to go about it. The pitcher still makes the ultimate decision on what to throw.
This is surely a topic we will discuss in more detail later, but what are your initial thoughts?
Introducing the FanGraphs Lab | FanGraphs
FanGraphs has added a very cool data visualization tool. Nerds, this one’s for you.
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