Rockies trade reliever Jake Bird to Yankees for prospects

An old baseball adage says that it takes two to tango at the trade deadline. The Rockies and Yankees danced twice in the past week.

The Rockies traded two proven veterans, third baseman Ryan McMahon and workhorse right-hander reliever Jake Bird, in exchange for four Yankees prospects.

Before Thursday’s trade deadline closed, Colorado traded Bird to the Bronx for second baseman Roc Riggio and left-hander Ben Shields. Riggio was the Yankees’ No. 10 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, and Shields was their No. 29 prospect.

Last Friday, the Yankees sent pitching prospects Griffin Herring (No. 8) and Josh Grosz (No. 21) to Colorado in exchange for McMahon.

“By trading McMahon and Bird, we ended up with four of the Yankees’ top 30 prospects,” general manager Bill Schmidt said Thursday. “We acquired young guys to build on. They are, hopefully, relatively close. They’re not three or four years away.”

Riggio has been playing at Double-A Somerset and has slashed .264/.370/.567 with 27 doubles, five triples, and 11 home runs at High-A and Double-A this season. A fourth-round pick in the 2023 draft, the left-handed hitting 23-year-old should give the Rockies some needed depth in their farm system.

“Regarding Roc, I’ll just say that he’s a baseball player,” Schmidt said. “He’s a good second baseman and he’s a grinder. He’s having a good season in the Eastern League. He’s a gamer, and though he’s not big (listed at 5-foot-9, 180 pounds), he’s got some power.”

Schmidt said that Riggio gives the team some depth and competition at second base, where Colorado also has switch-hitting Adael Amador, who has had two stints with the big-league club.

Shields pitched at four minor league levels this season and is 1-2 with a 3.03 ERA over nine starts with 42 strikeouts vs. just 14 walks. In five starts at Double-A (23 2/3 innings), the 26-year-old was 1-2 with a 3.37 ERA, 26 strikeouts and 10 walks. The 6-foot-4 Shields is considered a diamond in the rough. He was an undrafted free agent in 2024 despite leading the Atlantic 10 Conference in strikeouts at George Mason.

The Rockies will groom him to be a starter at Double-A Hartford, though he could eventually become a reliever in the majors.

“Shields is an older guy, but he’s got a good arm, a fresh arm,” Schmidt said. “It’s a low-to-mid-90s fastball, with a slider. There’s pitchability there. We’ll start him out as a starter, but if he ends up moving to the bullpen, his fastball would probably (improve) to the mid-90s or higher.”

Bird, a 29-year-old workhorse middle reliever, has been Colorado’s best pitcher for much of the season. There was even talk that he might be a dark-horse candidate for the All-Star Game. Over 45 games (53 1/3 innings), Bird is 4-1 with a 4.73 ERA, a 1.481 WHIP, 62 strikeouts and 23 walks. Before the All-Star break, he was 3-1 with a 3.62 ERA, but a few rough innings in July inflated his ERA.

“Jake’s done a good job for us here, filling a variety of roles,” Schmidt said. “We appreciate everything he did for us.”

Trading for Bird won’t cost the Yankees much financially. He’s in his final pre-arbitration season and controllable for three years after this season. However, the McMahon trade gives the Rockies some salary relief for the next two years. The Yankees assumed the remainder of McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the rest of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.

But Schmidt insisted that trading McMahon was not about jettisoning salary.

“We really like Herring,” Schmidt said. “We think he has a chance to be a starter. He’s in High-A, and next year we think he has a chance to be in Double-A. And Grosz is another good arm. We didn’t look at it like (a salary dump).”

On Wednesday, Colorado traded right-handed Tyler Kinley to the Braves for right-handed pitching prospect Austin Smith. Smith, 26, is 0-4 with a 4.31 ERA, four saves, 15 walks, and 34 strikeouts in 29 relief outings between High-A Rome and Double-A Columbus this season.