Photo via @Rockies/Instagram
Eli Whitney | August 3-4, 2026
Rockies trade Brenton Doyle to White Sox for Mason Adams, Carlos Vielma
The Rockies opened trade deadline day by moving one of the best defensive players they’ve developed in a decade. Colorado sent center fielder Brenton Doyle to the Chicago White Sox on Monday, acquiring right-handed pitcher Mason Adams and infielder Carlos Vielma in return.
Doyle, 28, leaves Denver as one of the best defenders the franchise has produced. He won National League Rawlings Gold Glove Awards in center field in back-to-back seasons in 2023 and 2024, the first two years of a career that began when Colorado took him in the fourth round of the 2019 draft out of Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. He debuted in 2023 and, over parts of four seasons in purple, hit .233/.284/.385 with 49 home runs, 68 doubles, 11 triples, 182 RBI, 209 runs, and 79 stolen bases.
The bat never caught up to the glove, and this season it went missing entirely. Doyle hit .214/.287/.282 with one home run and five RBI across 45 games in 2026. He missed nearly two months after suffering a left oblique contusion in mid-May, and a groin strain during a rehab assignment only extended the absence. He played in two games for the Rockies after being activated from the IL on Friday.
Paul DePodesta, running his first deadline as Colorado’s president of baseball operations, said Doyle wasn’t a player he was sure they’d move.
“I actually didn’t know that we would move Brenton or Victor [Vodnik], given the control that we had with them going forward and how we valued them,” he said. “It was a matter of another team meeting that price.”
Center field belongs to Cole Carrigg now. The 24-year-old rookie has put together an impressive rookie campaign, slashing .305/.389/.525 with five home runs and 27 RBI in 44 games since being called up on June 9th. Charlie Condon and Zac Veen are the next young names in the queue behind him.
That depth is what let the front office listen.
“We were totally happy keeping Brenton. In fact, very excited to get him back from the IL, and he played really well for us over the weekend,” DePodesta said. “But the fact that Jake [McCarthy] has played so well and Cole [Carrigg] has played so well — at least I think freed us up a little to entertain it, probably more than we would have five months ago.”
Mason Adams
The 26-year-old right-hander is the closest thing to a finished product Colorado could have asked for in this range. MLB Pipeline ranks him as Chicago’s No. 8 prospect. He has gone 3-4 with a 3.86 ERA and 48 strikeouts over 49 innings in 14 appearances, 12 of them starts, across three levels this season — a full-organization tour that reflects how far back he was when the year started.
Adams missed all of 2025 recovering from Tommy John surgery. Since June 12, he has been at Triple-A Charlotte, going 3-3 with a 4.25 ERA and 36 strikeouts over 36 innings in nine outings.
The longer track record is the more encouraging one. Since Chicago drafted him out of Jacksonville University in the 13th round in 2022, the Davenport, Iowa, native has posted a 3.22 ERA over 282 minor league innings with 287 strikeouts against 77 walks, holding hitters to a .246 average and giving up 0.7 home runs per nine. Command has always been the pitch. Adams will start his Rockies tenure at Triple-A Albuquerque.
DePodesta didn’t hedge on where the ceiling sits.
“We think Mason Adams has a chance to be in our rotation. I’m not sure exactly when that’s going to start — whether it’s the end of this year, the beginning of next year, or sometime during the course of next year,” he said. “He’s back pitching now here in ’26, pitching effectively in Triple-A, and we think he’s got a bright future as a starter.”
Adams also fits something this front office has been consistent about. Asked what draws them to pitchers who work off command and fast contact rather than raw velocity, DePodesta described it as a roster-construction principle rather than a Coors Field workaround.
“With every pitcher that we look at here, we’re looking for different profiles. We’re not necessarily looking for the cookie cutter, but we are looking at different angles, different velocities, different pitch mixes,” he said. “I think those guys sort of fit that as pieces for us.”
Carlos Vielma
The 16-year-old is the long play. Signed by Chicago out of Bobures, Venezuela, as an international free agent on Jan. 15, he is hitting .337/.507/.474 with six doubles, two triples, a home run, and 21 RBI through 34 games in his first professional season with the Dominican Summer League White Sox. He has reached base in 33 of those 34 games. Listed as an infielder, he has moved around — 19 starts at third base, nine at second, two at first, and four at designated hitter.
Colorado had him identified long before he was on the table.
“Our folks in our whole international department knew him, thought very highly of him,” DePodesta said. “When we were looking for a second player in that deal, we sort of looked all over the organization and talked about some different players, but ultimately settled on him.”
The on-base number is the hook.
“If you have a .500 on-base in any league, that’s pretty good, right? He controls the strike zone really well,” DePodesta said. “Obviously he’s a long way away, but what he’s done so far has been really impressive.”
Doyle was the first of three Rockies dealt Monday, followed by Antonio Senzatela to Milwaukee and Victor Vodnik to Miami.
Antonio Senzatela to Milwaukee
Ten years ended while he was playing catch.
The Rockies sent Antonio Senzatela to the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday for minor league left-hander Mark Manfredi and minor league infielder Juan Martinez, closing out one of the longest tenures any pitcher has had in franchise history.
Senzatela, 31, is one of four pitchers to spend 10 seasons with Colorado, alongside Aaron Cook, Kyle Freeland, and Germán Márquez. He ranks seventh in innings pitched, eighth in games started, 10th in wins, and 10th in strikeouts. He signed as a non-drafted international free agent in 2011, debuted in 2017, and went 52-61 with a 5.09 ERA and 577 strikeouts over 874.1 innings and 212 appearances in purple.
The bullpen is what made him moveable. After nine years spent almost entirely as a starter, Senzatela went 9-2 with a 3.61 ERA, three saves, and 46 strikeouts over 52.1 innings across 34 relief appearances in 2026 — the best stretch of pitching he’s had in years.
He put the turnaround on the offseason and the coaching staff.
“I worked differently on my fastball. I was trying to look back on the days when I was a kid to get my fastball and my numbers back,” he said. “We added two new pitches, sinker and the cutter, that are working really well this year.”
His perspective on the transformation was not lost.
“I really feel proud of myself. This is a good year after coming from a bad year last year,” Senzatela said. “Being in the bullpen — I think the pitching coaches helped me a lot. We turned around my season, and it’s really good for our team, especially for myself.”
He found out the way a lot of players do on deadline day, which is to say abruptly and in the middle of something else.
“I was sitting in the morning and a lot of trades happened. I said, okay, let’s go play catch,” he said. “And as soon as I get out and play catch, [Warren Schaeffer] just comes out to me like, you got traded to the Brewers.”
His wife heard first.
“That’s crazy. She knew before me because I was playing catch,” Senzatela said. “So when I got in, she’s like, ‘We going?’ ‘Where we going? Are we going to the Brewers? Okay, that’s nice.’ They’re excited. Everything is getting ready at home. My kids are excited too.”
There’s a symmetry to the destination that he noticed immediately. Senzatela made his major league debut in Milwaukee, and the only postseason game he ever pitched came there.
“I debuted there. My first game, my playoff game up there, my only game, and it’s amazing,” he said. “And I get traded there, and it’s perfect. I like the ballpark, I like the fans out there. That’s really nice, and it’s really loud.”
The hardest goodbye was Freeland’s. The two met in 2014, the year Freeland was drafted, and debuted on back-to-back days three years later.
“I always see him as my oldest brother, my gringo brother,” Senzatela said. “We’ve been together for 12 years, good and bad seasons. We debuted back-to-back days. That is crazy too. It was super emotional.”
Asked for a message to Rockies fans, he gave one in English and then repeated it in Spanish.
“Thanks for the support. Through these 10 years, it’s been good season, bad season,” he said. “I think the team is turning in a good way. Keep pushing with them. This is a nice ballpark to come and enjoy the game.”
DePodesta said he spoke with Senzatela himself.
“With Senza in particular, he’s meant so much to this franchise,” he said. “I actually just got a chance to share that with him, and I’m excited to root for him through October.”
Mark Manfredi
Manfredi, 26, is a left-handed reliever who has gone 4-2 with five saves and a 3.35 ERA over 45.2 innings in 34 appearances split between Double-A Biloxi and Triple-A Nashville this season. Since a June promotion to Nashville, he’s been better: 1-2 with three saves, a 3.09 ERA, 30 strikeouts, and 11 walks in 23.1 innings.
Milwaukee drafted him in the ninth round out of the University of Dayton in 2023. Over 106 professional appearances since 2024, he’s gone 13-8 with six saves and a 3.57 ERA across 181.2 innings with 239 strikeouts.
He fills a specific hole.
“Manfredi is also a guy who I think has a chance to be here relatively soon,” DePodesta said. “We think he can factor into our bullpen for sure from the left side, and it’s a very different look than [Brennan Bernardino].”
Juan Martinez
Martinez, 19, is the highest-upside bat Colorado acquired all day. The switch-hitting Cumaná, Venezuela native is slashing .307/.426/487 with 13 doubles, seven home runs, 33 RBI, and 27 stolen bases across 58 games between the Arizona Complex League and Single-A Wilson, including a .356/476/.599 line in 40 ACL games before his early-July promotion.
Over three professional seasons since signing with Milwaukee as a non-drafted international free agent on January 15, 2024, he’s hit .295/.408/.457 with 32 doubles, 13 triples, nine home runs, 87 RBI, and 66 stolen bases.
Victor Vodnik to Miami
The last of three, and the one that came together on the shortest runway.
Colorado sent right-hander Victor Vodnik to the Miami Marlins for infielder Connor Norby and minor league right-hander Aiden May.
“The Miami one, I think, came together largely today,” DePodesta said.
Vodnik, 26, went 3-3 with a 5.25 ERA over 36 innings in 33 outings this season, walking 19 and striking out 26. Across parts of four seasons in Colorado, he went 13-10 with a 4.31 ERA and 23 saves over 169 innings.
He arrived in the July 24, 2023 trade that sent Pierce Johnson to Atlanta and brought back Vodnik and Tanner Gordon.
Connor Norby
Norby is the only player Colorado acquired Monday who’s already established in the majors. The 26-year-old has slashed .234/.302/.383 with 38 doubles, 21 home runs, and 70 RBI across 198 career games, logging 125 of them at third base along with 43 at first, 12 at second, and 19 as designated hitter.
Baltimore took him in the second round out of East Carolina in 2021 and traded him to Miami on July 30, 2024. He’s spent time at Triple-A Jacksonville this season, hitting .265 with six doubles and four home runs in 23 games.
Aiden May
May, 23, is an Albuquerque native who’ll now pitch for the Triple-A club in the city he’s from — eventually. He’s posted a 3.80 ERA over 68.2 innings across 14 starts with High-A Beloit this season, going 4-3 with 58 strikeouts against 24 walks. In his career, his stat line reads as a 3.47 ERA over 96 innings in 24 minor league outings.
Miami selected him in the Competitive Balance-B round of the 2024 draft out of Oregon State.
“He’s further down, so he’s in High-A ball right now, but it’s really good stuff,” DePodesta said. “He’s a little further away, but we like him as a starter as well going forward.”
Where they all go
DePodesta said the acquired players closest to contributing are all headed to the same first stop.
“A few of the players we acquired — I think maybe one in each deal — are all going to Albuquerque, at least to start,” he said. “But we think all those guys could be impacting us here in Denver in relatively short time. We’ll find out more once we’ve got our hands on them.”
Norby, Manfredi, and Adams have all been assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque since being acquired.
Jordan Beck, Parker Mushinski, and Nick Frasso have joined the Rockies from Triple-A.
Asked whether Veen or Condon would be promoted with the roster in flux, DePodesta said not yet.
“Probably not. At least not right now.”
Who Stayed
The name that dominated July never moved.
Hunter Goodman drew interest from multiple clubs and never got close to being dealt.
“Right now, I think so far this year he’s been as good as any offensive catcher in all of baseball,” DePodesta said. “We still have control for a few more years. We think he’s a centerpiece of our offensive team right now.”
DePodesta spoke more about the All-Star catcher.
“If we did entertain that, it was going to have to be a really substantial deal, because we value him really highly,” he said. “There were certainly teams that had interest and reached out, but no one that really ever got close — at least in terms of how we think of him here in Colorado.”
The reason nothing else moved is structural, and DePodesta has been saying it since winter.
“Our entire position player club is under control going into ’27. We knew that when we broke spring training,” he said. “It was designed back in the offseason specifically so that we would have at least a two-year runway with all those players. We weren’t trying to bluff anybody at this deadline. We like these players, and we think they can be part of our future, not just our present.”
He said the market never reached the internal number on any of them.
“We had a set price in mind of what it would take to acquire any of our players,” DePodesta said. I don’t think we got particularly close on any of those players, because our internal price was going to be higher than what the market was there.”
On Mickey Moniak, the value ran past the box score.
“He’s a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat for us. He’s a leader in our clubhouse. He’s a veteran who’s been around a little long,” DePodesta said. “He’s also been in some different organizations, so he knows what it should look like. He also knows sometimes what it shouldn’t look like, which is just as valuable — and that’s important not just for his peers in the clubhouse, but also for me and for [Warren Schaeffer] as we try to shape our culture here.”
On Jake McCarthy, it was a specific development that changes the calculus.
“What’s been particularly interesting is what he’s been able to do against left-handed pitching,” DePodesta said. “For the most part he had played much more against righties in his career, but to see what he’s done against lefties — so he can really be an everyday guy out there — has been really encouraging.”
Kyle Freeland, Tomoyuki Sugano, and Michael Lorenzen all stayed as well.
Lorenzen holds a club option for next season, Sugano is headed for free agency, and Freeland has a vesting option dependent on him pitching 170 innings in 2026.
“We value the fact that they can start for us in the next couple months, and collectively they’ve all sort of done what we hoped that they would do,” DePodesta said. “They’ve given us veteran presence. They give us a chance to win most of the days that they’re out there. If there’s an opportunity for that to continue going forward, I think we’d entertain it.”
He framed the whole thing as a team with less urgency than its record suggests.
“There was no reason for us to necessarily move them unless it gave us a real opportunity to improve ourselves,” he said.
How the day actually worked
None of the three deals was locked in when DePodesta got to Coors Field Monday morning.
“They were all finished today. When I came in this morning, I wasn’t set on any of them,” he said. “That said, we had pretty extensive conversations with a couple of those clubs — Milwaukee and even Chicago — going back over the course of the last three, four, five days about different concepts and even about different players.”
The volume of interest is what compressed the timeline.
“We had very broad interest in those players, in each of those players,” DePodesta said. “In a couple of instances, literally double-digit teams interested in some of those guys. You also had some calls that didn’t come in until today, or even this afternoon. We had to be agile and act quickly.”
He also described Colorado as the party naming names rather than sorting through lists handed to them.
“It’s mostly the former, with us presenting players that we would want in a deal,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s the latter, especially if you’re looking for maybe a second player to finish a deal. It’s not often that those actually land on a deal.”
He continued, “We all look at players a little differently. I think we also probably all like our own players a little bit more than everybody else does,” DePodesta said. “So the overwhelming percentage of the time it’s, hey, we have interest in Senzatela or Doyle or Vodnik, and we say, okay, these are the players it will take to acquire that talent.”
Four days out, he had a read on all three.
“If you asked me three or four days ago and I was able to be honest with you, I would have told you I thought those were probably the three players that were most likely to be moved, just based on the sheer amount of interest we were getting from teams.”
The clubhouse, and the game
The Rockies lost Monday night with three fewer teammates than they’d had that morning.
Warren Schaeffer didn’t pretend that it was a normal day.
“Today was a weird day. This day is always a weird day, with three guys on our big league roster that left — three guys that we love,” he said. “It’s just a weird day, but then you’ve got to play a baseball game and move on. The clubhouse is going to be great. We’re just going to move forward with what we’ve got.”
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