Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that the Rockies have agreed to a two-year deal with Chris Iannetta. Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reports it’s a two-year deal worth $8.5 million.
Iannetta spent his first six seasons with the Rockies before four seasons in Anaheim and a season each in Seattle and Arizona. He’s coming off a nice 2017 campaign in which he hit .254/.354/.511 with 17 homers in 89 games.
Iannetta is really not a full-time catcher anymore, though he’s probably something more than a backup, which makes the whole Jonathan Lucroy free agency situation interesting. Lucroy says he wants to come back to the Rockies. Iannetta’s presence doesn’t necessarily foreclose that, but it does give the Rockies the option of going with more of a platoon or a shared duties thing with Iannetta splitting time with some combination of Tony Wolters or Tom Murphy as opposed to a regular starter/backup situation. And they’d certainly save some money if they didn’t pursue Lucroy.
