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The owners of the Colorado Rockies are doing their best to shake the reputation that they don’t want to spend what it takes to win. After shelling out more than $150 million to keep shortstop Troy Tulowitzki at Coors Field through 2020, the Rockies have now focused on outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, another of the game’s best young players. The team tells The Denver Post that it’s open to extending CarGo’s current deal for six or seven years and committing around $100 million to the young Venezuelan. But it won’t be so easy to keep him in Denver. CarGo’s agent, Scott Boras, is known for representing some of the game’s best players and making sure they earn top dollar on the free-agent market.
The push to re-sign CarGo is the next move in the Rockies’ seeming transformation from miserly team into willing investors. There are new, pricier deals for Tulo, Jorge De La Rosa, and Baltimore Orioles first baseman Ty Wigginton, who the team is hoping will spell Todd Helton at first and Ian Stewart at third, and provide a solid right-handed bat. Purple Row isn’t sure whether the Wigginton deal makes any sense but notes that he has hit more than 20 home runs in four of the last five years in ballparks much less friendly to hitters than Coors Field.
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Correction: The original post claimed that Wigginton played for the Washington Nationals. We regret the error.