Revolving door roster makes life tough on the 'Topes

Who are these guys?

As if all the alternate identities and jersey variations the Albuquerque Isotopes use in a season — be it their usual Isotopes uniforms, the popular Mariachis alter egos, the Dukes retro night gear or even the Green Chile Cheeseburgers uniforms they will wear this Saturday night — didn’t make it hard enough getting familiar with the local Triple A franchise, the Colorado Rockies have made it even harder.

They’ve been moving players up to the majors and sending them back down at a record pace this season, already having matched last season’s total number of transactions with 53 games still to play. It leaves the Isotopes with very little hope game to game, or series to series, of being able to field a consistent lineup.

It’s little wonder, then, that the Isotopes had the worst record in Triple-A baseball at the halfway point on June 25 (though the team improved to 14-8 in the second-half standings by winning Tuesday).

“We need to understand this is a grind every time they’re coming out. It’s a grind for these guys every day,” said Isotopes manager Pedro Lopez. “And then the injuries we had in the first half — the injuries that the big league club had (leading to) pulling guys out of here and not being able to get anybody all the time (to replace them) because there were injuries that were happening throughout the whole system. So it was tough.”

A transaction is recorded anytime a player’s status changes. It can be an Isotope being placed on the injured list or returning to play.

But not every transaction is exactly the same.

Sometimes, it’s a big leaguer being added to the roster for a short time on an injury rehab assignment, like with Kris Bryant for one game in June or Brendan Rodgers, who started an Isotopes stint on Tuesday in a 9-6 win over Sacramento.

Other times, it can be Elehuris Montero, who has been up and down multiple times, killing it all season in an Isotopes uniform (.359 batting average, 15 home runs, 142 at-bats) but struggling when wearing the Rockies’ purple (.192/2 HRs/106 at-bats).

The bottom line is all transactions reflect a roster shift of some sort. And with seven announced ahead of Tuesday’s game, the Isotopes had completed 174 player transactions in their 97th game. That matches the entire 2022 season total of 174 transactions.

At a current pace of 1.79 transactions per game, the Isotopes are on pace for 269 transactions, shattering their 2018 record of 224.

The franchise has only reached 200 transactions in an entire season four times in its two decades of existence, with this headed towards a fifth — all since becoming the Rockies’ Triple-A affiliate in 2015.

The current transactions rate with the Rockies being just up the road (OK, they still fly for all the call-ups and send-backs), is a far cry from the early days of the franchise in 2003 when the big league club was the Florida Marlins. Back then, there were no quick flights to Miami that would help the MLB team shore up the bullpen in a pinch or fill a void in the lineup on short notice.

In 2003, the Isotopes had 106 transactions. It was 117 in 2004.

Since that 2015 shift to being a Rockies affiliate, the franchise has averaged 159 transactions per season, which doesn’t include this season.

FAMILIAR FOE: For context, the Sacramento River Cats, this week’s visiting team for a six-game series, have 104 transactions listed in their game notes.

One move the team made, though, is a familiar one to baseball fans in Albuquerque.

Former UNM Lobo star Luis Gonzalez, a 2017 third round draft pick of the Chicago White Sox, has begun an injury rehab assignment for the San Francisco Giants. Gonzalez hit .361 with a .500 on base percentage for the Lobos in 2017.