Up in the Grading The Week offices, the Rockies actually made us think of Branch Rickey on Friday. Or rather, something Rickey, the man who integrated Major League Baseball and more or less created the modern farm system, once said. “Trade a player too early rather than a year too late,” the longtime MLB executive opined. Trevor Story? Too late. Jon Gray? Too late. Elias Diaz? Too late. Cal Quantrill? Too late. Brendan Rodgers? Too darn late. The wise apples in the GTW crew couldn’t stop rolling in the aisles after somebody suggested a zombified Rickey — Branch left this mortal coil in 1965 — would do a better job running baseball operations than anybody on Dick Monfort’s current staff. But the Mahatma, as he was known, had a heck of a point. Because what the Rox just got for Quantrill and Rodgers, who were non-tendered Friday, is what they got for Diaz, their former All-Star MVP catcher. Absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada. Rockies Rockie-ing — C- Now in defense of Rockies GM Bill Schmidt, they tried. (We think.) And hey, if you’re going to lean into a youth movement, might as well get on with it and embrace the thing. The Dodgers, Padres and Giants aren’t going anywhere but up. The Rockies’ best middle infield prospect, 21-year-old Adael Amador, hasn’t much left to prove in the minors and needs a spot in The Show. GTW has needled (and will needle) the Rox for plenty of missteps, but going young now? That sure as heck won’t be one of them. Although Quantrill, who’ll turn 30 next February, is a curious departure, given the inevitable spate of arm injuries that typically decimate Bud Black’s pitching staff over the course of a summer. Yes, uber-prospect Chase Dollander is coming, and little birdies tell us the stuff — and the hype — is real. Then again, you can never have enough pitching for Coors Field, and Quantrill made a more-than-reasonable $6.55 million this past season. Rodgers, meanwhile, never quite lived up to the expectations as a franchise cornerstone after being taken with the third overall pick in the 2015 MLB Amateur Draft. He found his level as a good glove/”meh” bat second baseman with a career .726 OPS, .628 away from Denver. Was that on injuries? Or was that on the Rockies? After DJ LeMahieu, the benefit of the doubt has to be earned back, kids. Meanwhile, earlier on Friday, the Reds traded second baseman Jonathan India, who’d amassed 7.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) since 2021, for Royals pitcher Brady Singer, a 28-year-old right-handed starter who posted a 3.71 ERA this past season and sported a 27-29 record over the last three seasons. Rodgers, if you’re curious, put up 6.8 WAR over that same span. No takers. FC Denver makes the next NWSL cut — A A GTW tip o’ the cap to the good folks behind For Denver FC, the ownership group pushing for professional women’s soccer in the Mile High City. Denver made the NWSL’s next cut. On Friday, league commissioner Jessica Berman named our burg one of three finalists for an expansion, a club that would start play in the league — along with Boston’s expansion BOS Nation FC — in 2026. But the final lap of the journey won’t be any easier. The other two finalists, both in Ohio, have some market forces working in their favor. WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark, arguably the most popular female athlete in North America, just joined the Cincinnati expansion bid, while Cleveland’s ownership group has reportedly acquired land on which to build its own stadium. Yet when it comes to grassroots fan support, community interest and soccer bloodlines, no market in the Buckeye State can match Denver’s juice. At the Women’s Ballon d’Or award ceremony in Paris this September, Front Range natives Sophia Smith, Lindsey Horan and Mallory Swanson made up half of the top 6 women’s players in the world, according to Ballon d’Or voters, while the USWNT’s friendly this past June at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park was a sellout. To paraphrase an old GTW movie fave, “Field of Dreams,” when it comes to women’s soccer in this town, if you build it, they will come.