With Jose Reyes, the Colorado Rockies now have three bad options

The Rockies will likely have to eat most of Reyes’ remaining salary.
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Colorado Rockies vs New York Yankees at Coors Field. June 14, 2016. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite) colorado rockies; baseball; sports; kevinjbeaty; denver; colorado; denverite;

It looks like Jose Reyes won’t be back in a Colorado Rockies uniform. The club announced Wednesday that it designated the 33-year-old shortstop for assignment. That leaves the Rockies with three options.

Trade Reyes to another team within 10 days, place him on waivers or simply release him. The Rockies will likely be on the hook for much of the approximate $40 million he’s owed this season and next, no matter which option they choose.

Any team willing to trade for Reyes in the next 10 days will want the Rockies to pay most of his salary. That’s pretty common in MLB trades involving over-the-hill stars. Just look at the deal the Angels and Rangers agreed to to send Josh Hamilton back to Texas in April 2015.

If the Rockies are unable to work out a trade, they could place Reyes on waivers. Any team that claimed Reyes would have to pay him the pro-rated league minimum for the rest of the season; the Rockies would have to pay the rest of his deal.

The third avenue of cutting ties with Reyes is to release him. This means the Rockies would pay all of the money he’s owed this season and the $22 million he’s owed next year.

However you slice it, the Rockies essentially decided to pay Reyes a ton of money to not play for the franchise going forward.

Reyes didn’t appear in a single game for Colorado this season. Major League Baseball issued him a 51-game suspension for a domestic violence incident involving Reyes and his wife in October. That — combined with Trevor Story’s emergence — is what’s brought us here.

Reyes came to Colorado in the Troy Tulowitzki deal last July. Less than a calendar year later, he is on his way out.

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