The Rock­ies are approach­ing a crit­i­cal cross­roads involv­ing third base­man Nolan Are­na­do and short­stop Trevor Sto­ry, their two best posi­tion players.

The con­tract sta­tus of the two stars, the finan­cial ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic on base­ball and Arenado’s rocky rela­tion­ship with gen­er­al man­ag­er Jeff Bridich have con­verged to cre­ate an imper­fect storm. How the front office deals with the sit­u­a­tion this off­sea­son will affect the fran­chise in 2021 and far beyond.

And it will tug at the heart of Rock­ies fans who’ve seen Sto­ry and Are­na­do blos­som into arguably the pre­mier left side of the infield in the majors. Because it seems unlike­ly, at this point, that the Rock­ies will be able to keep both stars.

Sto­ry, who’s owed $18.5 mil­lion in 2021, is sched­uled to become a free agent after the sea­son. He under­stands that his future in Col­orado is a ques­tion mark.

“I’m aware of the sit­u­a­tion that’s com­ing up,” Sto­ry said at the end of the Rock­ies’ sec­ond con­sec­u­tive los­ing sea­son. “I love being here. These guys draft­ed and devel­oped me, and it’s fun play­ing here. So I try not to think too far ahead. I’m always the guy who’s going to cross that bridge when it gets here.”

Are­na­do, who’s owed a whop­ping $35 mil­lion next sea­son, can opt out of his con­tract after 2021. While it once seemed cer­tain that he would do so — or that the Rock­ies would trade him in antic­i­pa­tion of that hap­pen­ing — the pan­dem­ic has mud­died the waters.

“I don’t know what’s gonna hap­pen,” Are­na­do told ESPN last Tues­day after he won his eighth con­sec­u­tive Gold Glove Award. “I think this year will be inter­est­ing. I’m hope­ful that wher­ev­er (hap­pens), I wan­na play for a win­ner. If that’s in Col­orado, that’s great. And, at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about; I just wan­na win.”

Choppy financial waters

The Rock­ies, like most teams in the majors, are nav­i­gat­ing chop­py finan­cial waters. For­mer Rock­ies gen­er­al man­ag­er Dan O’Dowd said on MLB Net­work that he expects two-thirds of teams not to be spend­ing big in free agency.

Count the Rock­ies among that group.

While the team doesn’t dis­close its finan­cial infor­ma­tion, the 60-game sea­son that played out with no fans attend­ing games at Coors Field cost the Rock­ies well north of $100 mil­lion. Accord­ing to sports indus­try ana­lysts Team Mar­ket­ing Report, the Rock­ies lost $174.7 million.

TMR annu­al­ly pro­duces what it calls the Fan Cost Index, a cal­cu­la­tion of the aver­age cost for a fan to attend a game for teams across sports. For the 2020 Major League Base­ball sea­son, TMR pro­duced a study that pro­ject­ed how much game-day rev­enue each club missed out on due to the absence of fans. Accord­ing to TMR’s cal­cu­la­tions, there was more than  $5 bil­lion in lost rev­enue across base­ball. The New York Yan­kees topped the list, with an esti­mat­ed $437 mil­lion in game-day rev­enue lost com­pared to what they would have drawn with fans attend­ing a tra­di­tion­al 81-game home schedule.

Rock­ies own­er Dick Mon­fort admit­ted that the Rock­ies are star­ing at a dif­fi­cult finan­cial landscape.

“The finan­cial loss­es incurred across base­ball in 2020 are astound­ing, with loss­es at near­ly $3 bil­lion indus­try-wide and the aver­age club los­ing near­ly $100 mil­lion,” Mon­fort wrote in a let­ter to Rock­ies sea­son tick­et hold­ers. “It will take time to rebound, and in some cas­es, these loss­es will nev­er be recov­ered. As a result, there will be noth­ing nor­mal about this off­sea­son as the indus­try faces a new eco­nom­ic real­i­ty, and each club will have to adjust.”

The Rock­ies’ new tele­vi­sion con­tract with AT&T Sport­sNet begins in 2021.

“I’ve always said (that) rev­enues pass right through to the pay­roll, and I think we’ve proven that over time,” Mon­fort said before last sea­son. “It doesn’t start until 2021, so there’s no addi­tion­al mon­ey next year (2020)….But it’s going to help the fran­chise (in the future). It’s going to help the fran­chise keep players.”

But all of that was before COVID-19 struck.

Enough room for Story?

Mon­fort has said mul­ti­ple times that he would like to keep Sto­ry in Col­orado for the long-term. Now, that might not be possible.

Accord­ing to sportrac.com, the Rock­ies are already on track to spend more than $130 mil­lion in 2021, assum­ing they ten­der con­tracts to their 11 arbi­tra­tion-eli­gi­ble play­ers. For exam­ple, right-han­der Jon Gray, who is sched­uled to become a free agent after the 2021 sea­son, is pro­ject­ed to make $6 mil­lion in his third year of arbitration.

Sto­ry, who is a daz­zling infield­er, would be cov­et­ed as a free agent, though he won’t approach the eight-year, $260 mil­lion mega-deal that Are­na­do received pri­or to the 2019 sea­son. But Sto­ry was the Rock­ies’ best play­er in 2020, lead­ing the team in home runs (11), triples (four) and dou­bles (13). His 28 RBIs ranked sec­ond only to right field­er Char­lie Blackmon’s 42. Sto­ry also led Col­orado in OPS (.874) and runs scored (41).

So what are the Rock­ies’ options regard­ing their short­stop? They could trade him this off­sea­son to a con­tender in return for prospects and a sol­id vet­er­an. Or they could hold onto Sto­ry in the hopes that the Rock­ies turn their for­tunes around and con­tend in 2021. If they don’t con­tend, Col­orado could deal Sto­ry next sum­mer, although that would mean pay­ing half of his salary. Plus, there is always the risk he could get hurt.

Story’s future is tied to Arenado’s. If the Rock­ie were able to trade Are­na­do, that could free up mon­ey to give Sto­ry a long-term deal, although there’s no guar­an­tee he’ll want to stay in Colorado.

Arenado’s sit­u­a­tion, mean­while, is messy.

He has six years and $199 mil­lion left on a con­tract that includes a full no-trade clause.

Are­na­do has made it clear that he doesn’t think that Bridich has done enough to con­struct a win­ning ros­ter in Col­orado, and late last win­ter Are­na­do said he felt “dis­re­spect­ed” by the GM. Bridich has yet to talk to the media since the end of the sea­son — the only big league gen­er­al man­ag­er not to do so — but sources say that the Bridich-Are­na­do feud has not been resolved.

Are­na­do might still want to be trad­ed, but the pan­dem­ic has made that sce­nario prob­lem­at­ic. Would a team be will­ing to deal for Are­na­do know­ing he could opt out after one sea­son? Would the Rock­ies be will­ing to pay part of Arenado’s salary in order to get out from under his con­tract? Would a team trade for all of Arenado’s con­tract if they could get him to agree to waive the opt out?

If the Rock­ies can’t swing a trade for their star third base­man, then the ball would be in Arenado’s court. Giv­en baseball’s eco­nom­ic cli­mate, would he real­ly walk away from the $164 mil­lion left on the final five years of his contract?

That seems doubt­ful, but it’s a crit­i­cal piece of the jum­bled puz­zle that faces the Rock­ies as they enter the offseason.