The Rockies have a free agency problem

The Colorado Rockies have never seemed to be particularly enthusiastic about free agency. The organization has a reputation for being insular, holding on to familiar players, and generally preferring to do things its own way.

But just how different is Colorado’s approach from the rest of the NL West?

It’s one thing to avoid spending like the Los Angeles Dodgers, but what about the San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres, and Arizona Diamondbacks? Are the Rockies really that far behind their division rivals when it comes to bringing in outside talent?

I wanted to find out, so I went through seven years of FanGraphs’ RosterResource transaction records to compare major- and minor-league free-agent…