It is that time of year: the snow is falling in Denver (occasionally, at best), temperatures are freezing in the morning, all the talk is about some game this weekend that will last five hours with about 11 minutes of actual action, a game in which more interest is around the commercials than the teams, and, most importantly, pictures of big trucks being loaded with baseball equipment is starting to hit the internet. With the trucks rolling out and heading towards either Arizona or Florida we start to get our yearly prospect rankings.
This is always a fun time for me; I love looking at prospects and thinking about who to draft in fantasy, but also realize that projecting prospects is still about as much a crap shoot as it is when they are drafted. There are a few players who will definitely make an impact each year, like Trout and Harper last year, but for the most part predicting who will make the jump to the big leagues and be successful is a guess, at best.
Last year Baseball America had these players as the 10 best prospects for the Rockies:
- Drew Pomeranz
- Nolan Arenado
- Chad Bettis
- Wilin Rosario
- Tim Wheeler
- Trevor Story
- Tyler Anderson
- Kent Matthes
- Kyle Parker
- Josh Rutledge
Three of those 10 saw time with the Rockies and the jury is still out on how well they performed with the team.
The Rockies are slowly dropping down lists that rank organizations based on the strength of their prospects. The first list I have seen this year, on MLB.com, has three Rockies ranked inside the top 100.
- David Dahl is 58th
- Nolan Arenado is 62nd
- Trevor Story is 99th
The Rockies don’t have a player ranked higher than 58th. Think about that for a bit. Guys like Tyler Matzek are long forgotten.
Is that a dead horse over there? It is?! Sweet, let me kick it.
Dan O’Dowd is slowly killing the Rockies. As much as I tried to paint a pretty picture last week I realize the outlook is dim. The team made zero moves this offseason to improve and there isn’t anything waiting in the minor leagues that should give fans of the Purple Pin Stripes reason to think optimistically.
Dahl is still really young and is coming off a great season in the low level minor leagues and he still has at least a few seasons in the minor leagues waiting for him in which the Rockies can totally derail his career. Arenado looked pretty promising a year ago but last year wasn’t quite as good as expected and Story is blocked by Troy Tulowitzki. I think the most the Rockies should hope for is that Story has one helluva a year and the Rockies parlay him on the open market and get a few good arms in return…and even I can’t type that without thinking about how the Rockies would then FUBAR those arms.
This weekend enjoy the Super Bowl and the (hopefully) hilarious commercials, but realize that before you know it the smell of fresh cut grass is only about a 12 hour drive from Denver to watch the Rockies play baseball (or maybe another team in the Phoenix area if you want to watch some quality play).
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2 comments
Marcus Farrell
January 30, 2013 at 8:50 AM (UTC -6)
I think the hard truth is that eventually Tulo or Cargo are going to have to be the trading pieces used to attempt to rebuild this mess but as you stated how can you possibly put hope in the FO to actually trade for worthwhile players who will eventually make a difference?
CodenameDuchess
January 30, 2013 at 12:00 PM (UTC -6)
I get all that and it’s pretty disappointing to see the farm system so poorly rated however, where are the holes in the big league team?
C – Rosario – Defensive issues aside he looks like the long term answer here.
1B – Helton / Cuddyer / Colvin – Major concern, Helton is obviously on his way out, Cuddyer has been less than impressive and Colvin is still a question mark.
2B – Rutledge – Still a question mark but I think most people feel better about 2B than they have in a long time.
SS – Tulo – Only concern is health and the organization’s 3rd best prospect is a SS
3B – Nelson/Pacheco/Wheeler – Another major concern, however, the organization’s 2nd best prospect is a 3rd baseman
LF – Cargo – Small health concerns but if he hits .290-310 with 20-25 HRs each of the next 5 years will anyone complain?
CF – Dex – I consider him more of a solution than a question mark but the .390 BABIP scares me
RF – Colvin / Cuddyer – At a minimum these guys are serviceable
So over the next 5 year with good health and some continued development C, 2B, SS, LF, CF should not be a concern. This leaves 1B, 3B & RF where we have the following long term solutions
3B – Arenado or even Story or perhaps Tulo with Story replacing him at SS
RF – Kyle Parker or David Dahl
1B – Kyle Parker? Will Swanner (Apparently even more of a defensive liability defensively than Rosario)
Point being, they may have a weak farm system but as far as the non-pitchers are concerned they do have the solutions they need to take advantage of Tulo and Cargo’s prime.
The pitching side is much scarier. Obviously the next few years will depend on the following….
Development and/or consistency issues:
Chacin
Pomeranz
Friedrich
Health Issues:
JDLR
Nicasio
As for the pipeline, PurpleRow had a really good write up the other day that I highly recommend…..
http://www.purplerow.com/2013/1/28/3922268/monday-rockpile-ranking-the-rockies-pitching-prospects
Sure things are dark and pretty much all of these guys will need to reach their potential for the Rockies to really turn things around but there is some hope.