Condon was drafted third-overall in 2024, and has drawn comparisons to (pre-Rockies) Kris Bryant
2. Charlie Condon (789 points, 28 ballots)
Condon’s 2024 professional debut was a bit of a dud, but let’s not forget why he was so highly regarded as a prospect. The 21-year-old righty slugger received a MLB record-tying $9.25 million bonus as the third-overall pick in the 2024 draft (about $180k over slot) because of his huge offensive ceiling. Condon can translate his immense power into games, he hits for average, and has rare defensive ability for his size.
Condon was a one-man wrecking crew in 2024 for Georgia, as the 6’6”, 216-pound hitter smashed 37 homers — a record in the NCAA’s “BBCOR” bats era — and won the prestigious Golden Spikes award as the top amateur baseball player in the country. Given that success, it’s hard to believe that Condon (who played first, third, and all three outfield positions for Georgia) not only went undrafted as a high schooler but also was a walk-on who redshirted in 2022. Condon bulked up during that redshirt year and played well in the wood bat Northwoods league in the summer, where he posted an .830 OPS as one of the younger players in the league.
In 2023, Condon stepped into the Dawgs’ lineup and was an immediate success, swatting 25 homers in 56 games en route to a video game line of .386/.484/.800 in 254 plate appearances. That certainly got him on draft radars, and the aforementioned 2024 power explosion rocketed him up to, for many, the very top of the draft. In 304 plate appearances over 60 games for Georgia in 2024, Condon not only hit 37 homers, he also added 20 doubles and a triple while walking 16 more times than he struck out. In all, Condon hit a massive .433/.556/1.009 in 2024!
The Rockies assigned Condon straight to High-A Spokane, as befits a player many tabbed to move very quickly through the system. Unfortunately, Condon was downright bad for Spokane, hitting an anemic .180/.248/.270 (48 wRC+) with 34 strikeouts compared with four walks in 109 plate appearances. Condon did have six extra-base hits, including a homer, and four stolen bases (which is more than his entire collegiate total in two years at Georgia). He played 14 games in left field and five at third base.
So what can we take away from Condon’s Spokane struggles? Was he mis-evaluated as a draft prospect? Was the bruised thumb that Condon was nursing that impactful? Rockies fans hope it was just an aberration and that Condon is ready to look like a monster again offensively in 2025.
Here’s some looks at Condon in game action with Spokane late in the season:
Multiple outlets ranked Condon atop their 2024 draft rankings and most of them still have Condon high in their top 100.
MLB.com ranks Condon 29th overall as a 55 FV player and had him second among draft prospects:
At Georgia, the 6-foot-6 Condon used an upright stance and simple mechanics to deliver incredible raw power in games for the Bulldogs, showing the ability to hit the ball out to all fields with bat speed, strength and leverage. The raw power was evident after he signed with the Rockies, but he lost the approach that made him such a tough out in college, with a 34/4 K/BB ratio over 100 at-bats in the High-A Northwest League. The hand clearly was an issue, and then he tried to do too much. At his best, he controls the zone well and makes consistent hard contact.
Condon is a solid athlete given his size, and while he has below-average speed, he’s better underway. He played all three outfield spots and third base at Georgia last year and saw most of his time with Spokane in left field, with some time at the hot corner mixed in. He likely profiles best in an outfield corner with a strong arm, and the Rockies were very impressed with how he prepared and handled his struggles during his pro debut.
The evaluation is highlighted by a 70 power grade and a 55 on the hit tool.
Keith Law of the Athletic had Condon as the number one player in the draft, then ranked Condon 34th overall in his pre-season top 100 (number one in the system):
Condon was the No. 1 player on my pre-draft rankings last year and went to Colorado with the third pick, but his post-draft performance couldn’t have differed more from what he did in the spring for Georgia. Condon won the Golden Spikes Award with a .433/.556/1.009 line for the Dawgs, hitting 37 homers in 60 games, setting the school’s career home run record and the NCAA’s single-season record since they switched to BBCOR bats. In 109 PA for High-A Spokane, however, Condon hit .180/.248/.270, struck out 34 times (31.1 percent), and walked just four times. Pitchers saw a 6-6 hitter with long levers in the box and went after him hard in with fastballs and soft away with sliders and changeups. Condon is an impressive athlete who made extremely hard contact as an amateur, ranking among the leaders in Division I with a 90th percentile exit velo of 111.8 mph, and he did adjust in the spring when pitchers went after him with breaking stuff, forcing them to come back to the fastballs on which he feasted.
He’s played third base and all over the outfield, playing passably at the hot corner and in center, but the broad consensus is that he’s going to end up in right given his frame and likely eventual size. He did have a lingering hand injury when he first signed that may have affected him at the plate, but that can’t explain away all of the struggles. Perhaps he was pressing; perhaps he just hadn’t seen breaking stuff of that quality before; perhaps it’s just a tiny sample. I don’t think his ceiling has changed at all — he’s a 30-homer bat with the kind of contact quality that leads to high BABIPs and averages, and he should be a plus defender in an outfield corner — but there’s more uncertainty here than there was on draft day.
Here’s Kiley McDaniel of ESPN.com’s pre-season profile of Condon as a 55 FV player, 40th overall:
Type: Potential Kris Bryant-type upside, but a poor pro debut has his momentum going the wrong way
Condon was lightly recruited out of high school and wasn’t a pro prospect until his sophomore year at Georgia. He put up huge numbers largely in a corner position, which for Condon came split between first base, third base and the outfield. By his draft year, Condon improved at third and was giving Kris Bryant vibes as a third base/outfielder tweener with a lean frame and 30-homer upside along with good-enough on-base skills. He was narrowly my top-ranked prospect in the 2024 draft — a virtual toss-up with Travis Bazzana, just ahead of JJ Wetherholt, Jac Caglianone, Chase Burns and Hagen Smith.
As you could guess from this ranking, Condon had a very poor pro debut, which raised all the questions I raised at draft time. A slow start in pro ball was somewhat predictable as he has had trouble keeping weight on through an entire season, which would affect his power and stamina late in the summer, and he was also battling a hand injury — but his performance was worse than expected even considering those factors. Condon’s bat control played a tick or two lower than expected, as did his in-game power indicators. It was a relatively small sample (25 games), it was High-A (Wetherholt only played in Low-A), and some other top 2024 picks haven’t even had debuts yet, so it’s unfair to really spike Condon’s prospect status. That said, flags have been raised and we’ll need to watch his start to 2025 closely.
Baseball Prospectus ranks Condon 42nd overall and second in the system with a 60 OFP grade. Here’s Jeffrey Paternostro:
After a big freshman season for the Dawgs, Condon was poised to be a first-round pick in the 2024 draft as an eligible sophomore. He promptly went out and hit .433/.556/1.009 (yeah that last one is slugging, not OPS) and moved himself quickly into the first-overall pick conversation. He improved against fastball velocity and did as much damage on contact as any college player in the class, including Jac Caglianone. While I had some misgivings about the pitch recognition and overall contact ability, especially against spin lower in the zone, it was tough to doubt his ferocious bat speed and power projection. Condon had split time between third base and the outfield, and the grass seemed a better fit, but there was little concern based on the draft year performance that the bat would play there if he couldn’t hack it at third in the pros.
Condon then went to the Northwest League for 100 PA or so after the draft and his OPS went down by two-thirds with downright concerning peripherals and underlying metrics. He started chasing and whiffing a lot more against pro stuff and in a way that raised our eyebrows more than Travis Bazzana’s or J.J. Wetherholt’s slightly down debuts. My general philosophy in situations like this have been to give prospects some level of a pass. The transition to pro ball from college is real and complex and comes when they’ve already been playing games since February. Still, I can’t shake my worries from my early season video work on Condon. Our final board blurb called him “an enticing blend of safety and dynamic upside.” The dynamic upside is still obvious, perhaps the safety a little less so. Still, we will give him some level of a pass for now.
The pro debut exacerbated some concerns I had about Condon’s hit tool going back to the beginning of his breakout college campaign, but obviously if it’s just a post-draft fatigue blip, this could easily be an OFP 70 by May 2025.
Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs is less enthusiastic about Condon, grading him as a 45+ FV player outside the top 100, second in the system (after ranking him fourth among draft prospects):
[Condon] came into the 2024 season ranked 24th on the FanGraphs draft board due to concerns about his hit tool, then slashed .433/.556/1.009 (seriously) and hit 37 homers in 60 games, albeit during an historic season for offense in college baseball. Condon went third overall, signed for $9.25 million, and then had a no good very bad pro debut at Spokane during which he hit .180 and struck out 31.2% of the time. During instructs, Condon played defense but didn’t get at-bats, as if he was being given time away from the plate to reset. Perhaps because I was already relatively skeptical of Condon’s contact ability before the draft, I am reading his post-draft performance as signal, rather than a small sample aberration or the result of exhaustion.
Condon’s swing is relatively grooved and stiff. He swings really hard and has an incredible ability to turn on pitches on the inner third, especially for a 6-foot-6 guy, but Condon doesn’t have great feel for manipulating the barrel. His swing generates enormous power on pitches down and in, but it lacks precision and variability in other parts of the zone, and he has hit tool risk despite his college performance. He was late on basically everything after the draft and wholly unable to pull the ball, which wasn’t the case when he was at Georgia, where Condon had a 90% contact rate against fastballs.
How much room Condon’s contact issues will have to breathe is going to depend on where he ends up playing defense. He played third base, first base, and all three outfield spots during his time in Athens and third base, and left field after the draft. Condon bends well for a player his size, but his range at the hot corner is well below average. He is a better thrower from the outfield than he is from third base, and I thought he looked surprisingly skillful in center field at Georgia, though he’s a 40-grade runner and likely not a long-term fit there. Here Condon is projected as a flawed but powerful multi-positional role player rather than an impact third baseman.
Multiple scouts have drawn comparisons between Condon and Kris Bryant. While of course Bryant’s tough few years with the Rockies have left a sour taste in the mind of fans, Bryant deservedly won the Rookie of the Year and NL MVP awards in his first two years as a big leaguer and has been an All-Star four times. Condon has the kind of offensive potential and defensive utility that could make him a star in the league for several years, so he deservedly ranks in this range in the PuRPs poll — he was number two on my list as a 55 FV player.
I think Condon will begin the season back at Spokane, with a mid-season jump to Double-A likely assuming some better results. I’m curious to see if the Rockies give him more run as a third baseman or if Condon will be sent out to a corner outfield slot (where there’s more competition for big-league playing time) on a full-time basis. There’s hope that Condon could be up with the Rockies as soon as two years after entering the system, though it’s worth giving him the time he needs to be an impact player when he gets to the Show.