Colorado Rockies news and links for Friday, November 30, 2024
Last week, the news that the Rockies non-tendered Brendan Rodgers hit me harder than I thought it would. It was brutal and frustrating to see him fall victim to injuries on a regular basis, but his potential always seemed to be worth the wait. Unfortunately, the Rockies 2015 first-round draft pick, who is one of only four Rockies to be a No. 2 or No. 3 pick in team history, just ran out of time.
Instead of a trade in his 2023 Gold Glove season, Rodgers got non-tendered, making him a free agent. The move leaves the Rockies empty-handed and trims about $6 million from the 2025 payroll. In five seasons, not including 2020, Rodgers played over 100 games three times, reaching a career-high 137 in 2024. He ends his Rockies tenure with 449 hits, 92 doubles, 45 homers, 197 RBI, 391 strikeouts, 111 walks and a slashline of .266/.316/.409.
While Rodgers standout defense and decent numbers made him a mediocre player, it feels like a bust for the No. 3 overall draft pick, especially for a team that insists its only way to succeed are to draft and develop.
So was Rodgers a bad pick, did the Rockies not develop him, or is this just how Major League Baseball is?
It’s a hard question, but worth analyzing in the context of the Rockies first-round draft picks and how they have fared compared to MLB averages. As it turns out, the Rockies are slightly above average by some metrics.
In 2023, Baseball America looked at the percentages of first-round draft picks who make it to the MLB, even breaking it down by position and whether or not the player was drafted out of college or out of high school (more on this later). On average, 81% of first-round draft picks eventually reach Major League Baseball. If you compare this to the Rockies first-round picks from 1992 to 2015, when Rodgers was selected, 82.9% made it to the big leagues (29 of 35). If you add one more season, it bumps up to 83.3% (30 of 36).
The Rockies didn’t have a first-round pick in 2017 because they traded it away to get Ian Desmond. It gets harder to record from 2018 on as many of those players are still in the Minor League system, like 2018’s Ryan Rolison and Grant Lavigne, and their MLB future is yet to be determined.
This also delays any comparison we can do between Jeff Bridich, the Rockies general manager who made 12 first-round picks in his tenure from 2014-2020, and current GM Bill Schmidt, who has made seven picks. So far, seven of Bridich’s selections have made an MLB roster and only one of Schmidt’s has, but it’s way too soon to know which prospects will pan out and which won’t.
Significant Careers
Of course, just making it to the big leagues isn’t the goal for any draft pick. At the least, it’s to carve out a significant career, if not hit superstar status. The same Baseball America article also looks at the percentages of first-round picks who record a “significant career,” which they define as notching 1,000 strikeouts for pitchers or posting 1,000 hits for position players. Only 14.3% of first-round pitchers hit the 1,000-strikeout mark, while 22.5% of position players get 1,000 hits.
By this measure, Rodgers is unlikely to achieve 1,000 hits, especially considering he averages 74.8 each season for the six he’s played. If he could stay healthy, he could get there, but it seems unlikely for the 28-year-old.
Overall, the Rockies only have four significant players out of their first-round picks from 1992-2015 in Jamey Wright (No. 28 pick in 1993 who posted 1,189 strikeouts in his 19-year career), Todd Helton (No. 8 pick in the 1995 draft who posted 2,519 hits in his 17-year, Hall of Fame career), Troy Tulowitzki (No. 7 pick in 2005 who recorded 1,391 hits in his 13-year career) and Jon Gray (No. 3 pick in 2013 who has 1,211 strikeouts and enters his 11th year in MLB in 2025).
However, there are also three “not yet” players who are likely to surpass 1,000. The first is Tyler Anderson (No. 20 pick in 2011), who is at 941 strikeouts in nine seasons, and is currently with Anaheim after the Rockies put him on waivers in 2019. Second is Trevor Story (No. 45 pick in 2011), who is at 909 hits in nine seasons. Story left for Boston after the 2021 season after rejecting the Rockies qualifying offer and has struggled with injuries since leaving. The third is Kyle Freeland (No. 8 pick in 2014), who has 820 strikeouts after eight seasons in Colorado. If we assume those three become significant, that means 19% of Rockies first-round pitchers (four of 21) have significant careers, almost 5% better than the MLB average. Of the 14 position players, three will have significant careers, which equals 21.4%, about 1% lower than MLB average.
College vs. High School
The perennial debate surfaces: Is it better to draft high schoolers or college players? Of the 20 players the Rockies have drafted out of high school from 1992-2015, 15 made it to MLB (75%). Wright, Jake Westbrook (No. 21, RHP, 1996), who later made the AL All-Star team in 2004 with Cleveland), Story, who has two All-Star nominations, one-time All-Star David Dahl (No. 10, OF, 2012), and Rodgers stand out the most.
On the other hand, of the 15 college players the Rockies drafted from 1992-2015, 13 made it to the big leagues (86.7%). The most notable names from this list are Helton and Tulowitzki, who went to Tennessee and Long Beach State respectively and each had five All-Star seasons, Jason Jennings (No. 16 in 1999 out of Baylor), who won the 2002 NL Rookie of the Year, Anderson (Oregon), Gray (Oklahoma), and Freeland (Evansville). College players have had more success and more impactful careers compared to the Rockies high school picks.
Of Bridich’s 12 first-round picks, eight came out of high school. Taking a different approach that seems to match MLB trends but also Colorado’s successes, six of Schmidt’s seven picks have come from the college level.
Conclusions
The MLB Draft is a giant gamble. You can hedge bets on college players, but the Rockies are average or above when it comes to draft success stories. Rodgers excelled in the Minors with several all-star picks, three Rockies farm system awards, and numbers that were filled with nothing but promise. Perhaps it was just the shoulder injuries and inability to consistently play, or the Rockies needed to develop him better. At the same time, the Dodgers picked two-time All-Star RHP Walker Buehler 21 picks after Rodgers, so maybe it’s a drafting problem.
So, who will be the next significant or, hopefully, superstar first-round pick for Colorado? I’m optimistic about Michael Toglia (No. 23 in 2019), worried about the health of Zac Veen (No. 9, OF, 2020), less excited about Drew Romo (No. 35, C, 2020), and very much dreaming of the days when Gabriel Hughes (No. 10, RHP, 2022), Chase Dollander (No. 9, RHP, 2023), and Charlie Condon (No. 3, 3B/OF, 2024) are in the lineup.
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The former Rockies manager and current special assistant to Rockies GM Bill Schmidt is known for his wit and inspiration. Now you can find it in his new book: “Hurdle-isms.” It all started from a daily email Hurdle sent that grew to over 7,000 subscribers. The book comes out in February of 2025, but you can preorder now.
Where will the Rockies send $5 million for each of the next two seasons to help support Nolan Arenado’s career playing for another team? I was hoping the Dodgers wouldn’t make the list, but they do. Arenado is also reportedly open to shifting to first base, which is hard to picture. Time will tell.
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