Colorado Rockies news and links for Thursday, July 18, 2024
The 2024 MLB draft is in the books and it’s hard to feel bad about the Colorado Rockies’ crop. They nabbed arguably the best player in the class – Georgia’s Charlie Condon – and the pitcher with possibly the biggest upside – Brody Brecht from Iowa – with their first two selections, headlining a group of 21 total selections.
The later rounds of the draft are a mixed bag, so determining if Colorado was able to find any steals past the top 50-to-100 prospects is a subjective exercise. But feelings are good about their top picks and that’s a strong start – something that every franchise should be able to say, honestly.
So while we will have to wait for the quality of the class to show in the coming years, the franchise’s selections can tell us something initially – something we’ve been seeing for some time. The Colorado front office is going all-in on collegiate players over high school amateurs.
This year all 21 selections came from the college ranks, with the only aberration being 14th round selection Sam Gerth who was taken from Navarro Junior College in Texas. Last season, all but one of the selections came from the same demographic and even the one exception – Yanziel Correa in the 18th round – came from an unconventional high school route as he was attending the International Baseball Academy in Puerto Rico.
This is not a new trend. Second round selection Jackson Cox was the only prep amateur chosen in 2022 while first rounder Benny Montgomery also stood alone in the 2021 draft. The 2020 draft had a much different feel due to the pandemic and, while the Rockies did select three high school players, there were much larger factors surrounding that draft – one that lasted only five rounds.
Removing the 2020 class from the equation, you have to go all the way back to 2016 to find a class where the Rockies selected and signed two or more high school players in the same draft – Riley Pint and Colton Welker. That means in the seven full classes since, the Rockies have drafted and signed…five high school players. Eight in total over eight drafts when you factor in the 2020 draft.
For context, the Boston Red Sox drafted seven high school players in 2022 and signed five of them, the Los Angeles Dodgers selected and signed seven in 2023 and the Pittsburgh Pirates selected five in the most recent class. While those examples could be viewed as “cherry picking” it is actually just random chance based on the three different teams selected for the past three seasons. So while it is not an exact figure of the median number of high school players drafted in each franchise’s annual class, it at least represents the philosophical difference between the Rockies and the average franchise.
It is also not a clear judgment on whether Colorado’s strategy is right or wrong. High school players are harder to sign and objectively riskier than their college counterparts as there are generally more variables at play over a longer period of minor league development time as they mature as ballplayers and young men.
That risk – along with previous faulty selections like Pint in 2016 – has likely been at the root of Colorado’s war room mindset. Additionally, there is also the change in management to consider when Bill Schmidt took over for Jeff Bridich in April of 2021, an event that likely also affected the ideals in the organization’s draft strategies.
Good or bad, right or wrong, it is a clear and deliberate choice by the organization. On one hand, it could be the franchise acknowledging its shortcomings in the development process and embracing older players through the draft while leaning on Rolando Fernandez and the international scouting and development team to do most of the work infusing younger players into the system. On the other, it’s the Rockies blatantly avoiding an entire demographic of players – possibly pockmarking the organization’s future with missed opportunities.
Either way you look at it, it’s just another example of how the Colorado Rockies operate entirely different from every other MLB franchise.
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Coronado’s Trey Gregory-Alford drafted by Angels | KRDO
The Colorado Springs local ABC affiliate highlights the only Colorado prep player selected in the 2024 MLB draft, Trey Gregory-Alford from Coronado High School. “TGA” was selected by the Los Angeles Angels in the 11th round and is expected to sign instead of attending the University of Virginia, per KRDO’s reporting.
These players will be key for their teams in the second half | mlb.com
Thomas Harding contributes with the rest of the mlb.com beat reporter team and tabs Jordan Beck as the biggest potential impact for the Rockies in the second half. Harding cites the potential of Beck’s emergence creating a more dynamic and structured outfield for Colorado as the reason for the decision.
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