While it may be premature to think about the next Todd Helton, Troy Tulowitzki or Jon Gray plying his trade at some university, junior college or high school next spring, Vice President and Head of Scouting Bill Schmidt is hard at work with his staff getting eyes on the future Rockies players.
“We’ve still got nine months to go,” Schmidt allayed. “We’ve been scouting for the last three months. We’ll continue to scout right up to the draft. A long way to go and a lot of work ahead of us.”
Heading into the 2020 MLB Draft, the Colorado Rockies will be looking to select an impact player with ninth overall pick. At 71-91, only eight teams across the game finished with a worst record in 2019, and considering only ten times in the franchise’s 26 year history have they ever held a higher pick, next season’s crop of prospects could be one of the best ever assembled.
According to Schmidt, a baseball scout with 30 years on the job, there are to a lot of positive signs from the 2019 draft, enough to provide some hope that the Rockies will continue to have more seasons above .500 and in the playoffs than those sitting at home when the games matter most in October.
“Some of them got hurt at the end of the year. Overall, we were very happy with their first summer,” Schmidt said of the most recent crop. “We got them through, for the most part, healthy. We’ll give them an offseason to relax a little bit, rest up, and prepare for the 2020 season.”
First round pick Michael Toglia (23rd overall) had a slight delay to the start to his season after UCLA played deep into college playoffs, ultimately losing to Karl Kauffman, Colorado’s second round selection (77th overall), and the University of Michigan during the Super Regional Final. After 114.2 innings pitched, the 22-year-old and Wolverines top starting pitcher was shut down for the remainder of the season and has yet to make his professional debut in 2019.
In 41 games with the Boise Hawks, Toglia, who only turned 21-years-old late in the season, hit a modest .248 – better than league average for Class A Short-Season – and flashed a good glove at first base, making only two errors. He showed advance power with nine home runs (tied for 2nd in the Northwest League) in just 145 at bats, a rate more than three-and-a-half times the league average.
Out of the University of Georgia, Aaron Schunk (62nd overall) batted .306 for Boise with six home runs and 12 doubles over 173 at bats mostly during the first half of his season, resulting in the third baseman’s selection to the NWL All-Star team before missing much of the second half. Rounding out the upper echelon of picks is pitcher Jacob Wallace of UConn, who led the NWL with 12 saves and was also an All-Star due in large part to his 1.29 ERA.
Outside of those taken within the top 100 picks of draft, Schmidt was complementary to a few other new additions to the organization.
“I don’t know if we stole anybody (in the draft), but (outfielder) Brenton Doyle had a good summer, our fourth round pick.”
The Division II outfielder managed to steal 17 bases, third most in the Pioneer League, while taking the top spot in batting average (.383), on-base percentage (.477) and OPS (1.088). He also finished his first campaign in professional baseball with a .564 average over his final 11 games on the western slope.
“I do have a pretty good chip on my shoulder,” Doyle said soon after being selected by the Rockies. “There’s a lot of people that doubt me because I’m a (Division II) guy and haven’t done the competition… I’m ready to prove the doubters wrong and get to work.”
Schmidt also highlighted a few hurlers taken in the sixth and eighth rounds, respectively, noting, “(Gavin) Hollowell and (Jacob) Kostyshock in Grand Junction, those guys had good summers, too.”
A reliever out of St. John’s, Hollowell kept his earned run average at 2.89 over 18.2 innings pitched, striking out 30 and walking just five; Kostyshock, a University of Arkansas product, had slightly better success out of the bullpen, pitching to a 1.65 ERA and 0.80 WHIP with an 8.5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 16 innings.
Continuing with the highlights from the 2019 draft, Schmidt added, “(Infielder Christian) Koss was good, too. (Colin) Simpson was the Player of the Year in the Pioneer League and we had some guys that had good summers in Boise. Overall, we’re happy.”
As good as Doyle happened to be, Simpson stands out as the steal of the Rockies’ draft. Selected with the 879th pick in the 29th round, the catcher from Oklahoma State flashed a lot of power, hitting 18 home runs – good for third in the league – and lead all first-year players in slugging percentage (.667).
Koss, a 12th round pick out of UC Irvine, played around the infield and was equally potent at the plate with a slash line of .332/.447/.605 that was good for top three in each category. His 11 home runs were tied for eighth most in the league with a strikeout rate much lower than the peers ahead of him.
While several of the fresh faced youngsters had solid premiers without jumping off the page as an uber-prospect statistically, it will be in 2020 when many of these players start to become more familiar names during their second season as a professional – or first full-season – is when many, especially the pitchers, make their biggest step.
“Most of these guys have been throwing for the past year, 11 months, with only a little bit of rest,” Schmidt said. “I think we’ll get a truer indication – or our development (department) will – as our guys get some rest and prepare for a season starting in March, not necessarily in February.”
Considering three of the top four draftees from the 2018 class – LHP Ryan Rolison, 1B Grant Lavigne, SS Terrin Vavra – continued to make excellent strides this season and rise in the ranks of the system, it will be interesting to see how the newest crop of future Rockies players develop on their road to Coors Field.
