Todd Helton. Troy Tulowitzki. Nolan Arenado. Trevor Story. Ezequiel Tovar?
Quick, what do all of the guys above have in common? Each of them were drafted by the Colorado Rockies, and each of them (potentially) went on to be huge stars in the Major Leagues. What do they NOT have in common?
Helton, Tulo, and Story were all first rounders, and no one knows how the heck Arenado slipped to the second round at this point. Tovar? Zeke (Zeque?) was an international free agent the Rox signed nearly seven years ago.
When each of the others came onto the club, they arrived with fanfare, even in the minors. Expectations were high. Tovar was much more a part of a cattle call, as unexpected as Nikola Jokic in basketball or Marty St. Louis in hockey. Zeke showed up as a part of the “Can we make anything out of them?” crowd, and the only thing that’s stopped him from climbing since was the COVID-canceled minor league season of 2020.
And wow, has he ever kept climbing. After hitting .262 with the Dominican Summer League Rockies, Tovar’s average actually fell when he went up to the rookie-level Grand Junction Rockies. Then COVID hit and apparently gave Zeke just enough time to think about a baseball-free existence.
Since his return to the game in 2021, Tovar hit .287 at Single-A in 2021, and a blistering .318 in 2022 in Double-A with 13 home runs, 47 RBI, and 17 stolen bases before being called up to Triple-A to finish the season. He lasted all of five games there before spending his last nine in the Majors with Colorado, hitting his first dinger of the year in the season’s last game, off of Clayton Kershaw, no less.
Last year, Tovar only continued to expand his game. A solid presence at shortstop in the field, he ended the year batting .253 with 15 dingers. Not All-Star numbers, but amazingly solid contributions, and often in very timely moments.
That’s one of Ezequiel’s greatest attributes, his sense of timing. In just the last couple weeks of the 2024 season, Tovar has often been the highlight of the Rockies side of the contest, often propelling them to victory with multi-homer games and timely late hits. Bud Black often mentions how closely his young and burgeoning star is starting to look like an All-Star. And many national voices are starting to agree.
We’re still a month from baseball putting its best and brightest on the field in Arlington this year, but Tovar surely shines like one of the brightest stars Colorado has going. Zeke has played 67 of the team’s 68 games this season, tied for the team lead. He is second in batting average amongst the regular players, hitting a solid .293 over a third of the way into the year. His 11 homers are closing in on the 15 he managed all of last season, and has a .990 fielding percentage on the defensive side of the ball. He leads the team this year in WAR and has all the look of a star in the making. Moreover, he says he mostly finds all the pressure “fun”.
And that’s the best part of what Ezequiel Tovar seems to be bringing back to the Colorado Rockies these days, some days with a lot of help, and some of them single-handedly. Fun. Every time Zeke steps up to the plate, you look for good things to happen. Whether or not he was expected to be one like so many before him, Tovar is looking more and more like another home-grown Rockies star has been born.
