You’ve heard by now that with their first overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, the Colorado Rockies selected an outfielder that many scouts and analysts have already labeled the next Cody Bellinger.
Standing at 6’5, weighing in at 200 lbs. that can easily be filled out, and sporting a sweet and smooth left-handed swing, 18-year-old Zac Veen can already claim to be the top prospect in the system.
Depending on how you feel about Brendan Rodgers, and if you think he counts as “part of the system” now that he has a bit of MLB experience under his belt, Veen is clearly the best hitter on the farm and in our eyes has a comfortably higher ceiling than lefty pitcher Ryan Rolison.
With all due respect to Michael Toglia, Grant Lavigne, and Colton Welker, nobody else is in the conversation for Colorado’s top prospect.
What is perhaps more interesting than how Veen shakes up the prospect rankings, however, is what he does for the Rockies organizational depth in the outfield.
Let’s take a look at how we at DNVR have evaluated the current outfield situation:
What jumps out immediately is that David Dahl and Veen are the only two outfielders in the system with A- or higher potential, signified in green. While there is some decent depth in terms of potential solid pro outfielders there had been a limit to the club’s elite possibilities from the spot that has been dramatically bettered by the addition of Veen.
We can also see that he is farther away from the big leagues than almost anyone else and is going to need to see some guys step up in the meantime. The middle section represents the buffer zone between the Charlie Blackmon/David Dahl era and the Zac Veen era.
Blackmon’s contract runs through the 2023 season and Dahl will be done with arbitration at the same time, free to test the market if the Rox don’t extend him first. Veen would need a Dahl-like MiLB career sans all the injuries in order to be ready for 2024. More likely you are looking at one more year which is why the Rockies are still hoping to hit on one of Raimel Tapia, Sam Hilliard, or maybe even a Casey Golden or Brenton Doyle to provide more buffer space.
This is why, despite how it may feel in the immediacy, the Rockies haven’t traded away what feels like excess outfield talent, especially young guys like Tapia and Hilliard.
If Colorado can lock up Dahl long term or if Blackmon ages incredibly gracefully and decides to finish out a final contract for the only team he has ever played for, Veen could join one or both someday in the not-too-distant future.
What they have now that they didn’t before, though, is the flexibility to see what they have in the meantime out of all the young outfielders that still come with so many question marks and what they can work out with those two All-Stars.
If Veen progresses through the minors in a way that shows the raw skills Dan O’Dowd compared to Larry Walker looking like they will likely translate to the big leagues, the Rockies may well indeed have their next great outfielder in a long line of them.
