Nolan Jones might be ready to break out in Colorado, and turning 4 o’clock into 7 o’clock is how he would go about doing it. His time in Cleveland over — the Rockies acquired the rangy 6-foot-4 outfielder from the Guardians earlier this week in exchange for Juan Brito — Jones heads west with a swing that is, by his own admission, compact in the cage and too long in the batter’s box. Striking an effective balance between the two is an ongoing goal and a key to his future success.

“I’ve got really long levers, so I’m trying to simplify my moves and make them more efficient,” Jones told me earlier this summer. “Like anybody else, my moves become bigger in the game, and when your limbs are long, a two-inch move in the cage can become a six-inch move. My swings in the cage are those toned-down moves. I’m trying to be shorter to where, when they get bigger in the game, they’re right where I want them to be.”

Reaching his potential has been a frustrating endeavor for the 24-year-old. Selected in the second round of the 2016 draft out of Philadelphia’s Holy Ghost Preparatory School, Jones has ranked as Cleveland’s top prospect multiple times, and he was No. 51 in our Top 100 as recently as the spring of 2021. What has largely held him back is a penchant to swing-and-miss, a trait that accompanied him to the big leagues this season. Along with a .244/.309/.372 slash line over 94 plate appearances, the rookie had a 33% strikeout rate and a worst-on-the-club 71.6% Z-contact rate. Given the Guardians’ preference for hitters who can consistently put the ball in play, Jones no longer fitting into their plans comes as no surprise. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rockies and Braves wasted little time in kicking off the offseason trade market. On Sunday, just one day after the World Series came to a thrilling conclusion, the clubs made a one-for-one swap: Sam Hilliard for Dylan Spain. And while the move’s significance paled in comparison to the the major transaction of the day, Edwin Díaz’s extension with the Mets, there is more to it than meets the eye.

For many Braves fans, their biggest concern might be how the team chooses to fill the Dansby Swanson-shaped hole at shortstop. Currently, our depth charts have rookie standout Vaughn Grissom soaking up 74% of the innings at short. But though he fared quite well with the bat in his major league audition, to the tune of a 121 wRC+, the 21-year-old graded out as a net negative at second base this year. His mark of -5 Outs Above Average (OAA) at the position, typically thought to be the easier of the middle infield spots to defend, does not portend success at short.

The larger question mark for the Braves might be in left field, though. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Michael Harris II are locked into right and center, but there is no clear choice for the club in left. As Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario floundered, Atlanta’s left fielders this year cost the team 0.8 WAR, tied with the lowly Rangers for the worst mark in the league. Hilliard can play all three outfield spots but has played the most in left and grades out best there in terms of OAA, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR). He provides the Braves with meaningful depth at their weakest position, well worth the cost of a 24-year-old relief prospect in Spain, who spent the year amassing a 5.30 ERA in High-A. Read the rest of this entry »

Dinelson Lamet’s time in Milwaukee is over before it ever really began, as the team cut him loose last Wednesday. Between missing time with forearm soreness and two stints in the minors, Lamet was ineffective for the Padres this season, issuing nine walks and 13 runs in just 12 1/3 innings spread over 13 relief appearances. One of four players sent to Milwaukee last week for Josh Hader, he never got into a game with the Brewers before being designated for assignment and subsequently claimed by the Rockies.

Typically, a quiet waiver wire claim of a struggling relief pitcher without a big contract falls, well, under the wire, but Lamet is a pitcher I’ve always been fascinated with. Plus, I like surprises, and there’s a big one here: the Rockies did something I really, really like.

Lamet has long been an interesting pitcher, but he’s had a number of serious setbacks that leave him with his career up in the air barely after his 30th birthday. Already behind the usual development curve as a prospect by virtue of being an amateur signee just before his 22nd birthday who was delayed by two years because of paperwork issues, he’s had less time to hone his craft professionally than most. Tommy John surgery cost him his 2018 season, and much of his 2019, and the always dreaded forearm soreness left him on the injured list for large chunks of ’21 and ’22.

Despite the relative lack of experience and the injuries, Lamet got solid results from 2017 to ’20 with a fastball that poked into the upper-90s and a slider that batters ineffectually whiffed through. In 256 1/3 innings over 47 starts in that span, he struck out just under 12 per nine innings, for an ERA of 3.76, a FIP of 3.72, and a healthy WAR tally of 5.1. Per 180 innings, that amounts to 3.6 WAR, nearly at the level we consider to be All-Star, but 180 innings has been a big “but” for him. Time that he should have been honing a third pitch, he instead spent recovering from his various injuries.

With less time spent in Milwaukee than Mike Piazza was a Marlin — I’m not sure Lamet even got issued a jersey in his two days on the team — it seems clear that an extended look at him was not in the team’s plans. It’s hard to blame the Brewers for that, as they’re thick in battle with the Cardinals for the NL Central crown and with a few other teams for one of the wild card spots. A reclamation projection isn’t an ideal situation for a contending team in August to be in. Where Lamet needed to go was to a team out of the playoff race and thin enough on talent that it could afford to look at a 30-year-old who may not be on the roster for more than two months. Enter the Rockies. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rockies conjured up their own trade deadline magic, extending their closer, Daniel Bard, to a two-year contract extension reportedly worth $19 million. Bard, who turned 37 last month, has done a solid job as Colorado’s closer for the second straight season, putting up a 1.91 ERA — though with a considerably less impressive 3.55 FIP — in 37 appearances for the last-place Rockies this season.

Colorado had previously dropped hints that there were not going to be many, if any, trades of veteran talent this week. As this extension highlights, this was not a negotiating position to entice other teams to make more lucrative offers for its most valuable players. At this point, I doubt anyone in baseball thought otherwise, as the Rockies have long been notorious for not treating the trade deadline as an opportunity either to improve the team in a pennant drive or to rebuild/retool to help achieve future goals. For one of the best examples, look no further than last season, when they decided not to trade Trevor Story (to Story’s confusion) or Jon Gray, instead preferring to let the former walk for a compensation pick and, since he received no qualifying offer, the latter move on with no compensation for the franchise.

Don’t get me wrong: for a lot of teams, getting Bard as either a short-term rental or on this exact contract would have been a very good move. If he were not the best reliever plausibly available this week, he was certainly in the top tier, and a wide variety of contending teams with middling-or-worse bullpens, such as the Cardinals, Twins, or Blue Jays, ought to have had an interest in swapping prospects with real futures for his services. Bard’s 1.91 ERA this year is no more “real” than his 5.21 ERA last year in the opposite direction, but he’s an above-average closer, and it’s nice to be able to sign one of those in free agency to a two- or three-year deal at a reasonable price.

Liking Bard for the rest of 2022 and/or the next two seasons is not the least bit odd; it just makes little sense for the Rockies to be the organization to act on that positive evaluation. Even more baffling is that, when it came to Gray, they never went above a three-year, $35–$40 million offer — one they didn’t even make until the very end of the 2021 season. Valuing a solid starting pitcher only a little more than a solid closer is just the latest example of this organization’s dysfunction. Why trade for a 22-year-old and have to wait 15 years for him to become a 37-year-old veteran when you can just keep the player you have? Read the rest of this entry »

Trevor Story is an accomplished hitter. The 29-year-old Boston Red Sox infielder was a stalwart in the middle of the Colorado Rockies’ lineup prior to this season and has 173 home runs and a 110 wRC+ over six-plus MLB campaigns. Twice a National League All-Star, Story blasted 37 home runs in 2018, and he followed that up with 35 more in 2019.

His first go-round in the Junior Circuit has been of the up-and-down variety. Signed to a six-year, $140 million free-agent deal by Boston in March, Story has 15 long balls to his credit, but just a .221/.289/.423 slash line. Currently on the injured list with a hand contusion, the Irving, Texas native is expected to return to the Red Sox lineup in the near future.

Story discussed his evolution as a hitter earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: Nolan Arenado and Daniel Murphy, players with different approaches to their craft, were among the earliest interviews for my Talks Hitting series. [Links here and here.] Which of your former Rockies teammates are you most similar to that regard?

Trevor Story: “It would be Nolan. He was a mentor to me my first few years, and we still talk the game a lot. Nolan pretty much taught me how to pull the ball the right way. But knowing yourself as a hitter… just like Murph did. Murph knew himself, and he knew that he was going to be thinking the other way or thinking up the middle. There are obviously different schools of thinking, and I would say I’m closer to Nolan, trying to get the ball in the air pull-side.”

Laurila: What about in terms of analytics? When I spoke to them, Arenado was all about keeping things as simple as possible, while Murphy was very in-depth and detailed. Have you delved into analytics much over the years? Read the rest of this entry »

You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

I’m touching up prospect lists using the same complex-based clustering as usual, incorporating notes from my in-person looks, sourced data, and the opinions of pro scouts. First up is the group of teams based in Scottsdale, with a focus on the Giants due to their status as contenders, making them the team most likely to be motivated to part with prospects between now and the trade deadline. Players whose Future Value grade changed have an “Up” or “Down” arrow in the “Trend” column on The Board.

Arizona Diamondbacks

I didn’t make many changes to Arizona’s list. Small-school righty Brandon Pfaadt leapfrogs former tiermates Blake Walston and Ryne Nelson, and moves into the Top 100. He’s throwing a tick harder than last year and working with three above-average (or better) pitches at Double-A Amarillo now that his changeup has taken a step forward. While he’s a below-average 2B/3B, recent debutant Buddy Kennedy has hit enough to be considered a righty-hitting 1-WAR role-player type, à la Mike Brosseau. Jose Curpa and Christian Montes De Oca have been added to the org list; their reports can be found on The Board. I also considered adding hard-throwing youngsters Rael Santos and Diomede Sierra (each 20-21 years old and sitting 94 mph), but they’ve been too walk-prone for that. Read the rest of this entry »

In the bottom of the 10th inning of last night’s Guardians/Rockies game, Charlie Blackmon made a bad read. No, not this one:

That wasn’t the greatest baserunning decision ever – if Andrés Giménez had snared that ball, Blackmon would have been stuck at second – but you can at least understand his hesitation. The ball was still in the air nearly the whole way there, a double play would be disastrous, and hey, if it gets through Giménez, a runner on third with no one out almost always scores, right?

Right? Wrong:

This was a series of tough decisions that went awry, and since I love bad baserunning, I had to break it down.

Let’s start with the first step. I can’t tell whether the Rockies had the contact play on, forcing Blackmon to head home with the crack of the bat and re-evaluate based on the ball’s path. He was hardly blazing headlong down the line at first contact:

Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin will have periodic minor league roundup post that run during the week. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Before we get to this post’s analysis, some housekeeping. I’m continuing to trudge through the last few team lists, and hope readers will understand that part of why this has taken so long is because a) we lost multiple writers to teams during the process and b) it takes a lot for me to compromise my vision for the depth and quality of my work. I’m on pace to finish just before the draft while also updating and expanding the draft prospect list so that draftees can quickly be added to their club’s pro list right after they’re picked. I realize that continuing this way during future cycles would leave valuable and relevant info unpublished for too long, and that I need to make changes. For instance, I don’t have a Cardinals list out yet while guys like Andre Pallante, Brendan Donovan and Juan Yepez are all playing big league roles. I’ve had well-formed thoughts on that group of guys since they were part of last year’s Arizona Fall League, and need to find a way to shorten the lag between when I’m taking those notes and when they’re turned into actionable info on the site, especially when it comes to short-term big leaguers.

My approach for in-season updates (which have already underway — duh, you are reading this post) will again be to group teams based on the geographic location of their spring training facility (for example, teams with East Valley facilities in Arizona are already being updated) and drill down deepest on contending clubs (within that East Valley cluster, the Giants) as they’re more likely to part with prospects ahead of the trade deadline. There will still be à la carte updates where I see a player and add them, or where someone’s performance prompts me to source info from scouting and front office contacts and brings about a change in their evaluation or valuation. Read the rest of this entry »

Ezequiel Tovar came into the season ranked as the No. 4 prospect in the Colorado Rockies system. Despite being just 20 years old, he might finish it in the big leagues. In 229 plate appearances with the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats, Tovar is slashing .317/.393/.579 with a 165 wRC+. Moreover, he has a dozen home runs and has swiped 16 bases in 17 attempts.

His calling card is his glove. Described by our own Eric Longenhagen as “a no-doubt shortstop with balletic defensive footwork and a well-calibrated internal clock.” Tovar had received similar rave reviews from MLB scouts in the Arizona Fall League. And that was before he blossomed with the bat.

I asked Yard Goats manager Chris Denorfia about the offensive strides that have elevated Tovar’s profile.

“Coming into this year, I was told that there was some chase on down-and-away sliders,” said Denorfia, who played 10 big-league seasons. “But I haven’t seen what everybody was talking about. Somewhere between the Fall League and this spring, he’s made this developmental jump. Something clicked to where he’s recognizing situations where pitchers are going to try to get him to chase. Whether you call it slowing the game down, or just having enough reps, he’s made that adjustment. It was probably the one thing that was holding him back, which is kind of weird to say, because he was only 19 last year.”

The discipline is reflected in the numbers. Despite being one the youngest players in his league, Tovar possesses a 9.6 walk-rate and a 22.3% K-rate. When you add his improved pop to the equation, it’s easy to see why speculation of a call-up — premature that it may be — has begun to grow legs. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 972

This week on the show, we check in on the always-interesting Colorado Rockies, who have been exceeding expectations in the early going, before getting into recent beanball drama and more.

• To begin the episode, David Laurila welcomes Thomas Harding of MLB.com, who has covered the Rockies for decades. The pair talk about the odd team’s odd history, what is different this year, and why there are reasons to be excited going forward. We also get insight on players like Connor Joe, Brendan Rodgers, C.J. Cron, Ezequiel Tovar, and Chad Kuhl, as well as the influence Bud Black and Kris Bryant have had on the club. [3:06]
• After that, Ben Clemens catches up with Dan Szymborski, freshly returned from vacation. The duo gives the Rockies their due before discussing the Mets/Cardinals rivalry and the recent flare up of the unwritten rules. Ben wants to know exactly what a bench warning is, while Dan is concerned about some ethical loopholes. They also contemplate whether “Aaron Brooks” is the best-performing name across pro sports and the difficulties of projecting players coming from foreign leagues, as well as if we should buy into Nelson Cruz’s potential decline, Ben having his identity harmlessly stolen, and Dan responding to emails not meant for him. [25:10]

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