Over the last decade, no team in baseball has been worse at getting impact out of the draft than the Rockies.
That’s why on Sunday, the Rockies are under pressure to turn their fortunes around with the No. 4 overall pick at All-Star Week festivities in Atlanta.
The Rockies’ 12.1 total Wins Above Replacement from the draft since 2015 ranks last, according to Baseball Reference. Colorado has only had two picks in that period accumulate more than 3.0 career bWAR: second baseman Brendan Rodgers (No. 3 overall in 2015) and center fielder Brenton Doyle (2019 fourth-round pick).
“For an organization that’s prided itself on developing homegrown players, it’s been a while since they planted somebody in the big leagues who’s an impact player,” noted MLB Pipeline reporter Jonathan Mayo.
Those statistics illustrate how the Rockies, who have long been a draft-and-develop organization, are headed to a third straight 100-loss season — a campaign on pace to end with the most losses in modern MLB history.
Through poor free-agent signings and a lack of effective trades, the club has made itself entirely dependent on being exceptional at drafting.
“When the big-league team is struggling as much as it is, it’s going to be a multi-year process,” MLB Pipeline senior writer Jim Callis said. “They have to get back to step one: find talent in the draft and internationally. And you probably have to look at trading some of your better big-league players to refurbish the turnaround.
“You have to start planning for 3, 4, 5 years down the road.”
“A really long, dark tunnel”
The missteps to get to this point have been a decade in the making.
Just as the Rockies were assembling a roster that produced consecutive playoff berths for the first time in franchise history in 2017 and ’18, the club had three glaring misses in the draft.
Between 2015 and 2016, Colorado selected a trio of right-handed pitchers in the first round who failed to yield a single big league win. Mike Nikorak and Robert Tyler never made the majors, while hard-throwing prep right-hander Riley Pint, taken No. 4 overall in 2016, posted a 22.09 ERA over five MLB appearances.
“It’s a really long, dark tunnel,” one MLB agent told The Denver Post on condition of anonymity because he needs to maintain a relationship with the club. “It’s an endless tunnel, really, especially with how they have gotten themselves into this situation by failing at their own blueprint that’s previously led to some success — drafting and developing a competitive homegrown club.”
The Rockies have picked in the top 10 of the first round in 10 of the last 13 drafts, including four top-four picks. And in seven of those 10 drafts, they had multiple first-round picks.
Southpaw Ryan Rolison never made it as a starter and fellow 2018 first-rounder Grant Lavigne is now in independent ball. The jury is still out on first baseman Michael Toglia (No. 23 in ’19), outfielder Zac Veen (No. 9 in ’20), catcher Drew Romo (No. 35 in ’20), outfielder Benny Montgomery (No. 8 in ’21) and right-hander Gabriel Hughes (No. 10 in ’22), but the clock is ticking.
“If you have three years in a row (from 2020 to ’22) where you have a top-10 pick, and if you said, ‘Would you do it again with a few years’ hindsight?’ and the answer is ‘No,’ that’s not great,” Baseball America editor-in-chief JJ Cooper said.
Mayo echoed Cooper, with a touch of optimism.
“We may have this conversation three years from now and (2024 first-rounder) Charlie Condon’s an All-Star, (2023 first-rounder) Chase Dollander’s established himself with Hughes in the rotation, (2022 first-round outfielders) Jordan Beck and Sterlin Thompson are regular big-leaguers and Zac Veen and Drew Romo have made it,” Mayo said.
“But I think at this point, you would’ve liked for some of these guys to not be TBDs and to be regulars.”
Slim margin for error
Hunter Goodman, a 2021 fourth-round pick, has been a glimmer of draft success this season with the catcher making the NL All-Star team as a reserve.
But before that, the last Rockies draft pick who made a high impact in the majors — for the purposes of this story, defined as a player who accumulated 10.0 career bWAR or made an All-Star team with Colorado — is southpaw Kyle Freeland, the club’s No. 8 overall selection in 2014. And in 2013, Colorado also hit on right-hander Jon Gray and third baseman Ryan McMahon.
But the draft is, ultimately, a crapshoot.
According to a 2023 Baseball America study, the chances a first-round pitcher logs 1,000 strikeouts is 14.3%. For first-round hitters, the chances of 1,000 hits is 22.5%. So even with a slew of misses, the Rockies’ draft impact since 2012 is about on par with most of the division.
The Dodgers have had significantly more draft success than the rest of the NL West. But Colorado is comparable to the Giants, ahead of both the D-backs and Padres (San Diego’s high-profile prospect trades are a major factor), and in-between successful small market franchises in Tampa and Milwaukee.
| Rockies Draft Yield Comparison | bWAR produced for drafting club since 2012 | High-Impact Players (10.0 Career WAR and/or All-Star with club) |
|---|---|---|
| Rockies | 55.2 | 4 |
| Dodgers | 104.2 | 6 |
| Giants | 57.2 | 2 |
| Diamondbacks | 44.4 | 2 |
| Padres | 16.5 | 1 |
| Brewers | 67.2 | 3 |
| Rays | 44.9 | 2 |
That data suggests the bigger issue for the Rockies is an over-reliance on the draft. The Rockies are the fifth-worst team in baseball when it comes to identifying talent, according to a 2025 Baseball America survey of 24 scouts.
Colorado could supplement its roster by mining the international market and making impact signings through free agency, but neither avenue has been consistently successful. That’s made the margin for error in the draft very slim.
“Where other clubs might have the financial resources where if they miss on something (in the draft), they can go out and spend the money, ideally we’re going to have somebody from within fill (that need) for us,” Rockies GM Bill Schmidt acknowledged.
Issues in analytics, development
The Rockies are also hindered by their lack of investment in analytics.
The Dodgers’ research and development department numbers about 40 employees. That’s more than twice the R&D staffing of the Rockies, who, according to the team’s front office directory, have 18 employees involved in analytics. It remains one of the smallest R&D departments in baseball.
Interim manager Warren Schaeffer, who served as Triple-A Albuquerque’s manager prior to his arrival at the big-league level, acknowledged that analytics’ role in development needs to be a point of emphasis.
“We can always get more forward-thinking,” Schaeffer said. “That’s a conversation for the offseason, with a collaboration between a lot of different people higher up to think about. … If you’re not always looking to get better in certain areas — in every area — I don’t think you’re doing what you need to be doing.”
Colorado built a pitching lab in Scottsdale in 2023 and has had a video/analytics coordinator at every level of the organization in recent years. The Rockies also started using Trajekt Arc, a pitching machine that simulates specific pitchers and pitches.
But a lack of analytical manpower remains a significant hurdle, and turnover in top positions within the department hasn’t helped. In 2022, the Rockies hired Brian Jones — previously the team’s video coordinator — to be the research and development director, despite Jones not having any experience in such a role beforehand.
Those staffing issues are in conjunction with Colorado being behind in overall technology, according to bullpen coach Dustin Garneau.
“In the technology aspect of it, there are areas where we can invest more, as far as Trackman and Hawk-Eye, and stuff like that, to where we can have a better understanding of where our players are at and find ways to improve them,” Garneau said. “So we aren’t using the ‘eye test’ so much. So we (want) to have more technology to track data for defense, offense and pitching.”
The MLB agent who described the club’s future as a “long, dark tunnel” added that the Rockies’ insularity contributes to their inability to keep up with current analytical trends.
“You’re not going to see the Rockies hire people at the tip of the spear in analytics,” the agent said.
Colorado’s scouting department has been led by the same faces for decades. Schmidt has been with the club since 1999, senior director of scouting operations Marc Gustafson came aboard in 1993 and assistant GM of scouting Danny Montgomery was hired in 1991.
“That (continuity) is something to be proud of, but I don’t know if the flip side of that coin is a lack of fresh perspectives that’s hurting the decision-making process and the advancement (into deeper analytics),” Mayo said.
With a shortage of top prospects and a lag in analytics, the Rockies are having to rush some of their best prospects due to the team’s needs at the major league level. The Rockies have debuted nine players in 2025, a year after tying the franchise record with 12 big league debuts.
It’s a similar theme to what contributed to the White Sox’s modern-record 121 losses last season.
“Guys are being allowed to develop in the big leagues and that’s never been done,” ex-White Sox outfielder Tommy Pham told ESPN last year as Chicago closed in on the record.
Judging by performance and the number of demotions back to the minors, the bulk of those Rockies who debuted in ’24 and ’25 weren’t ready — even those like Toglia, who was given a starting job. This season, the first baseman has a minus-0.9 WAR and leads baseball with a 38.2 strikeout percentage.
“If you look at Michael Toglia’s minor-league performance, there was nothing there that said, ‘This is a guy who’s established that he’s ready to be a big-league regular,’” Cooper said. “… That’s the kind of thing where it feels like there’s been a lot of half-measures.”
Pressure on No. 4 pick in ’25
The Rockies’ last two first-round picks, Condon and Dollander, have shown early signs they could be part of the long-term solution. Colorado will get an opportunity to snag another such player when it picks No. 4 overall on Sunday.
Anti-taking measures ensure that Colorado cannot select higher than 10th in the 2026 draft, which makes hitting on that top-four selection all the more important.
This year, there’s a trio of pitchers atop the draft rankings in LSU southpaw Kade Anderson, Florida State southpaw Jamie Arnold and California prep right-hander Seth Hernandez. Oklahoma prep infielder Ethan Halliday, son of ex-Rockies star Matt Halliday, is the draft’s No. 1-ranked player by both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America.
“If the Nationals don’t take Halliday at 1, then the Rockies will have the opportunity to take him,” Mayo said.
The two agents who spoke to The Post for this story think that stockpiling pitchers at the top of the draft, as the Rockies have done lately, is the best continued course of action for a team unable to sign prominent starters in free agency.
Schmidt remains steadfast in ignoring the outside noise and speculation about his job status at season’s end — “That’s for other people to decide,” he says — while the Rockies try to take a small step toward getting back on track on Sunday.
And after the draft, identifying and focusing on an organizational area of strength would be a good place to start.
“As an organization, you want to be able to say, ‘We feel like we’re as good as anybody at X (in development),’” Cooper said. “You want to have something your organization is, if not best-in-class, top-tier in. If you ask people in other organizations about the Rockies, it’s hard to say there’s something the Rockies are clearly top-tier in right now.”
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