There’s some positive news about the Rockies future

After a huge weekend where the Colorado Rockies swept the reigning champion Texas Rangers to improve a season-best win streak to four games, the team got some even better news about their future—they now have six prospects in baseball’s top 100.

MLB.com’s prospect ranking elevated the amount of young Rockies players in the top 100 from four before spring training to the half dozen now on the list with a May update. Outfielder/first baseman Sterlin Thompson and outfielder Zac Veen were added into the 90s, joining middle infielder Adael Amador, pitcher Chase Dollander, outfielder Yanquiel Fernandez and outfielder Jordan Beck.

The Colorado #Rockies have a whopping SIX prospects in the new @MLBPipeline top 100 rankings! pic.twitter.com/jtXSMa1lux

— Evan Lang (@evan_lang27) May 13, 2024

Beck made his Major League Baseball debut at the end of April. The left fielder has only reached bases seven times in his first 39 plate appearances in spell of Nolan Jones, who is on the IL. Beck, 23, was selected No. 38 by the Rockies out of the University of Tennessee in 2022 where he hit 33 homers in his final two years of school. Beck’s first full season in pro baseball was split between High-A Spokane and Double-A Harford in 2023, where he recorded a 20-20 season, slamming 25 homers and swiping 20 bags across 563 plate appearances in 126 games. The current No. 66 prospect in baseball per MLB.com, Beck, began 2024 on fire, slashing .307/.405/.594 with five homers, 17 extra-base hits, five steals (in five tries), in 121 plate appearances for Albuquerque.

Most interesting on the list is the reappearance of Veen. The 22-year-old had an atrocious 2023 season, which ended in season-ending surgery and him falling off everyone’s radars. He’s still not back up to the No. 23 prospect in baseball like MLB.com once ranked him, but his 1.027 OPS in his first 26 games for Hartford this year shows he might be back. If the left fielder stays hot there’s a chance we see him in Denver this September.

Conversely at Hartford is a struggling Amador, the Rockies top prospect. He ended 2023 with a lousy 10 games in Double-A and he’s started 2024 with 25 games of hitting .138 with just a single extra-base hit for the Yard Goats. The poor start has dropped the second baseman a couple of spots.

Also at Hartford and playing opposite corner to Veen is Fernandez, who is doing just okay in his first 27 games of action this year at Double-A. The 21-year-old is repeating the level after spending the back half of 2023 with the Yard Goats.

And yet another at Doube-A right now is Thompson, a 22-year-old born in Longmont. He’s off to a good start through 29 games playing just about everywhere for the Yard Goats. He had a strong finish to 2023, earning promotion for the final month to Hartford and then playing well in the Arizona Fall League.

Maybe the most important person on the list is the 22-year-old Dollander, who is starting his pro career this season at High-A Spokane. The Rockies are struggling for pitchers already in the majors and they lack any serious pitching prospects outside of the ninth overall pick out of Tennessee last summer. In his first five starts in the minors, Dollander has a 2.59 ERA, striking out 43 and walking 10 in 24.1 innings.

As a whole, the Rockies farm system is in the bottom third of baseball. Colorado is off to a bad start in the show, with the NL’s second-worst record and Albuquerque has the worst record in Triple-A as of Monday. But if you look hard enough, there are some positive signs in the Rockies organization, you just have to look really hard.

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