Rockies call up former top prospect and first-rounder, who is tearing up Triple-A

The only thing hotter than the New Mexico sun in August is Zac Veen’s bat — and it’s earned the power hitter another chance in the majors with the Colorado Rockies.

The club is recalling their 2020 first-round pick from Albuquerque and designating infielder Edouard Julien for assignment, according to The Denver Post on Tuesday.

Veen will join the Rockies ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.

The 24-year-old outfielder has earned this promotion even as he’s fallen out of favor with the prospect rankers. He’s slashing .327/.402/.635
with 24 home runs and 18 stolen bases in 100 games for the Isotopes this season — numbers that even look silly at the PCL’s hitter-friendly parks. He won the league’s Player of the Month award in June after batting .366 with a 1.167 OPS, and has since been named the league’s Player of the Week the past two weeks.

That hot streak hit absurd levels recently. Veen has gotten a hit in 11 of his past 12 games where he’s OPS’ing 1.649. That includes eight homers and 24 RBI — encompassing his three homer night on Saturday against Sugar Land, where he went 5-for-5 at the dish. In that contest he set a ‘Topes franchise record by snagging 17 total bases in the single contest — a feat accomplished only five other times in all of Minor League Baseball since 2005.

Julien, a left-handed hitter like Veen, has been a stopgap player for the Rockies. He’s been okay but is not part of the future whereas Veen projects as a platoon outfielder who could see lots of time against right-handed pitching.

This is Veen’s second time up. Last year the former hot shot prospect had a cup of coffee over 12 games, where Veen looked overmatched, hitting .118 with a 37.8% strikeout rate and 14 punchouts.

Veen dealt with substance abuse issues before getting sober this past offseason. He was smoking marijuana daily and drinking excessively, and got in trouble with the Rockies last season when he was caught smoking during a game at Isotopes Park. But he showed up to spring training clean, with added muscle on his 6-foot-3 frame, making him look like a body-builder.

The Rockies look like they’re getting the maturity they wanted from the kid they signed for a $5 million bonus out of Spruce Creek High School in Florida when he was drafted No. 9 overall six years ago.

Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta said in April that the club wanted to see more plate discipline before Veen got another look in the majors.

“If he can rein in that (aggression) in a little bit because big league pitchers are better equipped to take advantage of that, he can do so much damage on so many pitches,” DePodesta told The Denver Post. “So if we can bring him in a little but still allow him to be aggressive on the right pitches, he has a really, really bright future. He’s still showing all the same tools. He’s got big power, he can run. He’s versatile defensively.”

Veen has answered that challenge. His strikeout rate has dropped from 37.8% in the majors last year to 20.4% in Triple-A this season, with a 10.8% walk rate to go with it.

“In a perfect world, I’m obviously in the major leagues, but in an even more perfect world, I’m just being the best version of myself every day,” Veen said earlier this year. “And at the end of the year, the pieces fell right where I wanted them to.”

Veen could be just another with Cole Carrigg who is already up and Charlie Condon also going ballistic in Triple-A lately. It’s sign of genuine positivity headed into 2027, if they do play baseball.

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