When will Condon, Carrigg be promoted to Rockies? When they’re ‘banging down the door’

DENVER — Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta is playing the long game. It’s the only way to operate when trying to guide the club out of a seven-season tailspin.

And that means he isn’t going to rush his top prospects up to the big club.

So, if you’re clamoring to see 2024 first-round pick Charlie Condon or 2023 draftee Cole Carrigg patrolling the Coors Field outfield for the Rockies, you’ll have to be patient — or take a six-hour drive down I-25 to Albuquerque to watch them with the AAA Isotopes.

“It’s something we talked about all winter, was sort of creating enough competition and depth with our big-league roster that we never want to call a player up just because we didn’t have anybody else,” DePodesta said.

“Like, we want to call players up when they are banging down the door where we have to make room for them because they’re just playing so well and that they have the underlying foundation in place to be successful up here — not just to survive, you know, but to be successful.”

A “perfect example” DePodesta cited was Rockies third baseman Kyle Karros, who seized the third-base job by posting an 1.054 OPS in spring training to pair with the stellar defense that is his norm.

“He banged down the door in spring training. He made it obvious to everybody that he is our starting third baseman and he was ready to be successful,” DePodesta said.

“And I think his first month has been outstanding up here. You can look at the average or whatever. I think his at-bats day in and day out are some of the best we have on our team. His defense has been top-notch. So again, I think that’s a perfect example of a young player sort of banging down the door and then us making room for him.”

For comparison’s sake, take Condon’s recent form in Albuquerque. While he mashed in the opening three weeks of the season, he’s cooled off since. Through April 17, he posted a line of .339/.456/.589. Since then, his line is .135/.346/.162; he’s still drawing walks at a healthy clip, but he’s just 5-for-37 in that span.

Meanwhile, Carrigg has a season-long OPS of .960, and he isn’t the only big bat in that lineup.

“I think we have a lot of guys playing really well in Albuquerque,” DePodestsa said. “What do we have? Like five guys hitting over .340 or something like that.”

And Condon isn’t among them. Carrigg boasts a .368 average; Ryan Ritter — who had seven major-league plate appearances over six games with the Rockies earlier this season — is hitting .379, Vimael Machin is hitting .365, Sterlin Thompson is at .347 and Chad Stevens is hitting .343. Machin and Ritter each are above 1.000 in OPS.

“We’re watching them every day and I think if we have opportunities up here, we’re very confident in a number of those guys that we can bring up here and know that they’re going to do a good job,” DePodesta said.

DEPODESTA: ROCKIES WON’T BE “REACTIONARY” WITH STRUGGLING PLAYERS

As a team, the Rockies entered Sunday’s play eighth in MLB in batting average (.251), 17th in on-base percentage (.320) and 11th in slugging percentage (.395) and OPS (.716). Last year, they ranked 22nd, 30th, 25th and 27th in those categories, respectively.

But while Hunter Goodman and Mickey Moniak are off to splendid starts — with nine home runs apiece — and newcomer Troy Johnston boasts a .311 average and an .813 OPS, Rockies outfielders Brenton Doyle and Jordan Beck have gotten off to disappointing starts.

Doyle has a .213/.286/.281 line entering Sunday’s Rockies game against Atlanta; Beck has a .167 average and a .469 OPS.

Still, the Rockies continue to give Beck sshots in the leadoff spot. Beck led off in three of the last four games heading into Sunday — all against left-handed starters. He had Colorado’s lone RBI in Saturday’s 9-1 loss to Atlanta.

“We don’t want to be reactionary,” DePodesta said. “We also don’t want our players thinking that boy, if they go 0-for-4 tonight, they’re not in the lineup tomorrow, or worse, they’re going to AAA tomorrow, or if they give up a run or something like that.

“We believe in these guys. We also believe in a lot of the guys we have in AAA right now. But we want to give them ample opportunity to play.”

And with Beck and Doyle, DePodesta wants to see them in more favorable situations against left-handed pitchers.

“I think we’ve faced the fewest left-handed pitchers in all of baseball so far. I think that’s right — at least it was as of a couple of days ago,” DePodesta said. “So, we expect that they’ll have more opportunities. And it’s hard when you’re not playing every single day. It’s just hard to get in a rhythm and then especially if you’ve gotten off to a slower start than you accustomed to, it can be really hard.

“So, we want to stay behind those guys and continue to give them opportunities and we’re confident that we’re going to look up at the end of the year and they will be as productive as they’ve been previously.”

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