Warren Schaeffer gushes about Charlie Condon in exclusive

Charlie Condon is “awesome.” He “handled himself” perfectly. He’s “everything you want out of a young, highly touted prospect.” The work he put in defensively was impressive. His daily routine, his approach, his maturity — all of it earned rave reviews from new Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer.

And yet, he’s hitting batting-practice bombs in Albuquerque right now instead of preparing for the first game of the Major League Baseball season on Friday.

In an exclusive interview Thursday on Dover and Cecil on 104.3 The Fan, Schaeffer couldn’t have been more complimentary about the Rockies’ No. 2 prospect, who absolutely raked this spring to the tune of .385/.457/.718 with three homers and nine RBIs across 20 games.

“Chuck was awesome,” Schaeffer told the show. “We were all extremely impressed with him, the way he came in and handled himself, how he goes about his business on a daily basis, just the work that he puts in defensively, in the corner outfield, spots on first base. I mean, he’s just, he’s everything you want out of a young, you know, highly touted prospect.”

But with Condon rounding third and headed for home in his development, they put up the stop sign and sent him to AAA Albuquerque to open the season.

Condon ended last season at AA Hartford, logging a .235/.342/.465 line over 55 games and 237 plate appearances in the pitcher-friendly Eastern League. So, he’ll open this season at the highest level he’s known for regular-season play.

“It’s time for him to go get at bats in the upper levels and get ready to play in the big leagues, eventually,” Schaeffer continued.

The Rockies are set to play their first game in the new era of Schaeffer and Paul DePodesta. And the Condon decision was not made in the vacuum of performance in 2026 given the club is so far away from competing. But it is an interesting change in approach from the past where Trevor Story and Kyle Freeland cracked Opening Day rosters and even last year Chase Dollander was up within a week.

It’s the new brass going for the old-school proven playbook: service-time manipulation.

Keep Condon in Triple-A for roughly two weeks, and boom — you delay his free agency from 2031 to 2032. An extra year of team control. Never mind that he just put up a 1.174 OPS this spring. Never mind that he was trying to win the first-base job that will now be a rotating door of Troy Johnston, TJ Rumfield, and Blaine Crim.

The Santa Fe New Mexican caught up with Condon at Isotopes Park this week, where he proceeded to put on a batting-practice show that had balls sticking in the netting beyond the left field wall like darts on a board. Manager Pedro Lopez essentially admitted the kid won’t be there long.

“What’s coming ahead is coming ahead,” Lopez told the New Mexican. “If it’s already written, it’s going to happen.”

Here’s what counters that tried-and-true old way of thinking: The new CBA tried to address this quirk of the rules by allowing players to recoup those few days of service time needed to hit free agency sooner if they win Rookie of the Year. MLB.com named Condon the most likely NL West ROY winner earlier this month. But the Rockies apparently weren’t willing to bet on their own prospect — the guy their own manager called “everything you want” — to be that good.

The 6-foot-5 Georgia product — who won the Golden Spikes Award and SEC Player of the Year in 2024 before being drafted No. 3 overall 00 has done everything asked of him. Struggled in his first pro season after signing? Bounced back last year with an .820 OPS across three levels. Needed to show he could hit advanced pitching? Posted a slash line worthy of breaking camp.

And his reward? New Mexico.

Condon, to his credit, is saying all the right things. “The goal is to continue to roll with what I did in spring training,” he told the New Mexican. “This is where I’m supposed to be, so this is where it happens.”

“I’m young compared to a lot of those guys in the clubhouse,” Condon told the Denver Gazette last week. “I need to push myself to get a little bit stronger. A lot of those guys in there have grown-man strength and dad strength. At 22, I’m still working on that… I want to play in the big leagues and I want to do everything I can to make that happen. But at the same time, I understand how baseball works. I understand the timelines and things like that, and I understand that I’m also not a finished product.”

The youngster knows the reality of the business but make no mistake: The only reason he’s “supposed to be” in Albuquerque is because of a spreadsheet and a calendar, not his performance.

Schaeffer seems like a genuine guy who’s excited about his young talent. The way he talked about Condon on Dover and Cecil, you could hear the enthusiasm. But he’s also a first-time big league manager who has to play ball with the front office. He went on to talk about his relationship with DePodesta and the Monforts in the interview and how important those two are for him.

So enjoy Charlie Condon while you can, Isotopes fans. As Lopez said, he won’t be there long. And when he does get that call to the big leagues — “eventually,” as Schaeffer put it — just remember that it could have happened two weeks earlier if this organization had an ounce of faith in the player they’re publicly gushing about.

Everything you want out of a young prospect, indeed. But as for your favorite baseball club? It might not be everything you want — at least not for today, not while that powerful, promising bat takes its cuts to the backdrop of the Sandias instead of the Rocky Mountains.

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