Toglia’s MLB-worst strikeout rate leads to Rockies optioning him to AAA

Michael Toglia’s frustrating 2025 season now has another indignity — demotion back to AAA Albuquerque.

The 2019 first-round pick — who raised hopes during the final four months of the 2024 season when he hit 22 home runs over 101 starts following an early season return to AAA to retool — is headed back to the minor leagues after he failed to launch over the first two months of the season.

Kyle Farmer, who has received some spot starts at first base in recent weeks, will take over at first base.

TOGLIA STRUGGLING WITH STRIKEOUTS

Michael Toglia leads Major League Baseball with 81 strikeouts and his .391 strikeout rate is the worst in MLB among qualified players — by some distance over the second-worst, a .348 rate from Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe.

He had improved his walk rate in recent weeks — from .053 in March and April to .147 in May. But the strikeout rate worsened — from .340 prior to May 1 to .421 thereafter.

Friday night, Toglia struck out twice in the Rockies’ 4-2 loss to the New York Mets. That marked the 28th time so far this season in which he’d struck out at least twice; only two players in Major League history ever had more such games in the first 57 contests of a season — Adam Dunn in 2012 and Chris Davis in 2017.

Dunn could at least still hit with plenty of power and take plenty of walks; he hit 41 home runs and led MLB in walks that season. As for Davis, well, the Orioles were stuck with him and his infamous contract at the time.

Meanwhile, Toglia hasn’t had a home run since May 14 at Texas. Since that day, he’s seen has average drop from .215 to .194, as he went into a 4-for-37 skid.

So, with no power or ability to get on base to compensate for the extreme strikeout rate, and an option in the back pocket, Toglia is headed down to the Isotopes with the hopes that a stint there can do what it did last spring, when it revived him and produced the best major-league stretch of his career to date.

KESTON HIURA MOVES UP

Colorado also designated Aaron Schunk for assignment and called up Keston Hiura from Albuquerque.

Primarily a second baseman through most of his career, Hiura has also worked at first base and in right field.

He logged an .827 OPS at Albuquerque, posting a .243/.360/.467 line with nine home runs, although he also struck out 57 times for a .285 strikeout rate.

Hiura is the second ex-Milwaukee Brewers lineup regular to join the major-league roster in recent days. Middle infielder Orlando Arcia — most recently of the Atlanta Braves — officially came aboard Wednesday and had a pair of hits on his first night in the lineup.

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