Well well well, it’s May 1st. May Day. Labor’s greatest triumph over the capitalist fiends. But I think it’s as good a time as any to check in on the Rockies minor leagues and see if there is anyone we should start considering…respectfully. I’ve found four guys I’d like to talk about that are doing things I think are interesting. Will these guys be good major leaguers? Who knows! I don’t. I’m not going to claim I do. But I do know they are doing something I find interesting right now and shouldn’t that be how we discuss sports anyway?

Cole Carrigg

Carrigg has been on Rockies Sicko radars for a while. Drafted as a catcher and immediately plugged as a “super utility guy”, he’s been used at all three positions up the middle in the Rockies system, but to save his legs they mostly dropped catcher as soon as they could. This year, in ABQ, he’s been in center for 2/3rds of his time and the rest of it spent at shortstop. Which are two critically important positions and if he has a legitimate ability to play both well, he could be a very useful ballplayer for a long time, regardless of his hitting ability.

But his hitting ability may also be coming around. Now, granted, he’s playing in the PCL and specifically in Albuquerque so these numbers can be taken lightly, but he saw an unfortunate spike in his K% last year in Hartford that had started to worry me. Thus far, that’s mostly disappeared in AAA. His .864 OPS is likely buoyed by the ballparks he plays in but his K% going back to 17%, and his ability on the basepaths continuing to shine (18 steals in just 28 games) gives my eyebrows a warranted raise. A guy that can get on base enough, steal more than his share of bags, AND play good enough defense at seven or eight spots around the diamond is extremely useful. Add in that his home park in the bigs is one that fast guys that don’t strike out a lot can make an oversized impact in and well…I’m looking respectfully.

Ethan Hedges

Hedges was a third round pick last year and like many college bats in many systems absolutely stunk up the joint post draft. This year, with some time off and work with the Rockies coaches, he’s started off significantly better. A slight slump his last four games has dropped his numbers back into the realm of “not too impressive” but I think he’s a good test subject in the Rockies development team’s improvement to their hitting prospects. Can they get Hedges to be a capable major league player?

I’m looking respectfully just to track his abilities as they rise. He’s not quite interesting enough to be one of my Guys but he is interesting enough that his fast start in Spokane trigged another look.

Seth Clausen

If I asked you right now to name who in the Rockies organization has the best strikeout numbers would you say Seth Clausen? Probably not. Or maybe you would because you saw his name above and would use deductive reasoning to understand that is who I was talking about. But, if you did or didn’t, it’s Seth Clausen.

The Minnesota alum was selected in the 16th round last year and has a nice reliever upside. Reports on him post-draft and before this year were that his command issues were the main thing holding him back, which makes sense when you look at his college numbers. Over 99 innings in college, Clausen carried a 7.0 BB/9. Pretty bad! But the Rockies have attempted to tinker with his delivery, making it less high energy, and it seems to be giving him a far better idea of the strike zone than before.

Through his first 11 2/3 innings in Fresno this year, the 23-year-old righty has 25 strikeouts. That’s a 19.3 K/9, for those who can’t do the math right now. His BB/9 so far? 2.3. So he’s cut the walks and is keeping his ability to strike guys out. He’s a little overage for Fresno but I would expect that he touches higher minors hitters at some point this summer. It’s an intriguing arm, to say the least, with a 97 mph fastball, a splitter, and a plus curve to keep hitters off balance. I think it’s fair to begin to look respectfully.

Gabriel Hughes

Now, I know what you sickos are probably thinking, “Connor, Gabe Hughes has a 8.64 ERA so far! The Isotopes have been using him with an opener lately! How can you think this is at all interesting?” Well, thank you for asking.

Hughes’s ERA is unsightly and enough to get his stat line shouted out in Baseball Prospectus’s Heat Check column as a “not hot” player. But, you can’t always scout the top of the stat line. Hughes may be a good pitcher lurking underneath bad results.

To start, the easy ones, Hughes has an absolutely insane BABIP of .455 right now. So let’s just call that like it is, everything that finds a bat seems to be dropping on him. That’s led to a FIP of 2.97 and an xFIP of 3.43. Hughes has been just about as unlucky as you possibly could be here and his skills aren’t translating to results yet. So writing him off on his ERA levels is a little difficult to do when you recognize that.

Next, he’s been pretty damn good at missing bats outside of that. He’s carrying an 11.5 K/9 so far and his 27.6% K rate in the minors is third best among pitchers with at least 300 pitches thrown (an arbitrary filter, admittedly, but one that I felt best closed off the noise of relievers and AAAA guys). He’s striking batters out at a rate that feels better than a guy with an ERA scraping nine should feel. On top of that, he’s carrying a whiff rate of over 25% and his Hard Hit % is under 40%. It’s clear to me that Hughes is pitching rather well, he just can’t avoid PCL’s torturous reality. If I were the Rockies, I would hopefully notice this, and hopefully give Gabe a chance in the bigs so he escapes this prison in New Mexico.

Bonus: Ethan Holliday

He started off really bad and then on Tuesday he walked five times in a single game. Then on Wednesday, he rocked a grand slam for a Grizzlies win. He’s caught my ire as a prospect that may not be good, but he’s showing some gusto this week. Let’s circle back.

Connor’s Guys will be an update on the Guys I want to follow through the Rockies minor league system. This won’t necessarily be the best prospects, don’t expect a top-100 guy here, but guys I find interesting. Every now and then we’ll add a new guy when I spot someone putting up an interesting line or having a unique profile to look into

One of the worst weeks in Connor’s Guys History. Perez and Eaton were decent enough but woof, those bottom three. Belyeu especially is starting to just get smoked down there. In 11 PA’s this week, he struck out 7 times. That’s A LOT.

Vargas is another that I think the worry is starting to creep in. He’s 22 and needs to start showing some legitimately good things in High-A before we can reconsider his prospect status.

This could be a grim year for Connor’s Guys. But we will stick with them, we are not fairweather fans.

Hey, you want to talk about something with your pals this week? Want to sound interesting or smart when someone brings up the Rockies? Sick of everyone having the same thing to say so you wanna change it up? Try this on for size this week.

Platoons.

As noted by Thomas Harding in his game write up yesterday, the Rockies are leaning on platoons.

It was something that was immediately noticeable to me this season as the Rockies stacked lefties in their lineup against righty pitchers early in the season. They’d jam Moniak, Johnston, Rumfield, and McCarthy into the lineup to try and counter any right on right advantage and Schaeffer would be sure to empty his bench to do so. That’s continued up until yesterday’s loss to the Reds. It’s a mixed bag of results, especially in the pinch hitting, but if you’re a longtime Rockies viewer it’s actually kind of a nice change in the way they’re thinking. The Rockies have started to recognize that their players have strengths and weaknesses and those things can be exploited to their advantage rather than just to their detriment.

Let’s consider Mickey Moniak. A guy I have called a “Coors Merchant” on more than one occasion and just last week I said he was “mid” because of his platoon splits. But the more I’ve considered Mickey’s impact and the better he’s gotten in his road PAs, the more I think we may just have a legitimately good strongside platoon bat. Moniak’s road OPS is up into the high 7s now, which is actually above average for any road hitter. So let’s toss out the Coors Merchant idea for a minute and consider this: Mickey is a guy that will smoke right handed pitching in any ballpark, any time.

Here’s a couple of other guys that platoons may be letting them play up their impact:

TJ Rumfield vs. Righties: .820 OPS, 10 XBH, 18% K rate, 11% BB rate

Troy Johnston vs. Righties: .920 OPS, 9 XBH

Edouard Julien vs. Righties: .920 OPS, 6 XBH, 12% BB Rate

Kyle Karros vs. Lefties: .367 OBP, .333 SLG

The Rockies are late to the party on using two halves of a batter to make a whole, but it has helped their offense so far this year (which is still bad…but has been better than before!)

Something to chop up with your coworkers…Rockies platoons.

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