Charlie Blackmon gets at least some respect from Baseball America. Jim Callis named Blackmon and Michael McKenry to his NL team of the best players left off the top 10 prospect lists.

View full size photo »

In an article for subscribers of Baseball America, Michael McKenry (c) and Charlie Blackmon (cf) made Jim Callis' team of the best NL prospects left off of their respective teams' top ten lists. In a display of where the prospect depth in the division is, Callis' team also includes two Giants, but no players from any other NL West team. I'd actually have had McKenry in my Rockies top ten and I'm not alone in that, but Callis brings up the concerns that he's maxed out his potential. Blackmon, on the other hand, seems to get a lot more credit for his potential despite being relatively old for his levels of play thanks to a recent switch from pitching. As that statement probably implies, I'm not completely sold on him yet, but that might just be because I'm stacking him against the young OF's already on the Rockies rather than other cf prospects around the majors.

Both McKenry and Blackmon will have a short window to prove their MLB value to the Rockies, as even though there are bench roles opening on the MLB team that they could fill in the near future, there are other quality options (Wilin Rosario at catcher, Delta Cleary or Tim Wheeler for the all purpose outfield slot) for those roles nipping at their heels at lower levels.

Despite having an equal number of players on the All-not-Top-10 team, the Rockies still trail SF by quite a margin on the prospect front just because the Giants have the more advanced and polished group right now. After Buster Posey, Dan Runzler and Madison Bumgarner graduate from prospect status this season, the systems will be pretty equal, but the downside of that means that the Rockies will be having to play the aforementioned trio.

Outside of that, there's little Rockies related news to report. It was interesting to me to read that Javier Lopez, who made his MLB debut with the Rockies and remains probably the team's best all time Rule 5 draft selection (well, actually he was Boston's Rule 5 selection and we just traded for him) and who recently signed with Pittsburgh, still makes his permanent home in Colorado.