Catching up with Colorado Rockies playing winter ball around the world for the New Year

Winter leagues are slowly winding down play as the calendar turns to January, and big league pitchers and catchers report to camp in just over a month's time. As such, most of the players in the Colorado Rockies' system who have been playing winter ball the last several months are shutting things down and preparing for spring training.

In the final month of the Australian Baseball League, play has begun to dwindle down and Rockies' prospects like Alex Balog have been shut down for the winter.

Correlle Prime remains down under, though, and he continues to be the best bat the Rockies have in Australia. The big first baseman is now hitting .269/.320/.400 with 16 RBIs on the season. Over the last two weeks, he has appeared in seven games, going 8-for-27, as he continues to get nods as the starting first baseman for the Perth Heat, even going so far as to appear in the New York Times.

His Perth teammate, Michael Benjamin, is hitting .215/.284/.284 with 17 RBI in 44 games. Since I last covered this beat two weeks ago, before the holidays, Benjamin went 11-for-27 with four home runs. As for Robbie Perkins, well, same book but a different page: he continues to struggle while playing for his hometown Canberra Cavalry. He is now hitting just .189/.303/.361 with 10 RBI, though over the past two weeks, he has gone 5-for-19 with one RBI.

In Venezuela, Yonathan Daza is slashing .239/.282/.299, but he hasn't recorded a hit in limited action across seven games since December 5th. Daza spent the majority of 2015 in Low-A Asheville with the Tourists, and figures to be due for a promotion to High-A Modesto in 2016.

Jairo Diaz, who Rockies fans should know well by now, is also spending his winter in Venezuela, and in 9⅔ innings of relief, he has allowed 11 hits — including only four in the last two weeks where he's also whiffed four batters over three innings of work since December 23.

In Mexico, Luis Niebla has made one start and one relief appearance since Bobby DeMuro last updated us on the winter leagues at the end of December. In Niebla's start, he took the loss, giving up four hits and two runs in five innings. His relief appearance went a little better: in two innings he didn't allow a hit, giving up just one walk while striking out two.

As far as the Dominican Winter League goes, none of the Rockies we previously profiled are still in play. Cristhian Adames, Rudy Owens, Gonzalez Germen, Bryan Evans and Rafael Ynoa all haven't played in over two weeks.

If a player from this list is not detailed here, that means they haven't played in over two weeks, and considering the time of year have most likely been shut down to prepare for their spring workouts back with the Rockies in Scottsdale. We'll continue to provide winter ball updates as necessary, but at least for the Rockies most closely followed — guys like Prime, Balog, and Adames — it seems as though it's next stop: Salt River Fields!