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Colorado Rockies prospects: Making sense of the full preseason 2016 top 30 PuRPs list

Let's put a nice, big bow on our top 30 preseason 2016 Colorado Rockies prospects, shall we?

By Jeff Aberle
Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

After revealing the Purple Row community's Colorado Rockies top prospect list one at a time, it's time to wrap up the series by showing the whole list at once. Before I do so, I will note that since voting occurred, PuRP 22 according to this list was traded away. As we have done previously when this has occurred, Padlo will occupy an honorary place in this PuRPs list but going forward everyone below him will move up (and therefore Ryan Casteel is the new PuRP 30). German Marquez will get his shot the next time around.

Without further ado, here is the full preseason 2016 Top 30 PuRPs list, including some voting stats:

Rank Player Total # Ballots High Ballot Mode Ballot
1 Jon Gray 1,194 41 1 (24) 1
2 David Dahl 1,149 41 1 (5) 2
3 Jeff Hoffman 1,139 41 1 (5) 3
4 Brendan Rodgers 1,103 41 1 (5) 4
5 Ryan McMahon 1,083 41 1 (2) 5
6 Raimel Tapia 1,001 41 2 6
7 Trevor Story 953 41 4 8
8 Kyle Freeland 946 41 3 7
9 Antonio Senzatela 918 41 4 10
10 Tom Murphy 839 41 5 11
11 Forrest Wall 838 41 5 12
12 Miguel Castro 740 41 6 13
13 Dom Nunez 661 41 10 13
14 Jesus Tinoco 637 41 10 17
15 Cristhian Adames 563 40 8 15
16 Mike Nikorak 550 38 8 14, 17
17 Tyler Anderson 476 34 6 14
18 Jordan Patterson 462 40 11 18
19 Ryan Castellani 446 39 13 18
20 Tyler Nevin 439 38 11 19
21 Peter Lambert 408 38 12 20
NR Kevin Padlo 362 35 9 19, 20, 24
22 Alex Balog 291 37 11 24
23 Harrison Musgrave 285 34 15 21
24 Carlos Estevez 172 28 18 26
25 Sam Moll 142 27 19 30
26 Omar Carrizales 135 21 17 27
27 Jairo Diaz 130 19 16 24
28 Pedro Gonzalez 116 17 8 28
29 Carlos Herrera 111 20 18 27
30 Ryan Casteel 69 12 17 25, 26, 29

In this edition of the PuRPs poll, 41 ballots were cast, with 30 points being granted for a first place vote, 29 for second, etc. Until a player was named on 14 ballots, his vote totals were modified on a sliding scale to avoid an individual ballot having too much say over the community forecast, though only newly minted PuRP 30 Ryan Casteel was listed on fewer than 14 ballots.

It was a runaway first place performance by Jon Gray in this edition of the PuRPs poll. Gray garnered 24 of the 41 first place votes and 1,194 of 1,230 possible points, while David Dahl, Jeff Hoffman, and Brendan Rodgers each got five and Ryan McMahon received two. Gray, Dahl, Hoffman, Rodgers, and McMahon were a clear top five ahead of the pack. Beyond those guys, Raimel Tapia also cleared the 1,000 point threshold to take sixth while Trevor Story held off Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela for seventh. Tom Murphy beat out Forrest Wall by just one point to round out the top ten.

There was a pretty good consensus about the top 11 prospects, forming a clear tier of players that the electorate felt were potential MLB impact players, and the next three prospects were also named on each ballot. Indeed, there seemed to be consensus across most of the list, as only the bottom four PuRPs  were named on less half of the ballots. Looking back on past PuRPs lists, it appears that Colorado's farm system is stronger than it has been since I started charting it in Spring 2010. I suspect when national prospect writers stack this system up against others in MLB, they will find it outranks most of them.

From the Summer 2015 list, Kyle Parker (14) exhausted his rookie eligibility and was not eligible for this list. In addition, as stated above, the trade of Padlo (19 in summer, 22 this time) removed him from the list after the fact.

Some more notes:

  • In all, 14 players were on every ballot, 65 players received at least one vote for this PuRPs list (up from 59 last time), 50 got mentioned on multiple ballots, 32 were named on at least 14 ballots (and therefore were unmodified), and all of the top 26 were named on at least half of the ballots, showing that most of the list was more or less agreed upon by the community, if not necessarily the order. Here is a link to the polling thread.
  • If you've done the math right, you've realized that six new players made the preseason 2016 PuRPs list. The first time PuRPs are Hoffman (3), Castro (12), Tinoco (14), Estevez (24), Diaz (27), and Herrera (29)

Here are the five players who came closest to inclusion on the preseason 2016 PuRPs List (now that Casteel made the top 30):

35. Wes Rogers (34.6 points, 11 ballots), 2014 4th Round, OF in Low A (21)
34. David Hill (46.3 points, 12 ballots), 2015 4th Round, RHP at Short Season A (21)
33. Sam Howard (50 points, 10 ballots), 2014 3rd Round, LHP in Low A (22)
32. Zach Jemiola (63 points,16 ballots), 2012 9th Round, RHP in High A (21)
31. Daniel Montano (67 points, 15 ballots), 2015 IFA (VZ), OF in DSL (16)

Breaking the list down by position, there are 15 pitchers (11 of them are nominally starters with Castro a question mark, 11 are righties, four are southpaws, two are in the top three and nine are in the top 20), six middle infielders, four outfielders (three of which could play CF, depending on the scout you ask), three catchers, and two corner infielders. It looks like there will be many top prospects that will be MLB ready all in the next year or two (including nine of the top ten), so it won't be long before we start seeing some of these guys producing for the Rockies.

With that, I declare the preseason 2016 Purple Row Prospects List complete.

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