Hilliard stays hot, leads Salt River to win | MLB.com
Sam Hilliard is proving the Rockies’ organization proud with his play in the Arizona Fall League. The outfielder is hitting .462 through the early small sample size of play, which is good to see after a year in which he slashed .262/.327/.389 with the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats. This was a big regression from a 2017 season that saw the 24-year-old slash .300/.360/.487 for the Class-A Advanced Lancaster JetHawks. Most alarming about 2018 was that Hilliard struck out a career-worst 31 percent of the time. Hilliard says he is working on adding a leg kick to his game and he is pleased with the early returns.
As Jim Callis of MLB.com reminds us, Hilliard has been compared to Larry Walker by Rockies’ officials, so there’s clearly a lot of promise here.
Fuentes, Golden shine in Rockies sytem | MiLB.com
You may remember Tyler Maun from such podcasts as the Purple Dinosaur, but he also writes for MiLB.com and he took a tour of the Rockies’ organizational All-Stars for the 2018 season. There are also tons of great quotes from Rockies senior director of player development Zach Wilson on most of the Rockies’ prospects. He has especially high marks for Grant Lavigne, the 18-year-old who was drafted just this season. Lavigne, the highest draft pick to ever come out of New Hampshire, played 59 games for the Grand Junction Rockies of the Pioneer League and slashed .350/.477/.519. Wilson says he has never seen a player with such an advanced approach as Lavigne does at his age.
Among other highlights are profiles of Pacific Coast League Most Valuable Player Award winner Josh Fuentes and outfielder Casey Golden, who finished the season with 34 home runs.
This reliever will be in high demand this offseason | MLB.com
Hint: It’s Adam Ottavino. MLB.com’s Mike Petriello compares Ottavino to the other relievers on the 2018-2019 free agent market, and while he’s competing for a contract with names like Craig Kimbrel, Andrew Miller, Zach Britton and Greg Holland, Ottavino’s numbers stack up very favorably against the more household names.
BSN Rockies Podcast: What Colorado can do with their budget | BSN Denver
In the latest episode of the BSN Rockies podcast, Drew Creasman discusses what financial capabilities the Rockies will have for the upcoming season. Whether the Monforts will want to increase the budget in the first place is an important thing to consider. Should the Rockies think about moving some of their bigger contracts? It would take some creativity to do so.