After revealing the Purple Row community’s Colorado Rockies top prospect list over the last couple of weeks, it’s time to wrap up the series by showing the whole list at once. Without further ado, here is the full mid-season 2018 Top 30 PuRPs list, including some voting stats:
Mid-Season 2018 PuRPs List
| Rank | Player | Total | # Ballots | High Ballot | Mode Ballot | Position | ETA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Player | Total | # Ballots | High Ballot | Mode Ballot | Position | ETA |
| 1 | Brendan Rodgers | 930 | 31 | 1 (31) | 1 | SS/2B/3B | 2019 |
| 2 | Peter Lambert | 893 | 31 | 2 | 2 | RHP | 2019 |
| 3 | Colton Welker | 826 | 31 | 3 | 3 | 3B | 2020 |
| 4 | Ryan Rolison | 812 | 31 | 2 | 3,4 | LHP | 2021 |
| 5 | Garrett Hampson | 805 | 31 | 2 | 4 | SS/2B | Now |
| 6 | Riley Pint | 787 | 31 | 2 | 5 | RHP | 2021 |
| 7 | Ryan Castellani | 693 | 31 | 5 | 9 | RHP | 2019 |
| 8 | Yency Almonte | 691 | 31 | 4 | 8,10 | RHP | Now |
| 9 | Grant Lavigne | 682 | 31 | 4 | 7 | 1B | 2022 |
| 10 | Ryan Vilade | 681 | 31 | 5 | 8 | SS/3B | 2021 |
| 11 | Sam Howard | 571 | 31 | 8 | 12 | LHP | Now |
| 12 | Tyler Nevin | 506 | 30 | 6 | 12 | 1B/3B | 2020 |
| 13 | Sam Hilliard | 483 | 30 | 8 | 15 | OF | 2019 |
| 14 | Daniel Montano | 466 | 31 | 9 | 11 | OF | 2022 |
| NR | Forrest Wall | 448 | 31 | 11 | 13 | OF/2B | 2019 |
| NR | Chad Spanberger | 426 | 29 | 11 | 13,16-18 | 1B | 2021 |
| 15 | Jordan Patterson | 414 | 27 | 5 | 11,17 | OF | Now |
| 16 | Brian Mundell | 389 | 29 | 11 | 16 | 1B | 2019 |
| 17 | Yonathan Daza | 369 | 30 | 12 | 14,19,20 | OF | 2019 |
| 18 | Breiling Eusebio | 298 | 27 | 14 | 20,21 | LHP | 2021 |
| 19 | Ben Bowden | 249 | 26 | 16 | 17 | LHP | 2019 |
| 20 | Vince Fernandez | 237 | 24 | 6 | 18,19,21,28 | OF | 2020 |
| 21 | Jesus Tinoco | 217 | 21 | 13 | 21 | RHP | 2019 |
| 22 | Robert Tyler | 183 | 21 | 16 | 22,23 | RHP | 2020 |
| 23 | Roberto Ramos | 158 | 23 | 17 | 24 | 1B | 2020 |
| 24 | Will Gaddis | 145 | 23 | 20 | 21,26 | RHP | 2021 |
| 25 | Dom Nunez | 139 | 16 | 11 | 19,27 | C | 2019 |
| 26 | Tommy Doyle | 113 | 18 | 14 | 28 | RHP | 2020 |
| 27 | Mitchell Kilkenny | 82 | 11 | 15 | 26 | RHP | 2021 |
| 28 | Mike Nikorak | 81 | 15 | 16 | 28,29 | RHP | 2022 |
| 29 | Willie Abreu | 70 | 11 | 13 | 25 | OF | 2021 |
| 30 | Terrin Vavra | 57 | 12 | 18 | 28,29 | SS | 2021 |
It was an easy top prospect ranking for Brendan Rodgers in this edition of the PuRPs poll with a monopoly on the top spot of PuRPs ballots, receiving all 31 first place votes. This is his fourth top PuRP honors in a row. The top 11 players all cleared 550 points and were named on all 31 ballots, among 13 prospects to receive that honor. PuRPs Forrest Wall and Chad Spanberger were traded after polling had closed — they appear here on the list in a non-ranked capacity, but Willie Abreu and Terrin Vavra take their place as PuRPs.
As a reminder, 30 points were granted for a first place vote, 29 for second, etc. Until a player was named on 11 ballots, his vote totals were modified on a sliding scale to avoid an individual ballot having too much say over the community forecast. In this edition of the list this rule was only applied to one player in the top 30. For more info on voting numbers for players that didn’t quite make the top 30, please check out the intro post to this edition of the PuRPs list. No ties were broken in the top 30.
There was a pretty good consensus about the top 24 prospects, forming a clear tier of players that the electorate felt were potential MLB impact players by virtue of the fact that they were named over two-thirds of the ballots.
Some more notes:
- In all, 11 players were on every ballot, 57 players received at least one vote for this PuRPs list (down from 68 last time), 50 got mentioned on multiple ballots (down from 54), 32 were named on at least 11 ballots (and therefore were unmodified), and only four PuRPs were named on fewer than 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.
- In this edition of the PuRPs list there were six new names compared to the pre-season 2018 list. The new PuRPs are Ryan Rolison (4), Grant Lavigne (9), Jesus Tinoco (21), Roberto Ramos (23), Mitchell Kilkenny (27), and Terrin Vavra (30). Only Tinoco had previously been a PuRP on a prior list.
Breaking the list down by position, there are 14 pitchers (11 of them are nominally starters with a couple being a question mark, ten are righties, five are southpaws, and five are in the top 10), six outfielders, five corner infielders, four middle infielders, and one catcher. It looks like there are six PuRPs who are either in MLB or Triple-A (including three of the top five), so it won’t be long before we start seeing some of these guys producing as regulars for the Rockies, and some new faces on future PuRP lists.
Final Thoughts
Colorado’s system is weaker than it’s been in quite some time thanks in part to prospect graduation (great!) and some questionable draft strategy (college relievers in the top two rounds?). When Brendan Rodgers graduates, the system will be devoid of any high impact, top 50 talent (depending on how you feel about Peter Lambert) altogether.
It’s not a barren system by any means: there are several intriguing prospects and likely MLB contributors in the ranks. Still, outside of the top 10 to 12 names here it’s hard to see a bunch of prospects who will provide significant MLB value (outside of the bullpen), which is where I think the system is weakest. I think there are still a number of interesting lottery tickets in the lower echelons of the list, some of whom could develop into that top tier talent, but overall the Rockies will need to roll with the group they have now at the big club and the upper minors.
Considering some of those players not on the 25 man roster include former top five PuRPs with high ceilings like David Dahl, Raimel Tapia, and Jeff Hoffman, the Rockies are still in an enviable position with the young core they’ve assembled (including a lot of former top PuRPs on the big league club). I just don’t expect a lot of prospects of that caliber to be able to fill the gaps over the next couple of years outside the top five.
With that, I declare the mid-season 2018 Purple Row Prospects List complete! Thanks for reading!