After revealing the Purple Row community’s Colorado Rockies top prospect list over the last few weeks, it’s time to show the whole list at once with some voting stats. I’ll also have some thoughts on the state of the system tomorrow to conclude the series.
Without further ado, here is the full pre-season 2021 Top 30 PuRPs list, including some voting stats:
Pre-Season 2021 Purple Row Prospects List
| Rank | Player | Total | # Ballots | High Ballot | Mode Ballot | Position | ETA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Player | Total | # Ballots | High Ballot | Mode Ballot | Position | ETA |
| 1 | Ryan Rolison | 381 | 13 | 1 (4) | 2 | LHP | 2021 |
| 2 | Zac Veen | 380 | 13 | 1 (8) | 1 | OF | 2024 |
| 3 | Ryan Vilade | 345 | 13 | 3 | 3 | OF/IF | 2022 |
| 4 | Michael Toglia | 342 | 13 | 2 | 3 | 1B | 2022 |
| 5 | Colton Welker | 328 | 13 | 1 (1) | 4,6 | 3B/1B | 2021 |
| 6 | Aaron Schunk | 306 | 13 | 4 | 5 | 3B | 2022 |
| 7 | Chris McMahon | 292 | 13 | 5 | 7 | RHP | 2023 |
| 8 | Drew Romo | 278 | 13 | 4 | 8 | C | 2024 |
| 9 | Grant Lavigne | 276 | 13 | 3 | 11 | 1B | 2023 |
| 10 | Helcris Olivarez | 249 | 13 | 4 | 10,12 | LHP | 2023 |
| 11 | Karl Kauffmann | 248 | 12 | 5 | 7 | RHP | 2023 |
| 12 | Brenton Doyle | 245 | 13 | 8 | 10 | OF | 2023 |
| 13 | Ben Bowden | 207 | 12 | 7 | 7,15,18 | LHP | 2021 |
| 14 | Eddy Diaz | 178 | 12 | 8 | 17 | 2B/SS | 2024 |
| 15 | Adael Amador | 172 | 13 | 11 | 14 | SS | 2025 |
| 16 | Julio Carreras | 148 | 10 | 12 | 13,17 | SS/3B | 2023 |
| 17 | Sam Weatherly | 145 | 10 | 13 | 13 | LHP | 2024 |
| 18 | Yonathan Daza | 140 | 11 | 9 | 23 | OF | Now |
| 19 | Jameson Hannah | 137 | 11 | 14 | 15,17 | OF | 2022 |
| 20 | Tommy Doyle | 118 | 12 | 10 | 21 | RHP | Now |
| 21 | Antonio Santos | 112 | 11 | 14 | 19 | RHP | Now |
| 22 | Dom Nunez | 94 | 10 | 11 | 25 | C | Now |
| 23 | Will Ethridge | 91 | 10 | 16 | 16 | RHP | 2023 |
| 24 | Bret Boswell | 88 | 12 | 11 | 22 | IF/OF | 2021 |
| 25 | Ryan Feltner | 86 | 11 | 14 | 20,24,25,29 | RHP | 2022 |
| 26 | Bladimir Restituyo | 84 | 10 | 16 | All | 2B/OF | 2024 |
| 27 | Mitchell Kilkenny | 67 | 10 | 15 | 25,26,28 | RHP | 2023 |
| 28 | Ezequiel Tovar | 65 | 6 | 16 | 16 | SS | 2024 |
| 29 | Jose Mujica | 60 | 6 | 20 | 20 | RHP | Now |
| 30 | Riley Pint | 56 | 6 | 13 | All | RHP | 2022 |
It was a tight finish at the top of this year’s PuRPs poll after seven-time top PuRP Brendan Rodgers finally graduated from prospect eligibility. Though he only got four of 13 first place votes, 2018 first rounder Ryan Rolison’s position as a clear No. 1 or No. 2 prospect got him the top overall spot over 2020 first rounder Zac Veen by a single point in the PuRPs modified ranked choice balloting.
In all, 12 players were listed on all 13 ballots, including the top 10. There was a pretty good consensus about the top 27 prospects, forming a clear tier of players that the electorate felt were worthy by virtue of the fact that they were named on at least 10 of the 13 ballots. Polling was conducted in December 2020, prior to the Nolan Arenado trade in which the Rockies received at least three players who likely belong somewhere in the organization’s top 30 in Elehuris Montero, Tony Locey, and Mateo Gil.
As a reminder, 30 points were granted for a first place vote, 29 for second, etc. Until a player was named on five 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 wasn’t applied to any 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 as well as the write-ups of the honorable mention PuRPs. No ties were broken this time around.
Some more notes:
- 51 players received at least one vote for this PuRPs list (down from 60 last time), 38 got mentioned on multiple ballots (down from 48), and 34 were named on at least five ballots (and therefore were unmodified). All PuRPs were named on at least six 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 ten new names compared to the pre-season 2020 list. The new PuRPs are Zac Veen (2), Chris McMahon (7), Drew Romo (8), Sam Weatherly (17), Jameson Hannah (19). Will Ethridge (23), Bret Boswell (24), Bladimir Restituyo (26), Ezequiel Tovar (28), and Jose Mujica (29). Both Boswell and Restituyo had previously been a PuRP on a prior list while the rest are making their first appearance.
Breaking the list down by position, there are 13 pitchers (11 of them are nominally starters with several on their way to a relief role, nine are righties, four are southpaws, and only two are in the top 10), six outfielders, five corner infielders, four middle infielders, and two catchers.
Colton Welker is the only PuRP in the top 12 slated to begin 2021 in the major leagues or Triple-A, so the top of the list could have a lot of familiar names in the mid-season update. With that said, there are seven other lower-ranked PuRPs in Triple-A or higher who could make an impact this year. Once the Arenado trade return prospects and the highly regarded 2021 draft are added in, I expect to see quite a bit of churn in the bottom half of the list.