Colorado Rockies prospect rankings, pre-season 2022: Top 30 summary

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 as a whole tomorrow to conclude the series.

Without further ado, here is the full pre-season 2022 Top 30 PuRPs list, including some voting stats:

Once again, 2020 first rounder Zac Veen ran away with the lead, garnering 19 of 20 first place votes. 2021 first-round pick Benny Montgomery was a strong second, while 2020 Competitive Balance pick Drew Romo and 2018 first-rounder Ryan Rolison rounded out the top four.

In all, 14 players were listed on all 20 ballots, including 13 of the top 14. There was a pretty good consensus about the top 20 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 17 of the 20 ballots. Polling was conducted in February 2022 during the lockout and the eligibility status of players on the list has yet to change.

As a reminder, 30 points were granted for a first place vote, 29 for second, etc. Until a player was named on seven 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. Multiple ties were broken this time around in the top 30: Ryan Feltner was on more ballots than Joe Rock while Grant Lavigne’s highest ballot was better than Mitchell Kilkenny’s.

Some more notes:

• 58 players received at least one vote for this PuRPs list (down from 59 last time), 49 got mentioned on multiple ballots (up from 46), and 32 were named on at least seven ballots (and therefore were unmodified). All PuRPs were named on at least eight ballots. Here is a link to the polling thread.
• In this edition of the PuRPs list, there were three new names compared to the mid-season 2021 list. The new PuRPs are Jordy Vargas (21), Yanquiel Fernandez (25), and Dyan Jorge (26). All three of these new PuRPs were younger prospects who came via Colorado’s Latin America prospect pipeline.

Breaking the list down by position, there are 12 pitchers (all of which are nominally starters with a few potentially on their way to a relief role; eight are righties, four are southpaws, and two are in the top 10), six corner infielders, five outfielders, four middle infielders, and three catchers. Seven PuRPs should play in Triple-A and/or the big leagues this season, though none seem destined for significant roles. Competition for 40-man roster spots next offseason will be fierce as Rule 5 draft eligibility looms for many PuRPs and other players listed in balloting, a battle I’ll be handicapping in tomorrow’s state of the system post.