Colorado Rockies prospect rankings, pre-season 2023: Top 30 summary

After revealing the Purple Row community’s Colorado Rockies top prospect list over the last six 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 2023 Top 30 Purple Row Prospects (PuRPs) list, including some voting stats:

This time around, shortstop Ezequiel Tovar decisively topped the poll, garnering 16 of the 24 first place votes (including mine). Outfielder Zac Veen got six of the seven remaining first place votes, and both players generally were in the top two in some order. Shortstop Adael Amador narrowly won the battle for third place over catcher Drew Romo by seven points, well ahead of fifth-place outfielder Benny Montgomery (who did receive a vote at number one).

As a reminder, 30 points were granted for a first place vote, 29 for second, etc. Until a player was named on nine 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 and no ties were broken either, though some factored into down-ballot ranking. Polling concluded in mid-January and since then, no player has had their eligibility status change.

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.

Some more notes:

• This was a list that had a strong consensus, as 16 players were listed on all 24 ballots, including the top nine. Beyond that, the entire top 21 was listed on at least 22 of the 24 ballots, forming a clear tier of players that the electorate felt were worthy.
• 51 players received at least one vote for this PuRPs list (down from 56 last time), 44 got mentioned on multiple ballots (down from 48), while 33 were named on at least eight ballots (and therefore were unmodified). All PuRPs were named on at least 12 ballots. Here is a link to the polling thread.
• In this edition of the PuRPs list, there were only three new names compared to the mid-season 2022 list, two of which had previously been PuRPs. The new PuRPs are Julio Carreras (24), Carson Palmquist (28), and Noah Davis (29).
• The biggest risers vs. the mid-season list were Brenton Doyle (up 8 slots), Dyan Jorge (up 7), and Hunter Goodman (up 7). The biggest fallers who remained on the list were Helcris Olivarez (down 7), Ryan Rolison (down 5), and Karl Kauffmann (down 5).
• Breaking the list down by position, there are 15 pitchers (all of which are nominally starters with a few potentially on their way to a relief role; ten are righties, five are southpaws, and three are in the top ten), five corner infielders, five outfielders, four middle infielders, and one catcher — there’s some positional flexibility in there of course. At least seven PuRPs should play in Triple-A and/or the big leagues this season, with Tovar in particular expected to contribute regularly.

Beyond the 2023 potential contributors, the 2024 and 2025 prospect classes look stacked for the Rockies. I’ll have more on that and the overall system in my concluding post tomorrow.