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Rox’s instructs highlights depth of farm system
- Updated: September 26, 2016
The Rockies may have had their best year ever for rookies in 2016. Tyler Anderson, David Dahl, Carlos Estevez, Jon Gray, Trevor Story and Tony Wolters all graduated to Coors Field this season. Jeff Hoffman, German Marquez and Raimel Tapia also made their big league debuts, while Tom Murphy showed impressive power for the second straight September.
Nevertheless, Colorado’s farm system remains one of the deepest in baseball. And much of that talent is on display in its instructional league program in Scottsdale, Ariz., which began Sept. 20 and will conclude Oct. 9. Twenty members of MLBPipeline.com’s Rockies Top 30 Prospects list are on hand, including recent top-five overall picks Brendan Rodgers (No. 3 in the 2015 Draft) and Riley Pint (No. 4 in ’16).
“One of the great thing about getting all those guys up there is that most of them impacted right away,” Rockies farm director Zach Wilson said. “To know we can graduate guys and continue to churn out our system, knowing we have guys right behind them and more guys right behind them, that’s a credit to everyone in scouting and the front office and player development. It’s heartening to know we can have waves of guys after waves of guys after waves of guys.”
To help keep those waves coming, Colorado runs its program a little differently than other organizations do. The Rockies don’t play any instructional league games, and they condense their work into three weeks rather than the typical four.
“It’s purposely very different from other programs with what we’re focusing on,” Wilson said. “Three weeks is shorter than most, but it’s intense. It makes sense for us with the things we believe in and we’re instilling.”
In some ways, the Rockies do treat instructional league like other organizations do, such as using it as an opportunity to expose players to new positions and increase their versatility. The most prominent example in Scottsdale is 2014 supplemental first-round pick Forrest Wall, a second baseman who’s giving center field a try.
Known for his …
