Strike One: Lost in all that hand wringing and acrimony surrounding the proposed start of the virus-wracked Major League Baseball season was MLB’s edict to all member clubs to start looking for a home for their “taxi squad” of 30 or so players that will serve as this season’s only farm team for each. Those players will not be working out with the big league team. Social distancing, you understand.
There won’t be a season in Albuquerque for the Colorado Rockies farm hands, so if an injury occurs or a player is struggling to the point of needing to be demoted, the team will turn to its taxi squad of players for a replacement. So those guys need to be working out, staying in game shape and ready to compete in the big leagues at a moment’s notice.
The Taxi Squad Rockies need a home. Colorado has some outstanding facilities in the organization – and they can’t use any of them for this purpose.
The edict from MLB states that the taxi squad’s home base must be within 100 miles of the big league city. So Albuquerque is out. So is Salt River Fields in Scottsdale…and every other Rockies affiliate home. Isotopes Park is approximately 450 miles from Denver. Grand Junction (Class A affiliate) is about 250. Salt River Fields is more than 850 miles away.
What will the Rockies do?
High School and youth club baseball teams have been trying to find places to play for weeks now. Most of the municipality’s youth fields remain locked up. So are most of the high school and college fields in the area. Some are allowing for practices that have 25 or less participants, but nothing more than that. (Only in Fort Collins did they find a way to salvage any part of the high school season with fields and full squads. Kudos to them!)
Now the Taxi Squad Rockies are in much the same boat: Searching the region for a suitable practice facility for professional baseball players who may or may not play at Coors Field at some point in 2020. Not just any old field will do.
The logical place would be Colorado Springs, the Rockies former Triple A home (now named UC Health Park) which is now home to the Class A team of the Milwaukee Brewers. It’s not being used for anything more than showing movies on the scoreboard and the occasional college summer league game this year, so it should be available.
But the Rockies left Colorado Spring high and very dry back in 2015 when they moved their Triple A affiliation south to a better facility in Albuquerque. There very could be some lingering bad feelings involved in those phone calls. Then again, the folks in Colorado Springs could probably use the influx of revenue they’d get from this. And money talks.
If Colorado Springs doesn’t work out, the next logical place would be the wonderful facility at Metro State U, just off Colfax and I-25. Great playing field with solid work out options surrounding it. It’s just blocks from Coors Field…and it’s not being used much this summer, either.
A difficult position for all the MLB teams to be in for sure. Then again, it’s not the biggest problem they’re facing at the moment, either.
Strike Two: Where were you 10 years ago this month when a virtual earthquake – along with a series of aftershocks – struck college football? Remember how close the Mountain West conference came to joining the big school’s table?
You remember. Rumors about realignment and the expansion of the major college football conferences had been going on for about a year, mostly surrounding the Big Ten. But it was June of 2010 when the stuff hit the fan. The Pac 10 was extending an invitation to six Big 12 schools – Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech – to join. The folks at Baylor University were irate and set out on a mission – even soliciting the help of former Texas Governor Ann Richards, a Baylor alum – to get CU off the lifeboat and have Baylor put on.
That didn’t work out too well for the folks in Waco. Instead, the very first move was Colorado’s announcement that they were leaving the Big 12 to join the Pac 10 (soon to become the Pac 12.) The following day, fellow Big 8/Big 12 charter member Nebraska announced they were bolting to join the Big 10. The break-up of the Big 12 had everything to do with the University of Texas plans to unveil the Longhorn TV network – and UT’s stance on not sharing ANY of that revenue with other conference members. Another break-up over money.
A week later the University of Utah agreed to leave the Mountain West Conference for the greener pastures of the Pac 12. Now both the Pac 12 and Big 10 had 12 members.
But the drama wasn’t over by a long shot. And neither were MW hopes for an upgrade.
That same week, Pac 12 Commissioner Larry Scott remained convinced he was going to bring Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Oklahoma State into the fold as well, creating the country’s first 16-team Super Conference. The on-going ‘negotiations’ remained a poorly kept secret for about a week.
In the meantime, other conferences were on pins and needles. At Mountain West HQ, they anxiously awaited the outcome of the Texas/Pac12 saga, knowing that the full out disintegration of the Big 12 could be at hand. If those four schools bolted, that would leave schools like Kansas, K State, Iowa State, etc. needing a home. The MW was poised to offer membership to the Big 12 orphans, perhaps elevating the MW to power conference status.
All this while Boise State sat on the sidelines, invitation in hand, with the MW telling them to hold the phone…
In the end, the four Big 12 schools stayed put (Scott remains convinced he got played – used for leverage by Texas to ensure they’d get their way regarding their new TV network – telling people around the Pac 12 that he’d never trust anything Texas people told him ever again.) The Mountain West did indeed welcome in Boise State, but would lose BYU (the Cougars made the ill-fated decision to go independent) later that summer, and TCU just over a year later (the Horned Frogs jumped to the revamped Big 12.) Fresno State, Nevada and Utah State would all leave the Western Athletic Conference (which subsequently gave up football) for MW membership while Hawaii came aboard for football only. So the MW did increase to 12 teams, but lost their most marquee members in BYU, TCU and Utah.
It was worth a shot. In the end, the MW had come thisclose to membership in the upper echelon of college athletics. If the four Texas schools had left the Big 12, it’s likely Colorado State. Wyoming and Air Force would have (for a short time, anyway) had conference games in Ames, Iowa and Manhattan, Kansas. How different things could look today.
Strike Three: The recently completed Major League Baseball draft – downsized to five rounds due the pandemic – produced some good results (so say the talent evaluators) for the Colorado Rockies. They added six new players, three each from the college and high school ranks.
A year after drafting only college players, this time the Rockies – evidently feeling better about their organizational depth – shocked observers by picking a pair of high school players in the first round. Outfielder Zac Veen will be one of those early round teenagers than needs five to six years of development in the farm system before he arrives at Coors Field. He’s a long term pick at a position the Rockies feel pretty comfortable with right now, having young All-Star David Dahl in center field.
The other first round (compensatory) pick is a catcher, Drew Romo out of the Houston area. A talented prospect with a great throwing arm and feel for the position, Romo is worth watching given the fact that Colorado has never drafted a catcher that’s had an impact at the big league level. The catching position has been a black hole for the organization…the only position on the diamond where Colorado has never had an All-Star selection.
Will Romo become the first to break this curse?
Scouts love his skill set, his leadership ability and the fact that he’s been a mainstay on some high level USA baseball teams. He’s committed to play college ball at LSU, but first round picks very rarely turn down the opportunity to turn pro. According to talent evaluators, he “checks every box.” We’ll find out.
Second round pick Chris McMahon, a right handed pitcher out of the University of Miami, will probably be the first of this draft class to reach the big league roster, with third round pick, lefty Clemson product Sam Weatherly also in that mix. They’re the closest to being ready at the moment.
But given the Rockies history at the position, Romo is the most intriguing of the 2020 draft prospects.