It All Begins With The Asheville Tourists

I was browsing thru the Colorado Rockies Top Prospects List this morning (according to ColoradoRockies.com) and and I noticed that 9 out of the top 10 Rockies prospects had spent time with the Asheville Tourists. In fact, all but about 4 or 5 of the Top 20 had passed thru Asheville. There are several that have made it to AAA Colorado Springs including former 2009 First Round Draft Pick and #11 overall, Left-handed pitcher Tyler Matzek. He is listed as the Rockies #12 overall prospect. He had two different stints in Asheville in 2010-11 and compiled a 10-5 record in 30 starts for the Tourists. He has made it to AAA Colorado Springs and is 1-0 in 4 starts with a solid ERA. He has spent his entire minor league career as a starter but it seems that his future with the Rockies might be coming out of the bullpen from the reports that I have read. The Rockies had him coming out of the bullpen with moderate success in the Arizona Fall League. Control has always been Matzek's problem with a career walk of average of over 5 per 9 innings. Left-Handed pitchers, relievers or starters, are a hot commodity in major league baseball and if you have the ability to get left-handed batters out, you can usually work your way onto a major league roster somewhere. Even though it seems like he has been around in the Rockies system forever, Matzek is only 23 years old and he is only one step and figuring out the strike zone away from realizing every kid's dream of playing in the major leagues. It all started with the Asheville Tourists.

Dan's Asheville Tourists Blog: How Long Will They Stay?

Dan's Asheville Tourists Blog: How Long Will They Stay?: The problem with being a "Low A" baseball team is that if a team has any top prospects at thisd level, then they will probably not...

How Long Will They Stay?

The problem with being a "Low A" baseball team is that if a team has any top prospects at thisd level, then they will probably not be there for a season if they even last that long. Such is the case with one of the Colorado Rockies top prospects, Ryan McMahon. He has 8 homeruns and 15 RBI's in 60 at bats and 18 games with the Tourists although their schedule has been very home heavy to start the season. Starter Johendi Jiminian is off to a great start with a 3-1 record and a 1.27 ERA. The Asheville Tourists are not off to as great a start with only a 9-10 record but they are only 2 1/2 games out of first in the Southern Division in the South Atlantic League. The Colorado Rockies bypass Asheville when it comes to sending them their top prospects. A lot of bad habits can be developed in McCormick Field because of the short dimensions. Pitchers become afraid to pitch inside because those inside fastballs can quickly be turned around and the power hitters start trying to pull everything to take advantage of those short dimensions. When I saw the Asheville Tourists Opening Day Roster for 2014 I was not that impressed with the credentials of their pitching staff. A lot of Free Agent signees at this level of baseball are ordinarily roster fillers and what most organizations like to refer to as "organizational depth." The Asheville Tourists have a team ERA of 4.03 which is about a half run ahead of last years pace. Maybe there is something to be said for orgnizational depth after all.

The 2014 Asheville Tourists

The Asheville Tourists announced their 2014 Opening Day Roster today and the Tourists have four of the Colorado Rockies Top 20 Prospects, as listed on Coloradorockies.com, on their roster to start the season. Three of the four are Outfielders as #2 David Dahl, #18 Max White, and #19 Raimel Tapia all made the roster. Dahl and White spent some time with the Tourists last season. The #15 prospect and newcomer to the Tourists, Third Baseman Ryan McMahon, was also placed on the roster. It is interesting to note that none of the Rockies top pitching prospects made the Opening Day roster. Pitchers Trent Blank and Matt Carasiti also spent time with the Tourists last season as did Infielder Zach Osborne and Catcher Jose Briceno. The Coaching staff, led by Manager Fred Ocasio, returned intact with the exception of new Pitching Coach Mark Brewer, who has 20 years experience as a Pitching Coach in various Major League organizations. He replaces the Pitching Coach from the past couple of years, Joey Eischen. The Tourists open up the 2014 season at home on a Thirsty Thursday against the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Baltimore Orioles low Class A team.

Another Former Tourist On The National Stage

Former Asheville Tourist Juan Uribe came up big on the national stage when he hit the game winning two run homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers series clinching 4-3 win over the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS. Uribe spent the 1999 season with the Asheville Tourists batting .267 with 9 homeruns and 46 RBI's. He was a Shortstop when he played for Asheville and committed 38 errors in his lone season there. He first appeared for Colorado in 2001 and was in the majors for good in 2002. He has fashioned a 13 year career in the majors and the homerun stroke really didn't appear until he became a member of the Chicago White Sox. He has had four 20+ homerun seasons (those with the Chicago White Sox and San Francisco Giants). He has won World Series titles with the 2005 Chicago White Sox and the 2010 San Francisco Giants so he is no stranger to the big stage. He has primarily played third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers for the past three seasons. He had a comeback season this year with the Dodgers batting .278 with 12 homeruns and 50 Rbi's after only batting .204 with 4 homeruns and 28 RBI's in 2011 and .191 with 2 homeruns and 17 RBI's in 2012 in two mostly injury filled seasons.

Todd Helton

Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies announced his retirement from Major League Baseball yesterday, effective at the end of the season. Todd Helton started his professional career with the 1995 Asheville Tourists after being a First Round, Pick #8, by the Colorado Rockies out of the University of Tennessee. He played 54 games for the Tourists after he signed with the Rockies and he hit .254 with only one homerun and 15 RBI's in 201 at bats. It was a unremarkable debut by a First Round Draft Pick with such high expectations. The real star of the 1995 Tourists was Outfielder Derrick Gibson who hit 32 homeruns and drove in 115. Todd Helton was on the fast track to the Rockies, however, and he was in Colorado to stay by 1998. He exhibited much more power in Colorado and hit 25 Homeruns and drove in 97 to finish 2nd in the Rookie of the Year balloting that season. He played 17 seasons in the majors, all with the Colrado Rockies, and has a career Batting Average of .317 with 367 Homeruns and 1397 RBI's in 2235 games to date. Those are Hall Of Fame worthy numbers. He appeared in one World Series with Colorado in 2007 against the Boston Red Sox. He went 5 for 15 with one RBI in that Series. The Boston Red Sox swept them in 4 games. Derrick Gibson made it to Colorado for a total of 17 games in 1998-99. His career totals were 14 for 49 for a .286 average with 2 homeruns and 8 RBI's. He spent a total of 14 seasons in the minors. I remember watching both of them play that season and the comparison between those two players is proof of how fickle a career in baseball can be. I remember being in awe of Gibson's raw baseball skills and I kept waiting on Helton to show me anything outside of being a First Round bust. It is a good thing I am not a baseball scout.

Turn Out The Lights

The Asheville Tourists turned out the lights on the 2013 season after yesterday's 6-2 Labor Day loss to the Augusta Greenjackets. That was a continuation of Sunday night's suspended game and there was an announced crowd of over 6,200 people. The Tourists scored their first run in the bottom of the second inning on a wild pitch and David Bergin tied the game at 2 with an RBI double in the sixth. Jayson Aquino (0-9) couldn't hold the lead and gave up four runs in the seventh to make the final score 6-2. The Tourists and Greenjackets did not bother playing the regularly scheduled game for reasons unbeknownst to me. The Tourists really took their lumps in the second half of the season to the tune of a 25-43 record and last place in the South Atlantic League standings. The offense struggled to score runs down the stretch and that was a big contributing factor to their record in the second half, an opinion that was shared by Tourists Manager Fred Ocasio in an article in the Asheville Citizen-Times last week.