2015 Season In Review: New Britain Rock Cats

Oct. 14, 2014; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; Colorado Rockies shortstop T. Story plays for the Salt River Rafters during an Arizona Fall League game against the Surprise Saguaros at Salt River Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

2015 Rock Cats: Offense

The good: Trevor Story! Story knocked 20 doubles and 10 homers in 69 games before he was called up to AAA Albuquerque, and let the way on offense for the ball club. Other prospects graced the team this year, too; Jordan Patterson (.286/.342/.503 in 48 games), Tom Murphy (.249/.320/.468 in 72 games), David Dahl (.278/.304/.417 in 73 games interrupted by a spleen injury), and Mike Tauchman (a team leading .294/.355/.381 in 131 games in the outfield) paced the club.

As a whole, though, the Rock Cats didn’t hit very well, and the Eastern League was quite the pitcher’s league. Team-wide, the Rock Cats slashed just .252/.313/.373 with only 82 home runs in 140 games. That line is middle-of-the-road for the Eastern League (7th out of 12 teams).

The bad: A ninth round draft pick out of UCLA in 2013 and fresh off a massive 2014 split between Asheville and Modesto, the Rockies were hoping for quite a bit out of Patrick Valaika as the Rock Cats’ starting shortstop. He underwhelmed at the plate, though, slashing a meager .235/.281/.361 over 468 at-bats in New Britain, and struck out 117 times in 124 games, against just 30 walks.

Other than him, some player news of note: Will Swanner struck out a whopping 126 times in 368 at-bats for the Rock Cats. Although he led the team in home runs (17), his prodigious strike out rate helped cut his slash line down to slightly-above-team-average .260/.343/.455.

[ Related: Trevor Story has won our AAA 2015 Top Prospect Award ]

Noteworthy: David Dahl deserves all the credit in the world for coming back from an incredibly serious spleen injury after an on-field collision for New Britain earlier this year. He ended up slashing .278/.304/.417 in only 73 games due to the recovery from surgery to have his spleen removed, but the former first round draft pick clearly showed the Rockies why they are so high on this Alabama-born outfielder.

Dahl was certainly setback a bit by the spleen injury (perhaps he could’ve spent some time in AAA this year had that not happened), but that setback is only temporary. He’ll have a big opportunity in AAA Albuquerque in 2016, and may even be big league ready by the time the season ends next summer.

Big league ready: Hey, speaking of big-league ready, both Trevor Story and Tom Murphy are proving themselves to be either knocking on the door (in Story’s case), or already in the Majors and fighting for a spot (in Murphy’s case). Story is more or less extremely close to the big leagues, and we’ve written quite a bit about him on this site already.

Other than those two, and Dahl, look out for Jordan Patterson. He’s playing in the Arizona Fall League this next month, and although he may not be quite ready for the big leagues in 2016, he’ll be up very soon in his own right. The Rockies have quite a few very good outfielders who are quickly coming through the system.

Next: The 2015 Rock Cats' Pitching And Defense