The 100 Greatest Colorado Rockies: No. 41 Jamey Wright

We continue our look at the top 100 Colorado Rockies of all time in this article. Here, we look at No. 41 on our list, Jamey Wright.

LaTroy Hawkins may be the only former Colorado Rockies pitcher to play for more teams (and play for Colorado twice for that matter) than Jamey Wright. The difference between the two though is Wright is a Colorado Rockies original. He played 19 seasons for 10 teams.

Wright holds on to even rarer numbers. He is one of only 10 pitchers to ever start 200 games and relieve in 400 others.

Wright was drafted in the first round of the inaugural 1993 season out of high school in Oklahoma. By 1995 he was playing for the Colorado Springs Sky Sox and in Denver in 1996.

The biggest contribution Wright brought to the Rockies was innings pitched. The ERA wasn’t his strong suit but to be fair it wasn’t for anybody in Coors Field in the 1990s. He pitched 206.1 innings in 1998 which is near the club record set by Pedro Astacio with 232 innings.

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He was limited to 94 innings in 1999 but oddly enough had the highest WAR of his career at 2.9. This may have foreshadowed what was to come in Wright’s career. He was destined for the bullpen.

Wright made his first move in 2000 to the Milwaukee Brewers where he improved slightly. He would make stops in St. Louis and Kansas City where he frankly didn’t play a lot. That was when Wright moved back to Colorado in 2004. He started the season with the Cubs but didn’t make it to the regular season roster. He then went to the Royals where he only pitched in the minors and was released by July 2004. It was time for Wright to see an old friend.

The rest of the 2004 season with the Rockies, Wright pitched well with a 4.12 ERA and a 1.8 WAR. He back tracked though in 2005 with a 6.25 ERA in 171.1 innings. Wright was on the road again.

Wright would go on to play for seven more teams before he called it a career. He did not pitch in 2015 after the Texas Rangers did not bring them on their opening day roster. From 2005 to 2013 he made a team as a non roster invitee.

He tried to do that one more time with the Dodgers in 2016 but he said in the previously linked Los Angeles Times article his focus wasn’t where it needed to be. He plans taking that focus to Dallas with his family and maybe a career in coaching. He said this about his perseverance in the game.

“The reason I did it was because I loved the game, and I loved to be on that mound,” Wright said. “I wish any baseball fan, any baseball lover, got the opportunity to be on that mound and know what it feels like to stand in front of 50,000 people. I’m starting to cry. Because I loved it that much. I loved it that much.”

Next: Did the Rockies Win or Lose the Tulowitzki Trade?

For someone that dedicated to the game, it was a treat to have Jamey Wright be a Colorado Rockies original. Even better to see that pitcher play in Colorado twice.