Colorado Rockies: Three breakout candidates for 2019

David Dahl

Ah, the curious case of David Dahl. Originally drafted by the Rockies in the first round (No. 10 overall) in 2012 out of high school from Alabama, Dahl has never quite put everything together. By no means is he a bust pick, but he just hasn’t been able to stay healthy for a full year. If he does, oh boy, could he be something special.

We saw flashes with Dahl in the majors in 2016, and he performed even better this past season, but it’s still just a 140-game sample between the two seasons in the majors, and with a season completely lost to injury smashed in between.

Colorado Rockies

He landed on the DL in 2018 for a month and a half with a broken foot, so we’re just waiting for the healthy season to come about in the majors. His only true fully healthy year happened in 2016, where he played 155 games between Double-A (76), Triple-A (16) and the majors (63), and all he did was hit 25 home runs, 39 doubles, eight triples, drive in 85 runs, score 112 runs, steal 22 bases and, on top of it all, his triple slash was .314/.379./.541. When healthy, he’s a bonafide stud.

Even in his injury-shortened season last year, where he never really got his feet under him until mid- to late August, he hit 16 home runs in just 249 at-bats in the majors, including nine in September alone, where we saw him hit one in six of seven games, including five in a row.

Dahl also has a good chance, with a full season, to be a 20-20 player. That may not seem like a big deal, but do you know how many players had 20-20 seasons last year? Ten. The Rockies had two of them in Ian Desmond and Trevor Story. Of the other eight, six were All-Stars. Also, he’s a plus defender, posting a .990 fielding percentage in about 1,000 innings of work in the major leagues.

He’s the pinnacle of breakout candidates for Colorado and, if David Dahl can play a full season, it’s not a guess on whether he will or won’t … because he will.

Let me know you think could have a big year for the Rockies in 2019 on Twitter @tysoncrocker2!

Note: Statistics from baseballreference.com