Colorado Rockies: Some of the best Albuquerque Isotopes in 2019

The Colorado Rockies PR team recently released their minor league review for the entire Rockies minor league system so we will take a look back at some of best players on the 2019 Isotopes.

Much like their parent club this year, the Albuquerque Isotopes struggled mightily in their league. Unlike the Colorado Rockies, though, the Isotopes actually finished the season with the most losses in the Pacific Coast League with a 60-80 record, which was 23 games behind first placed Las Vegas.

It was a poor enough season that manager Glenallen Hill was fired at the end of the season.

However, much like the Rockies, even though they did not have a good season, they still had a few shining stars. The Isotopes had four mid-season All-Stars, including infielders Roberto Ramos and Pat Valaika as well as outfielders Yonathan Daza and Sam Hilliard. Daza and Hilliard were also PCL post-season All-Stars.

Ramos was second on the Isotopes with 30 home runs and led the team with 105 RBI in 127 games. He also hit .309/.400/.580 on the season.

While Valaika struggled at the major league level in 2019 in his brief stints, he hit 22 home runs and had 75 RBI with a .320/.364/.589 slash line.

Daza, in 89 games, broke the Isotopes team batting average record set by Joe Dillon in 2005 (Dillon is now the assistant hitting coach for the NL champion Washington Nationals). Daza hit .364 and hit safely in 71 of his 89 games and 49 of those 71 games were multi-hit games.

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Hilliard, who made his MLB debut with the Rockies in 2019, led the Isotopes with 35 homers, which is the second most in Isotopes history and the most since the Isotopes have been a Rockies affiliate. His 101 RBI was also second on the team, only behind the aforementioned Ramos.

On the pitching front, Tim Melville, who wasn’t even signed by the Rockies until May 3 and was called up to the Rockies on August 21, led the Isotopes in wins with 10. That’s the most since Ryan Carpenter recorded 10 wins in 2017.

The last time an Isotopes pitcher had more than 10 wins was all the way back in 2012 when they were a Dodgers affiliate. John Ely, Stephen Fife, and Derrick Loop all recorded between 11 and 14 wins. The last time a Rockies pitcher had more than 10 wins in a season at the Triple-A level was all the way back in 2004 when Chris Gissell went 14-2 in 24 appearances (8 starts) for the 78-65 Colorado Springs Sky Sox.

Jeff Hoffman also led the team with 98 strikeouts. This is the third season out of the last four that Hoffman had led the team in that category. In 2019, he also surpassed the previous Isotopes all-time strikeout holder as he now has 364 K’s with the Isotopes. He passed John Ely, who had 360 in his time with the team when they were a Dodgers affiliate.

Hopefully Hoffman and the others will start to see some of their success translate to the major league level in 2020.