Colorado Rockies: The best players to wear each number (#11-#20)

76 uniform numbers have been worn by Colorado Rockies players in their franchise history.

Recently, we started our series on the best player to wear each uniform for the Colorado Rockies. We started with numbers 0 through 10 and we had a few battles, particularly at #5 (Carlos Gonzalez and Matt Holliday) and #9 (Vinny Castilla and DJ LeMahieu).

Today, we will look at numbers 11-20. There are a few battles but none are at the caliber of those two.

Let’s dive into part two of the series.

Number 11- Brad Hawpe

For the last decade, number 11 has been worn by the Rockies bench coach (first, Tom Runnells and currently, Mike Redmond). It was also worn by Jim Leyland in his lone season as Rockies manager in 1999 and Toby Harrah while he was Buddy Bell‘s bench coach in the early 2000s.

Brad Hawpe was the last player to wear it for the Rockies and also, he is one of only four players to wear it so this was an easy one to decide.

Hawpe played seven seasons with the Rockies and in 816 games, he hit .280/.374/.477 with an OPS+ of 113. He was an All-Star in 2009 and he placed in NL MVP voting in both 2007 and 2009, when the Rockies made the playoffs.

Number 12- Clint Barmes

Clint Barmes wore the number 12 from 2003 through 2006 and again from 2008 through 2010. In 2007, he mainly spent the season in Triple-A Colorado Springs as he only played 27 games at the MLB level.

With the Rockies overall, he played to a 9.3 bWAR but if you exclude 2007, it actually goes up to 9.6. The next closest guys who wore the number and played multiple seasons with the Rockies are Mark Reynolds (3.0 bWAR) and Mike Kingery (1.5 bWAR).

Number 13- Charlie Hayes

Number 13 is another that has often been worn by coaches as Clint Hurdle wore the number from 1997 through 2003 as first base coach/hitting coach and manager and from 2005 until his firing in 2009 (veteran pitcher Jeff Fassero wore it in 2004 and Hurdle flipped his number and went to 31).

Before Hurdle came along, Charlie Hayes wore it and he is still the best player to wear it for the Rockies. In his two seasons as a Rockie (1993-94), he hit .298/.352/.484 with an OPS+ of 106 and a bWAR of 4.1 in 270 games.

Number 14- Andres Galarraga

Here’s another easy one. The only other everyday player or pitcher that has worn the number for multiple seasons is Tony Wolters so Andres Galarraga is the easy choice.

In his five seasons as a Rockie, Galarraga hit .316/.367/.577 in 679 games with an OPS+ of 126. He was an All-Star twice, ranked in the top 16 in MVP voting in all five seasons and top 10 in four of the five, and he won a Silver Slugger Award.

Number 15- Jeff Reed

A lot of players have worn the number in Rockies history and a lot have not lasted long. 15 players have worn the number and only four of them spent more than a season with the Rockies and was an everyday player or pitcher who had more than a cup of coffee.

Those four are Jeff Reed, Denny Neagle, Ben Petrick, and Raimel Tapia and Reed is the winner.

In parts of four seasons with the Rockies as catcher, Reed hit .286/.373/.456 with an OPS+ of 99 and a bWAR of 4.2 in 365 games.

Number 16- Curt Leskanic

This one was a fairly close call as Huston Street also wore the number (3.1 bWAR in 3 seasons) but I’m going with Curt Leskanic.

In the five seasons that he wore #16 (1995-1999), Leskanic pitched exclusively out of the Rockies bullpen and he pitched to a 4.81 ERA (112 ERA+) and a 4.19 FIP and averaged 66 games a season. He also had a bWAR of 6.8 in those five seasons.

Number 17- Todd Helton

There was no doubt on this one. The only other guy to wear the number for the Rockies was David Nied. It was also the first number retired by the Rockies (excluding #42 since it was retired by all of professional baseball for Jackie Robinson on April 15, 1997).

In his 17 year career (all with the Rockies), Todd Helton hit .316/.414/.539 with an OPS+ of 133. He also accumulated 369 home runs and 1406 RBI, for an average of 27 HRs and 101 RBI a season.

He was a five-time All-Star, ranked in MVP voting six times with his fifth-place finish in 2000 being the highest (he should have been way higher when you compare him to the others), he won four Silver Slugger Awards, and won three Gold Gloves.

Number 18- Bruce Ruffin

Bruce Ruffin was on the Rockies pitching staff for the first five years of the franchise’s history. He pitched almost exclusively out of the bullpen and he pitched very well for those pre-humidor Rockies teams. In 246 appearances (321 innings), he pitched to a 3.84 ERA (131 ERA+) and a 3.66 FIP. He also accumulated a total bWAR of 6.8 with the Rockies.

He was one of the Rockies’ most reliable bullpen arms for their playoff run in 1995 and he pitched in all four games for the Rockies in the NLDS.