Colorado Rockies: Top Five Center Fielders in Franchise History

We continue our countdown of the top five Colorado Rockies at each position by continuing on with center fielders.

The Colorado Rockies have not had many center fielders stick around for many seasons. In fact, they have only had two players be the “primary” center fielder for more than two seasons, meaning that they played the most games there.

For this list, we are just considering the player’s time as a Rockie. For some of them, they played multiple outfield positions in their tenure so they will be eligible for all the positions. We also consulted Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs for their WAR numbers on players. While it is a good barometer for evaluating players, it is not the be-all, end-all for the rankings. You can check out some of those other lists here.

Let’s check out the top five Colorado Rockies center fielders in franchise history.

Number 5- Mike Kingery (1.5 bWAR, 1.4 fWAR, two seasons as a Rockie)

Mike Kingery was the Rockies’ primary center fielder in 1994 and in 1995. He had previously played for the Giants, Mariners, and A’s in the majors but he came to the Rockies after the 1993 season in which he played exclusively in Triple-A for the Royals.

His magnificent 1994 season at the plate is the primary reason that he is on this list. In 1994, he hit .349/.402/.532 with an OPS+ of 126 in the strike=shortened season. He also had a WAR of 1.5 in that season.

He was around replacement level for the playoff-bound Rockies in 1995 as his batting average dropped 80 points and his OPS dropped more than 170 points as well.

Recently, Rox Pile’s Kevin Henry caught up with Kingery and talked with him about his career and what’s he’s doing now.