Colorado Rockies roster: Predicting their Opening Day roster

Rockies outfielders (4): Sam Hilliard, Raimel Tapia, Charlie Blackmon, and Yonathan Daza

Chris Owings, Garrett Hampson, and Josh Fuentes (to a lesser extent) will also contribute to the outfield but these four will get most of the starts.

Sam Hilliard broke out in 2019 at the end of the season but struggled mightily in 2020. With David Dahl out of the picture in 2020, Hilliard will likely be the Opening Day center fielder. As with a lot of the Rockies bats, he has to prove that he will be a consistent, MLB bat but with the rebuilding Rockies, he will get plenty of at-bats to showcase it.

Tapia, like Fuentes, seems to like he had some good luck as he hit for a great average but the peripheral numbers in 2020 were well below league average so he still has more to prove. He will likely be the Rockies Opening Day left fielder.

Blackmon is the most proven up the trio, obviously, as he is the longest-tenured MLB player on the Rockies (if Desmond does not return) and the most tenured Rockie.

The Rockies #12 prospect, per MLB.com, Yonathan Daza benefits the most from Desmond opting out as he likely wouldn’t make the team otherwise. Daza, who turns 27 in less than a week, has the speed and definitely showed that he can hit in Triple-A (.364 average with a .952 OPS) but that hasn’t translated in his limited MLB career.