Scott Rolen could have been a member of the Colorado Rockies

Yesterday, we started our series looking back on the Colorado Rockies and their draft history of who could have been members of the Rockies in 1992.

Drafts are crucial for teams and especially smaller revenue teams, like the Colorado Rockies, who are rarely big players on the free agent market. Today, we continue with a look at the 1993 draft and how things could have been different for the Colorado Rockies.

The Rockies were in their first year of playing games in 1993 so without a previous history of playing games before the draft order was set, the Florida Marlins and the Rockies had the picks right after the 26 teams that played in 1992. In 1992, the Rockies had the 27th pick so in 1993, the Marlins got the 27th pick and the Rockies the 28th pick.

The 1993 draft was one of the very rare drafts in MLB history that actually saw the best MLB player of the draft go #1 overall. Alex Rodríguez was drafted by the Seattle Mariners with the number one overall pick and by the next year, he was in the majors.

He accumulated a 117.5 rWAR career and, if not for his positive steroid tests much later in his career with the New York Yankees, he would be a sure-fire Hall of Famer, making him only the second first-overall pick to become a Hall of Famer. The other was Rodriguez’s teammate in Seattle: Ken Griffey, Jr.

Other than Alex Rodríguez, there were some other good players that the Colorado Rockies could have drafted Scott Rolen.

Before the Colorado Rockies made their selection in the 1993 draft, there were other future All-Stars like Billy Wagner, Derrek Lee, Chris Carpenter, Torii Hunter, and Jason Varitek, that were drafted in the first round but the MLB success of the players by the 21st pick (Varitek) started to wane. But by far the most successful player in the draft after Alex Rodríguez was Scott Rolen.

Let’s look at some of the players that the Rockies chose and who else could have been a Colorado Rockie.