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.

The Colorado Rockies drafted Jamey Wright with their first round pick in the 1993 draft

In the first round of the 1993 Draft, the Colorado Rockies selected a right-handed pitcher out of high school in Oklahoma: Jamey Wright.

Wright had a signing bonus of $395,000 and by 1996, he was in the majors with the Rockies. He had mixed success with the Rockies in parts of six seasons (5.40 ERA in 140 games, 132 of which were starts, and an ERA+ of 95) but he pitched in the majors for parts of 19 seasons.

He was with the Rockies in two stints (1996-1999 and 2004-2005). The Rockies traded him to Milwaukee after the ’99 season in a three-team deal for Milwaukee third baseman Jeff Cirillo and a trade chain started with that.

Cirillo was great in a Rockies uniform but was only with Colorado for two years before being traded to Seattle for (among others) reliever Brian Fuentes.

Fuentes was a three-time All-Star for the Rockies and was an integral part of the 2007 Rockies that won the National League so despite Wright not being great in six seasons as a Rockie (5.5 rWAR), the pick paid off for the Rockies, even if by proxy.

Also, at least in the first round, Wright was the best major leaguer remaining. The only MLB player drafted after Wright in the first round in 1993 with an rWAR above 1.0 was third baseman Kevin Orie.

But a high second-round pick could have been a member of the Rockies and he could be a future Hall of Famer.

Scott Rolen could have been a member of the Colorado Rockies

With the fourth pick of the second round, the Philadelphia Phillies selected Scott Rolen out of high school in Indiana. As with most teams, he would have been good on the Colorado Rockies.

But in the years that Rolen blossomed with the Phillies and, later, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Colorado Rockies had Vinny Castilla at third base.

When Rolen was drafted, Castilla was a shortstop but he was struggling at the position both offensively and defensively. That’s why in the 1993-1994 offseason, the Rockies signed Walt Weiss as a free agent.

Rolen made his debut in 1996 but won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 1997 when Castilla was firmly cemented at third base, where he flourished, and Weiss was entering his final season as a Rockie but neither are future Hall of Famers when Rolen could be.

Castilla and Weiss combined for an rWAR of 35.9 and Rolen had an rWAR of nearly double that (70.1).

Later in the second round, the Rockies took a right-handed starting pitcher out of Bradley University in Bryan Rekar. Rekar got to the majors quickly as he made his debut in 1995 and he made 15 appearances (14 starts) but he didn’t have a great career overall (1.9 rWAR in parts of eight seasons).

But considering the picks following Rekar with the three remaining second round picks and most of the third round picks, it was not as bad of a pick as you may think.

The Colorado Rockies did have one more good draft pick in the 7th round.

The fifth round was even worse as not a single player in the round had a positive rWAR career. The major leaguer who appeared in more than 40 games was catcher Paul Bako, who was a backup catcher in the majors for parts of 12 seasons with a -1.2 rWAR. The Colorado Rockies had the last pick in the fourth round and selected Mike Zolecki.

Zolecki was out of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas and he never got above Double-A and was out of baseball after the 1998 season.

From the sixth round on, there weren’t a ton of great major leaguers that came in the draft but they included:

• Mark Loretta, 7th round, Milwaukee
• John Thomson, 7th round, Colorado
• R.A. Dickey, 10th round, Detroit (didn’t sign)
• Jermaine Dye, 17th round, Atlanta
• Richie Sexson, 24th round, Cleveland
• Paul Lo Duca, 25th round, Dodgers

Thomson was the Rockies best overall pick of the ’93 draft over his whole career (12.3 rWAR). He had 7.9 of that rWAR with the Rockies but he struggled with some injuries in his career, including with the Rockies, that hampered his potential.

But for the Rockies, the best player that they could have chosen, by far, was Scott Rolen, if they decided to move him up 18 picks from where the Phillies ended up taking him.

Next, we will take a look at the 1994 Draft and who could have been members of the Colorado Rockies.