Colorado Rockies: Who should be an All-Star for the Rox?

Somehow two months have already gone by in the 2022 season. After a great start, the road grind is starting to catch up with the Colorado Rockies. Injuries to their star player Kris Bryant have not helped matters. In any other year, this article might be a very short one and Bryant would be the automatic pick for the Rockies All-Star selection. He played at Coors Field in his fourth All-Star appearance just last year as a member of the Chicago Cubs. Unfortunately he’s only been in 17 games this year.

So who is the Colorado Rockies best candidate so far to make the 2022 All-Star Game?

The Colorado Rockies only had one player represent the club last year and that was Germán Márquez. He had a great first half but started to slow down toward the end of last season. Without much prep time after the lockout, he hasn’t been able to pull out of it, going 1-5 with a 6.30 ERA. Kyle Freeland is in a similar boat and left his last start early with an injury that (luckily for the Rockies) shouldn’t impact him moving forward.

Ryan McMahon was a legitimate threat to make the roster last year and, by all intents and purposes, Mac should have been an All-Star last year. He had the glove and bat to back it up and he was in the unenviable position of filling the crater-sized hole at third base. For whatever reason, this has been the year he has struggled. The uncharacteristic errors were the most puzzling aspect of his game so far this season. He’s playing better of late, but we can’t look at the usual suspects if we are going to find our Rockies All-Star this year.

It should be noted that it’s good to see Charlie Blackmon get some power back in his swing with seven homers so far. Connor Joe is a nice table-setter better than anything we or our siblings could even dream of before Thanksgiving. Yonathan Diaz needs to get way more love than he is getting also. He has the highest team batting average by far at .359, a .409 OBP and and .826 OPS. His career averages are .283, .334, and .679 respectively. It’s been very fun to watch.

Sorry to break every rule of journalism here and burry the lede, but the unequivocal answer to who should be the Rockies’ All-Star representative come July is none other than C.J. Cron. Say what you will about Colorado’s ability to sign and keep marquee free agents, but they have a brilliant way of finding another team’s castaways and turning them into treasure. Cron only played 13 games in the pandemic-shortened season for Detroit in 2020 before Colorado signed him to a minor league deal. It turned out to be a steal.

Cron had a great season last year, going .281/.375/.530 with 28 homers and a career-high 92 RBIs. This year, he’s batting  .307 with a .933 OPS and 37 RBIs in 47 games. He has hit 14 homers, already which is tied for fourth in the league with some guy named Mike Trout. If he made the All-Star game it’d be the first time a Rockies first baseman has earned a selection since Todd Helton did it last in 2004. Helton retired nearly a decade ago and Rockies fans know how difficult it has been to find consistency at that position ever since. The club finally seems to have it.