Colorado Rockies prospect rankings, pre-season 2026: Numbers 46-41

After revealing the players who appeared on a single ballot yesterday, it’s time to write about some players that were named on multiple ballots but who fell short from Honorable Mention Purple Row Prospect (PuRP) status in the pre-season 2026 voting. Today, I’ll reveal the first six names in this category and tomorrow the other five will have write-ups.

For each player, I’ll include a link to individual stats and contract status (via Baseball-Reference), as well as notes on their 2025 season. For the sake of full disclosure, I’ll also include where I put each player on my personal ballot. All ages are as of the day the article is posted.

Multi-Ballot Players

46. Blake Wright (3.1 points, 2 ballots) — the 23-year-old third baseman was Colorado’s fourth-round pick in 2024 as a senior out of Clemson (he was a two-time captain and Golden Spikes semifinalist), signing for an under-slot $250k. In his platform draft year in the ACC, the 6’0” slugger hit a strong .340/.383/.652 with 22 homers among his 34 extra base hits in 285 PA.

Wright had a professional cameo at Low-A Fresno in 2024 and was assigned back there to begin 2025, where he was 1.7 years older than league average. In Fresno, Wright’s .297/.370/.370 line in 288 PA included three homers among his 11 extra-base hits, which was good enough for a 111 wRC+. Wright was promoted to High-A Spokane in early July, where he was still above league average age (0.7 years older). He was slightly below average offensively in Spokane, posting a 91 wRC+ with a .255/.301/.443 line in 232 PA, though he more than doubled his extra-base hit totals from Low-A in fewer plate appearances. Defensively, Wright has 14 errors in 101 games, most of which have come at third base (but he also played a decent amount at second).

While the power surge in Spokane is encouraging, Wright has yet to distinguish himself in the system. What’s interesting here isn’t the raw power (which tends more towards doubles), it’s the bat-to-ball skills. Wright struck out only 79 times in over 450 at-bats this year. In a system that often feels like it’s populated entirely by “Three-True-Outcome” projects, a guy who puts the ball in play 83% of the time is a breath of fresh air.

The concern is the age-to-level math. Wright will turn 24 next month, so while his .744 OPS in Spokane is perfectly respectable, you generally want to see a 4th-round college senior dominating High-A a bit more thoroughly. If he doesn’t start turning those doubles into home runs as he reaches Double-A this season, he risks being labeled as “org depth” rather than a future big-league regular. That’s currently where I’ve got him pegged as a 35 FV player.

45. Matt Klein (3.4 points, 3 ballots) — the 21-year-old lefty-hitting, righty-throwing catcher was Colorado’s sixth round pick in the 2025 draft out of Louisville, signing for a $425k bonus that was $25k above slot. Klein was plagued by injuries during his time at Louisville, limiting him to only 87 games across three years, including a broken left forearm in March.

However, Klein played the hero, returning in time for Louisville’s regional and homering twice in two games to propel them to a third place finish at the College World Series. When Klein was healthy, he was productive for Louisville, posting a .303/.413/.500 line with nine HR among his 29 XBH in 311 PA across his three seasons there while striking out less than he walked in his draft year.

MLB Pipeline ranked Klein 224th overall in the draft as a 40 FV player:

[Klein] has enough hitting ability and defensive acumen to project as a big league backup. A left-handed hitter, Klein makes consistent contact to all fields and proved himself with wood bats by hitting .375 in 25 games in the Cape Cod League last summer. He doesn’t try to do too much at the plate and rarely misses fastballs, though changeups and sliders can give him trouble. He generates a lot of groundballs, so he may top out at 10-12 homers per season unless he learns to lift the ball more regularly.

Klein runs well for a catcher but isn’t much of a factor on the bases. He gets the job done behind the plate, had no issues handling the high-octane stuff of Louisville ace Patrick Forbes and makes accurate throws with average arm strength. Scouts also love his leadership ability and intelligence, and he needed just three years to graduate with a management degree.

Keith Law of the Athletic wrote about Klein after the draft:

Louisville catcher Matt Klein (6) played 33 games around a broken arm this spring, hitting about as well as he had as a sophomore, with a low strikeout rate (11 percent) and below-average power. He has a chance to be a second-division regular and probably would have gone a round or two higher if he’d played the full spring.

The underlying profile of Klein is a left-handed hitting catcher with legitimate bat-to-ball skills and a “gamer” reputation (a 35 FV player for me). Defensively, he’s a high-IQ receiver behind the plate. His arm won’t wow you (runners went 13-for-17 against him in 2025), but he’s accurate and mobile enough to stick behind the plate. Klein hasn’t had much of a chance to show that as a pro — he only had a seven game teaser in Fresno in 2025 — but he’ll be in line to lead Spokane’s catchers this year if he stays healthy. (You can read more about Klein in Evan Lang’s profile from instructs.)

44. Tanner Thach (3.9 points, 3 ballots) — the 21-year-old first baseman has big-league bloodlines, as he is the great-nephew of Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter. After setting the UNC-Wilmington single season homer record with 27 in 2024, the 6’4” lefty only hit 12 homers in 2025. However, Thach’s .325/.409/.538 line was enough for the Rockies to make him their 8th round pick in 2025, signing for an above slot $325k bonus.

Thach is a first baseman defensively through and through, so he’ll need to be a big bopper. On a positive note, Thach is known for his all fields power, bat speed, and his ability to handle elite velocity, which is often the first hurdle for college hitters moving to the pros. The concern is the “barrel tip” in his swing. It creates natural loft but adds length, making him vulnerable to quality breaking stuff.

In Thach’s 18-game debut with Fresno, he showed a more refined approach than his college chase rates suggested, walking at a 10% clip and finishing the year on a tear with a 1.300 OPS over his final week in September. In 80 plate appearances, Thach hit .279/.375/.397 with two homers (120 wRC+) as a league average age player.

MLB.com ranks Thach 27th in the system as a 40 FV player with 55 power (after ranking him 151st in the draft):

Thach packs plenty of strength into his 6-foot-4, 225-pound frame and also has enough bat speed to do damage against velocity. He generates high exit velocities and his well-above-average raw power works to all parts of the ballpark, though he rarely uses the opposite field. While he doesn’t strike out excessively, teams exploited his tendency to chase pitches this past spring, and he has trouble doing damage against breaking pitches.

Thach has bottom-of-the-scale speed but is a better athlete than that might indicate. He plays a decent first base and has pitched on occasion. His fastball sits around 90 mph and he complements it with a low-80s slider.

The bat has to do the heavy lifting for Thach as a prospect (he’s a 35 FV player in my eyes). If he can tap into that 2024 power stroke next season in Fresno and/or Spokane, he’ll stay on the radar.

43. Benny Montgomery (4.3 points, 3 ballots) — the 23-year-old righty outfielder was Colorado’s first rounder in 2021, getting a $5 million bonus out of high school. What was seen as a risky pick at the time on a potential star player with a big hitch in his swing hasn’t broken the way the Rockies wanted. Montgomery, as evaluated by scouts before he was drafted, possessed three plus tools (run, arm, field) with above-average power and athleticism that would keep the righty in center field defensively. It’s another reminder that the hit tool is the most important one though.

Montgomery’s spotty health hasn’t helped matters either. His pro career has been limited to just 282 games in his five professional seasons by injuries including a knee in 2023 and a shoulder in 2024 that cut short his Double-A debut after just 48 plate appearances. He was assigned back to Double-A Hartford in 2025, where he was 1.6 years younger than average.

Unfortunately, the swing and miss exacerbated by a timing issue in his swing load was again a big problem, as Montgomery has struck out in 36.5% of his plate appearances (walking in 8%). Those strikeouts led to a .201/.274/.263 batting line with four homers in 355 PA (60 wRC+). Outside of a two-week IL stint in early June, Montgomery was relatively healthy, but he just didn’t hit Double-A pitching. In the outfield, he played more right than center with a few games in left, committing one error with one outfield assist.

Montgomery is hanging out in 41st place in the system for Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs before the 2025 season as a 35+ FV player with plus speed and raw power but a 20 hit tool:

Montgomery went to Puerto Rico for winter ball after the [2024] season, and though he had clearly spent a lot of his rehab in the weight room, his swing is still noisy and odd. Montgomery’s added mass hasn’t cost him much speed, but he’s still a tentative and clumsy defender in center field. Missing 2024 reps because of his injury really stings. Rust accumulates with months off, and Montgomery is returning from a severe injury he suffered while playing defense; it’s fair to give him time to get comfortable out there. Still, even if he does, I fear it will be rendered moot by the lack of functionality in Benny’s swing. He’s a 64% contact rate guy combined in 2023 and 2024 (Cactus League, Clemente League, scraps from Hartford), which is a pretty scary number. Because he’s so young and physically impressive, and plays hard, Montgomery is still a prospect, but it doesn’t appear he’s going to actualize his tools into real production without a swing overhaul.

The theory when Montgomery was drafted is that he is the kind of rangy defensive player whose power/speed combination would make him an ideal fit for Coors Field. The problem is the contact profile. At altitude, you can survive a lot of things, but you can’t survive a 30% strikeout rate if you aren’t hitting the ball 450 feet. Montgomery’s flat swing path doesn’t generate natural loft, and the shoulder injuries have made it harder for him to drive the ball to the opposite field. For Montgomery to be a big leaguer, he has to prove he can hit for enough average to let his speed play.

Montgomery is firmly in the “post-hype” phase of his career, having been passed over in the Rule 5 draft and having been lost in the outfield shuffle entering 2026. There’s still room for a breakout, but I’m not holding my breath and the Rockies have a mob of early MLB career or upper minors outfielders who seem more obvious candidates for playing time and roster spots at this point. Montgomery (who is a 35 FV player right now in my eyes) will need to stand out in 2026, likely back at Hartford, to get back on the PuRPs radar by mid-season.

42. Cade Denton (6.0 points, 3 ballots) — the 6’3” 24-year-old right-hander was one of the most acclaimed relievers in the 2023 MLB Draft when the Rockies took Denton in the sixth round out of Oral Roberts University and signed him for an over-slot (by $163k) bonus of $500k. Denton had faded a bit into the background though as a pro until he blew the doors off the Arizona Fall League this year, and was named both as a Fall Star and as the Reliever of the Year in the league. Facing elite competition, Denton found another gear, striking out 18 batters in 10.2 innings with a 0.85 WHIP and showing ride on his mid-90s fastball that he didn’t show consistently during the regular season.

After a 2024 spent at three levels that was marred by shoulder weakness, Denton spent all of the 2025 regular season in High-A Spokane, where he was of league average age. In 42 games, Denton threw 50 2/3 innings with a 3.73 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 11.2 K/9 rate, and 3.6 BB/9 rate with seven saves. Those were reasonable but not outstanding numbers for a pitcher who was supposed to be a quick mover through the system and there had been reason to think his stuff has backed up since signing.

Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs listed Denton as a prospect of note last January due to a downtick in 2024 velocity vs. his draft year:

Denton was a dominant low-slot reliever at Oral Roberts whose fastball lost two ticks and sat 92 in 2024. At 93-96 with uphill angle and tail, he looks like a nasty righty specialist; at 90-94, he looks like a fringe prospect.

Denton is a sinker/slider specialist who attacks from a low three-quarters arm slot, creating a difficult angle for right-handed hitters. That sinker-heavy profile is a good fit for Coors Field, but his flat slider is a concern. Denton is another guy on the pile of relief arms amassing in the system (I put a 35 FV grade on him) and will probably be up in Double-A late this year or to begin 2026. If his AFL form holds up though and if the Rockies need as many relievers as they usually do, Denton could find himself at Coors by the time the season is done.

41. Yeiker Reyes (7.3 points, 3 ballots) — the 20-year-old outfielder was one of the Rockies’ top international signees ($500k bonus) along with Robert Calaz in their 2023 class. Reyes only spent one year in the DSL and one in the complex league before making his full-season debut this year with Low-A Fresno, where he was 2.2 years younger than league average. The 6’0” lefty-hitting, righty-throwing Reyes is a speedy player with good plate discipline who is adjusting to full season ball.

Reyes is one of the fastest players in the organization and he led Fresno with 33 stolen bases in 2025. However, as we often see when teenagers jump to full-season ball, the bat lagged behind. Reyes struggled with the more advanced sequencing of California League pitchers, and his strikeout rate ballooned as he searched for a consistent approach. He’s a left-handed hitter with a “slap-and-dash” mentality, but when you aren’t making contact 25% of the time, the dash never gets to happen.

In 381 plate appearances, Reyes hit .222/.317/.277 with two homers (his first in his professional career) and 33 steals in 42 attempts (75 wRC+) while mostly playing center field defensively (plus a few games in the other two slots). Reyes walked in over 11% of his plate appearances, but also struck out over a quarter of the time.

Longenhagen of FanGraphs assigns Reyes a 40 grade, ranking him 24th in the system with a 55 future grade on his hit tool, including a 70 grade on his pitch selection:

Reyes is a skills-over-tools center field prospect with some catalytic qualities and deficient present power. He slashed .266/.392/.328 in the Complex League in 2024. Perhaps Reyes’ most impressive skill is his plate discipline, which is steely even with two strikes. He’s also a plus runner, plays good center field defense, and bunts well. Though he’s of medium build and likely to add a fair bit of strength as he matures, Reyes is currently so lacking in power that it’s tough to forecast him for enough pop to play every day. Instead, he has the skills of a good extra outfielder à la Michael Siani or Myles Straw.

Per that report, Reyes seems like a high floor player due to his hit tool and defensive utility, though as more of a reserve given the lack of power. After all, a player with great plate discipline still isn’t a high impact player if he can’t make pitchers pay for mistakes. I have Reyes, who will likely begin 2026 back in Fresno, as a 35+ FV player because of the floor, but he was just off my list.

Tune back in tomorrow to see more multi-ballot players!

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