Rockies join prospect party by calling up Brendan Rodgers

Highly-touted prospects are being called up on virtually a daily basis now, and the Colorado Rockies have promoted Brendan Rodgers.

Now that service time concerns are in the rearview mirror, top prospects are being promoted to the big leagues across baseball. The Colorado Rockies are joining the party, with Thomas Harding of MLB.com reporting Brendan Rodgers will be called up in time for Friday night’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Rodgers has played 25 games at second base for Triple-A Albuquerque so far this season, with six games at shortstop and three games at third base. The Rockies demoted second baseman Garrett Hampson to Triple-A earlier this week, and on Wednesday night shortstop Trevor Story suffered a knee injury after colliding with left fielder Ramiel Tapia.

Story told reporters he only has a bruised knee, but it’s safe to assume the Rockies will give him a day or two off if there’s any issue. So Rodgers may play some shortstop initially, before settling in mostly at second base.

MLB.com had Rodgers as the No. 10 prospect in baseball heading into this season, and Baseball America (No. 14) and Baseball Prospectus (No. 22) ranked him highly as well. He hit .330 with 17 home runs and 67 RBI between Double-A and Triple-A last year, and so far this year he has a .356/.421/.644 slash-line with nine home runs, 10 doubles and 21 RBI over 152 plate appearances. Since April 11, he has hit .382 (42-for-110) with eight home runs, 18 extra base hits and 1.152 OPS.

Even allowing for inflated Triple-A numbers across the board and the elevation in Albuquerque, those are some nice offensive numbers.

The Rockies got nothing offensively from Hampson (.194/.224/.269 slash-line, six RBI, one stolen base), which brought his demotion. The corresponding move to sending Hampson down was promoting infielder Pat Valaika. But it seemed like a matter of time before Rodgers was called up, and just a couple days later that time has come.