Rockies Breakout Star Unsurprisingly Named Team's Hidden Gem for This Season

It's been an incredible season for the Colorado Rockies new potential face of the franchise.

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Colorado Rockies have gotten great individual performances from some of their young stars in the past, with Brenton Doyle bursting onto the scene with back-to-back Gold Glove wins in 2023 and 2024 and with Ezequiel Tovar also taking home that award last season.

However, what Hunter Goodman has done this year has felt different, as the rising star catcher is putting together a campaign that could have many people around the baseball world pointing to him as the face of the franchise going forward.

Whether that's because he has blasted moonshot home runs on his way to setting a franchise record for a catcher or whether that's because it feels like he has produced for the entire season in a year that has been disastrous for the team, what Goodman has done in 2025 has been special.

Hunter Goodman Named Rockies' Hidden Gem

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

Maybe what makes Goodman's season feel like this is the fact that it came out of nowhere. While he had made big league appearances the past two years, he didn't do anything that would suggest he'd have a season like this.

And that's largely why Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report has listed Goodman as Colorado's hidden gem of the 2025 campaign after he was projected to have an fWAR of 0.4 for the year.

"Through his first two seasons in the majors, Hunter Goodman was worth a negative-1.5 fWAR ... And after back-to-back years with a sub-.650 OPS in Colorado, that slugger showed up in a big way this season. Currently boasting an .860 OPS, Goodman was Colorado's mandatory representative at the All-Star Game, and he might have been the first choice for backup catcher even if that requirement didn't exist," he wrote.

In his first Major League season as a full-time catcher, Hunter Goodman has set the Rockies single-season record for home runs (29) by a primary catcher. pic.twitter.com/oNDtdfM45A

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) September 7, 2025

Exceeding expectations has been an understatement for what the young slugger has done this year. With a slash line of .277/.323/.527 to go along with 30 homers, 59 extra-base hits, 87 RBIs, an OPS+ of 123 and an fWAR of 3.1, there's a chance he takes home the Silver Slugger Award.

Now, the Rockies look like they have one of the game's rising power hitters in the sport as someone who can anchor this lineup for years to come alongside Doyle, Tovar and the rest of the elite prospects who are coming up their pipeline.

The next step for Goodman will be to maintain his performance this season and keep it rolling in 2026. But there's no doubt that what he's done this year has been special, and he really has emerged as a hidden gem for Colorado.

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