Intriguing Rockies Prospect Should Get First Taste of Pro Baseball This Season

The Colorado Rockies drafted a pitcher last July who didn’t have much of a college profile but has real potential.

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The attention last July was on Ethan Holliday and rightly so. But the Colorado Rockies did draft other players.

Holiday was the Rockies’ first round pick at No. 4 overall, and he made an immediate impact on both the field and on the profile of the organization. After all, he is a son of one of the most recognized Rockies players of all time, Matt Holliday.

Between Holliday and 2024 first-round pick Charlie Condon, the Rockies feel encouraged by their ability to add slugging to their lineup and quality defense in the field in the next couple of years. But Colorado still needs pitching that can cut through the thin air at Coors Field 81 times a year.

So, in the fourth round, the Rockies took a chance on a right-hander out of California named Riley Kelly, who may rise quickly if he can stay healthy.

Riley Kelly as a Rockies Prospect

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Before college, he better known as a two-sport athlete at Tustin High School in California as he played quarterback and pitched. He chose baseball, but it took him three years to get real traction with Major League scouts.

The Rockies were intrigued by Kelly’s final season at UC Irvine. In the most work he had at the collegiate level, he went 4-1 with a 3.78 ERA in 17 games (12 starts). He struck out 70 and walked 32 in 66.2 innings, while batters hit .264 against him.

Some scouts were likely taken aback by the development. In his first two years, he went 3-1 but only pitched 20.1 innings. He struck out 25 and walked 14. It seems once the right-hander was able to shed the injuries that limited him during his first two seasons, he was able to show what he could do.

Kelly hasn't pitched a professional game yet, as the Rockies opted to let him develop at their Arizona complex. For now, he's assigned to their ACL team. It's possible that with a good minor league spring training he could find his way to Class A Fresno to start the season.

MLB scouts liked several things about him in college. At 6-foot-5, he strikes the right image on the mound of a starter that can build above-average extension off the mound. But his curve ball is a big draw. It shapes from 11-to-5 and only hits in the upper 70s. So, matched with a consistent low-90s fastball and a mid-80s changeup, it can be a deadly pitch once refined.

He will likely get runway to develop, given he threw less than 100 innings in college. But a slow development that leads to Major League success is something the Rockies will take after a 119-loss season.

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