Latest Rockies Potential Breakout Prospect Brings Maturing Pitch Mix

The Colorado Rockies are looking everywhere they can to find pitching that can eventually help them in the Majors.

A Colorado Rockies hat sits on top of a player's glove in a dugout. / Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

The Colorado Rockies are emphasizing player development like never before. There are plenty of prospects worth watching.

But it can’t be all about top two prospects Ethan Holliday and Charlie Condon. Other prospects are going to have to come through, too. That means that president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and general manager Josh Byrnes are going to have to mine the minor leagues to find gems that can become Major League players.

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That makes the development of players like pitcher JB Middleton all the more important to Colorado’s future. Recently, Baseball America (subscription required) named three Rockies prospects as potential breakouts and Middleton was at the top of the site’s list.

Rockies Prospect JB Middleton

Southern Miss pitcher JB Middleton throws in the NCAA Tournament. / Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

Projecting what Middleton can be is all the Rockies can do right now. He was selected by former general manager Bill Schmidt’s regime in the second round of last year’s MLB Draft. Before that, he played his college baseball at Southern Miss.

He had an exceptional junior season with the Golden Eagles, as he was a first-team all-American selection by Perfect Game and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. He earned first-team All-Sun Belt honors after he went 10-1 record and a 2.31 ERA in 16 starts. He struck out 122 and walked 25 in 105.1 innings, while allowing only 65 hits. He finished the season ranked second in the country in WHIP (0.85), fifth in hits allowed per nine innings (5.55), sixth in strikeouts, 10th in ERA and 11th in wins.

Most MLB scouts considered him a Top 40 prospect, so it’s not a huge leap to consider him to be a breakout prospect this year. He’s nearly as polished as another young pitcher that came out of college in 2024, Toronto’s Trey Yesavage. He streaked through the organization from Class-A to the World Series. No one in Colorado’s organization expects Middleton to do the same.

Baseball America analyst Jesús Cano reported that scouts like his pitch mix and his three-quarters arm angle. He also has room to add velocity.

“Against righthanders, Middleton primarily leans on his fastball-slider combination, while his upper-80s changeup becomes a key weapon against lefties,” Cano wrote. “The slider features tight, upper-80s spin with a gyro-like rotation, occasionally resembling a cutter when it touches 90 mph, and grades as an above-average pitch.”

Per his MiLB.com page, Colorado has him assigned to its Arizona Complex League team. But, Cano believes that based on Middleton’s make-up and maturity in college, he could start the season at High-A Spokane. If Middleton breaks out, it’s possible he could get as high as Triple-A Albuquerque, though Double-A Hartford is far more likely.

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