by Jack Etkin The former Rockies teammates met for coffee in October when Scott Oberg was in Arizona. Tony Wolters, having concluded his playing days a few weeks earlier, wanted Oberg’s opinion. Wolters was hoping to get into coaching. He lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., near the Rockies’ Salt River Fields complex. Oberg, a Rockies special assistant in player development and scouting, was watching games in the Arizona Fall League where several Rockies prospects were playing. Oberg was supportive. Wolters knew the game well, Oberg told him, and had seen it from multiple perspectives a ..read more

By Kevin Henry If you look at the journey that Nick Mears has taken to get to the Colorado Rockies bullpen, there are plenty who could argue that Mears should have never made it to the big leagues. However, knowing the belief that Mears has in himself and also the confidence he possesses in his pitch mix and abilities, it’s also easy to see why Mears has cemented himself as a late-inning option in Denver. Undrafted out of Sacramento City College after missing a significant amount of time with a variety of injuries and the space needed to reset mentally following deaths of family mem ..read more

by Jack Etkin Keep the ball up. That sounds like pitching heresy, a sure way for a starting pitcher, particularly one with rather unexceptional velocity like Sean Sullivan, to get hit … and get hit hard … and stumble ineffectively through short outings. Sullivan defies that thinking and succeeds. Otherwise, the Rockies would not have taken the left-hander in the second round, 46th overall, of the 2023 First-Year Player Draft out of Wake Forest. Keep the ball down has long been a guiding pitching principle. Or in the poetic jargon of the game: throw peas at the kne ..read more

Photos by Kyle Cooper PHOTOS: Day 2 All Camp was originally published in Rockies Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story ..read more

PHOTOS: Day 1 All Camp was originally published in Rockies Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story ..read more

Photos by Kyle Cooper PHOTOS: Day 3 Pitchers and Catchers was originally published in Rockies Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story ..read more

Photos by Kyle Cooper PHOTOS: Day 2 Pitchers and Catchers was originally published in Rockies Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story ..read more

by Jack Etkin Hill plays with a young fan at Rockies Fest at Coors Field in January. A trying season was winding down for Jaden Hill when the call came. He had not pitched in a game for High-A Spokane in about a month and wouldn’t in the brief time remaining in the season, so his unsightly numbers were frozen in time. But Hill was far enough along in his recovery from shoulder tightness and back spasms for the Rockies to formulate a plan for him with an eye toward the 2024 season. It was Rockies Director of Player Development Chris Forbes who called. He had good news for Hi ..read more

PHOTOS: Day 1 Pitchers and Catchers was originally published in Rockies Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story ..read more

By Kevin Henry COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Away from the television cameras and all the attention that comes with becoming one of the newest members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Todd Helton took a deep breath and tried to figure out a way to succinctly sum up the emotions of an exhausting few days. A process littered with ballot projections and stress-filled moments melted away with a phone call from Cooperstown notifying the Colorado Rockies icon that he would be a part of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024. That moment, however, started a domino effect of interviews and travel plan ..read more