Zac Veen (No. 9 PuRP) was the player I hoped would be my favorite Rockie by now.
Hope can be an unfair thing to put on a prospect. Prospects are projections, not guarantees. Their timelines are rarely clean, and prospects should not become stand-ins for what we wish our baseball team was.
And it was easy. The Rockies drafted him ninth overall in the 2020 MLB Draft as a first-round talent out of high school, and the tools flashed enough during his early minor-league days to make the hype feel reasonable.
There were warning signs, too: High-velocity fastballs, chase, and injuries all complicated the path. But for a franchise desperate for anything resembling a future, Veen became an easy place to put that hope.
Spring training 2025 put the hype on full display, bat flips and all. The disappointment when Veen did not break camp with the Rockies was real, but he went to Triple-A, kept hitting, and quickly got the call.
Veen hit .118/.189/.235 with a .424 OPS and a 37.8% strikeout rate across 37 plate appearances, and the pitch-level shape was not much kinder. Fastballs beat him, breaking stuff neutralized him, and pitchers had a clear path through the zone. Veen was soon optioned back, and while he finished the year with a measured rebound in Albuquerque, the timeline had split from the dream.
By the end of 2025, Veen was no longer the same prospect.
Spring 2026 showed he was not the same person either.
Physically, Veen looked almost unrecognizable. This was not the same wiry kid. He showed up built out. The energy was still there, but the body was different: thicker, stronger, and more physically mature.
If spring 2025 was about hype, spring 2026 was about transformation. And the unseen transformation mattered more.
“Definitely one of the bigger, main things was sobering up,” said Veen. “I had a pretty big substance abuse problem for a few years. But I’m completely clean and sober.
“There were times last year where it was out of hand. Coming home in the offseason, I had to look in the mirror and make some adjustments. And I definitely got closer to God, and it made me want to be the best version of myself in every aspect.”
Scouting reports describe the machine. Stats show the output. But they cannot show what it means to look in the mirror and decide something has to change.
For a little while, the baseball gave that change some joy.
Then the momentum was stopped by another injury. Veen landed on the 10-day IL on March 25 with a right knee contusion, went on a rehab assignment on March 31, and was activated and optioned to Triple-A on April 4.
The Rockies have not handed him anything. The new body, the honesty, the spring moment — all of it has to become baseball evidence.
And now, Veen is giving us reason to pay attention to the baseball again.
Across 192 at-bats in Triple-A this year, Veen is hitting .318/.416/.489 with an .927 OPS, seven home runs, and 37 RBI. If the season ended today, his .505 slugging percentage would be his highest since 2021 with Fresno. Veen also has 13 stolen bases, second on the team.
The PCL and Albuquerque always demand some skepticism, but his overall line still grades out at a 122 wRC+, and he is hitting .360/.452/.562 with a 1.014 OPS away from Isotopes Park.
Against lefties, Veen is hitting .318/.396/.529 with a .925 OPS. Against righties, the slugging is lighter, but the on-base skill is carrying the profile at .318/.440/.486 with a .926 OPS.
For a left-handed corner outfielder, handling lefties creates a cleaner path to starts instead of protected usage.
But the surface line is not the most interesting part.
The real case is in the underlying shape: improved approach, more walks, and evidence that the fastball question is becoming less glaring.
Profile repair, not power breakout
Veen is not simply bigger now and therefore hitting the ball harder. His average exit velocity is roughly the same, and his 2025 Triple-A contact quality was stronger in several places: a .393 xSLG last year compared to .368 this year, and a 47.9% hard-hit rate compared to 43.4%.
The difference is the offensive shape. The walk rate has nearly doubled from 8.4% to 15.5%, the OBP has jumped from .359 to .422, and the strikeout and whiff rates have stayed in the same range. He is getting to a better line without needing every improvement to come from raw contact quality.
May showed the adjustment
May was the eye-opener outside the strike zone.
Veen saw more pitches outside the zone in May than he did in April and swung at far fewer of them. That was the adjustment: stop helping pitchers, force more pitches into the zone, and let the strength and athleticism play from better counts.
The results moved with it. As the strikeout rate dropped and the walk rate climbed, the production followed: Veen went from a .353 OBP and .393 slugging percentage in April to a .495 OBP and .617 slugging percentage in May.
Over the past two weeks, Veen has swung at 55% of the pitches he has seen, and there has been regression in the approach. He is still producing, hitting .444 with a .714 slugging percentage to start June, but a hot streak is not the same thing as development fully holding.
The approach gains need to show up more consistently because big-league pitchers already know how to beat him — even if there is progress there, too.
Veen’s first major-league look gave pitchers a clear plan, which makes the Triple-A fastball data meaningful.
The fastball data is encouraging because the worst version of the problem has started to recede. In 2024, Veen was underwater against four-seamers across the board, with a .274 xwOBA, .158 xBA, and 25.5% whiff rate. The contact quality started to recover in 2025, but the approach remained aggressive: he swung at four-seamers 51.2% of the time.
This year looks more like a hitter choosing better fastballs to attack. That swing rate has dropped to 43.9%, while the .354 xwOBA and .279 xBA are both his best marks of the three-year sample. The whiff rate has also fallen to 19.7%. The .371 xSLG is not as loud as last year’s .437, so seeing that slugging return toward 2025 levels would be a logical next step if the improved discipline holds.
If the fastball progress is the green light, the slider remains the warning label. Veen is still swinging at sliders 60.6% of the time, with a .200 xBA and 36.0% whiff rate against the pitch in 2026. That gives big-league pitchers a clear place to test him.
Veen’s 21.8% Triple-A strikeout rate is playable, but Triple-A strikeout rates usually climb in the majors. Based on the typical FanGraphs translation, his rough major-league expectation is closer to 26–27%.
Still workable, but the margin gets thinner. The walks have to come with it, the power has to show up, and the chase cannot balloon.
That is the line between progress and arrival.
The development is showing up in the right places: better decisions, better fastball results, more walks, and usable production. Veen is doing enough damage to start making another major-league look feel realistic.
The old version did not arrive on schedule. This one might.
Different timeline, different hope
The baseball case is stronger than it has been in a while, but this is where I keep coming back to Veen’s words.
He talked about looking in the mirror, making adjustments, getting closer to God, and wanting to become the best version of himself. None of that fixes chase rate. None of it guarantees another big-league role.
Getting sober is hard. Not being sober is harder.
And maybe that is why the hope feels different now. The old hope was mine. It was about the player I wanted Veen to become for the Rockies.
Now the hope feels different. It is less something I am putting on him and more something I want for him.
I want Veen to feel hopeful about himself — not just about another call-up or a role with the Rockies, but about the life he is building.
The baseball still matters, and it is interesting again. But maybe the best part is that baseball no longer has to carry the whole story.
Different timeline. Different hope.
The Albuquerque Isotopes (33-28) got strong pitching performances but lost 1-0 to the Salt Lake Bees (31-29).
Blake Adams was excellent despite taking the loss. The right-hander allowed one run on three hits over five innings, walking one and striking out nine on 86 pitches. His only walk came in the first inning, and that runner scored on Josh Lowe’s RBI double for the game’s only run. Mason Green followed with 2 1/3 scoreless innings and three strikeouts, keeping Albuquerque within one.
Zac Veen (No. 9 PuRP) was the standout on offense, going 3-for-4 with two singles and his second triple of the season. The triple came off a 95.6 mph fastball and left the bat at 109.8 mph. Drew Avans added two singles and Vimael Machín had the other hit, but the Isotopes could not turn the traffic into runs, going 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position and leaving nine on base.
Albuquerque had more hits, more stolen bases, fewer errors, and one fewer strikeout than Salt Lake, but the one run was enough. Isotopes pitchers also walked four batters, one more than the Bees, and the first of those walks came around to score.
The Hartford Yard Goats (29-24) scored six runs in the ninth inning to beat the Portland Sea Dogs (28-26), 8-7.
GJ Hill carried the offense. He went 2-for-4 with two home runs, four RBI, and two runs scored. His solo shot in the second gave Hartford a 2-0 lead, and his three-run homer in the ninth cut Portland’s lead to 7-5. Hill is now hitting .220 with a .738 OPS, seven home runs, and 24 RBI.
Bryant Betancourt finished the comeback with a two-out, bases-clearing double in the ninth to put Hartford in front. It was his 12th double of the season, and he is now hitting .257 with an .810 OPS and 33 RBI. The Yard Goats had only five hits but drew 11 walks and turned their biggest chance into the deciding inning.
The game nearly got away from Hartford in the sixth, when Griffin Herring (No. 10 PuRP) allowed all seven Portland runs while recording just two outs. His ERA jumped to 14.85 after the outing. The bullpen recovered from there, with Cade Denton throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings with three strikeouts and Andrew Baker striking out the side in the ninth for his fourth save. Baker now owns a 2.57 ERA.
The Spokane Indians (23-32) piled up 13 hits and went 6-for-14 with runners in scoring position in a 12-5 win over the Hillsboro Hops (24-31).
Robert Calaz (No. 6 PuRP) led the offense, going 3-for-4 with a double, three RBI, two runs, a walk, and his eighth stolen base of the season. He is now hitting .262 with a .729 OPS. Jack O’Dowd also had a big night, going 2-for-5 with his fourth home run, two RBI, and two runs scored. O’Dowd is hitting .412 with a 1.245 OPS.
Max Belyeu (No. 15 PuRP) added the biggest swing of the sixth inning with a two-run homer, his fifth of the season, and finished with three RBI. Roynier Hernandez went 2-for-5 with his fourth homer and is now hitting .306 with a .827 OPS. Alan Espinal also reached four times, going 2-for-2 with two walks, two RBI, and a stolen base.
Jackson Cox (No. 16 PuRP) got the win after striking out 11 over five innings. He allowed four runs, three earned, on seven hits, did not walk a batter, and has a 4.23 ERA on the season. Austin Emener handled the final four innings for his first save, allowing one run with two strikeouts. Spokane pitchers struck out 13 and did not issue a walk.
The Fresno Grizzlies (29-26) gave up seven runs in the fifth inning and lost 9-4 to the Lake Elsinore Storm (32-23).
Marcos Herrera took the loss after allowing nine runs on 11 hits over 4.2 innings. He walked four, struck out four, gave up two home runs, and his ERA rose to 9.28. Bryson Van Sickle kept the game from getting further out of hand, throwing 4.1 scoreless innings with one walk and one strikeout. He lowered his ERA to 2.84.
Carlos Renzullo had the biggest swing for Fresno, going 2-for-3 with his fourth double of the season and three RBI. He is now hitting .280 with a .725 OPS. Roldy Brito (No. 11 PuRP) went 2-for-4 with his 15th double and two runs scored, pushing his average to .332 with an .883 OPS. Tanner Thach added a hit and is hitting .357 with a 1.008 OPS.
Fresno had eight hits and went 2-for-5 with runners in scoring position, but Lake Elsinore had 14 hits, two homers, and 26 total bases. The fifth inning decided it.
On MLB.com, Thomas Harding explains the scoring change that took a home run away from Rockies rookie TJ Rumfield and turned it into a four-base error on Jo Adell. It is a tough break for Rumfield, who now has seven homers instead of eight, but the play gives him a pretty strange story about the homer he had for three days before MLB took it off the board.
In a Rockies On SI piece, Laura Lambert looks at the state of Colorado’s pitching staff as Ryan Feltner returns from the IL and Jimmy Herget and Victor Vodnik move closer to rehab outings. The article does not frame the Rockies as suddenly fixed, but it does point to a little more stability with Feltner returning to a decimated rotation and bullpen reinforcements on the way.
On Arizona Diamondbacks On SI, Alex D’Agostino looks at five possible left-handed bats Arizona could consider if it buys at the deadline, including Rockies first basemen TJ Rumfield and Troy Johnston. The piece notes both would fit the Diamondbacks’ need for a first base/DH bat, while also acknowledging the complication of trying to make an intra-division trade with Colorado.
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