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Coco Montes

Coco Montes Expected To Sign With NPB’s Yomiuri Giants

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Infielder Coco Montes has an agreement with the Yomiuri Giants pending a physical, reports Francys Romero (X link). The South Florida product had been in Triple-A with the Rockies before being granted his release earlier this week.

Montes had a cup of coffee at the big league level a year ago. He appeared in 18 games for the Rox, hitting .184/.244/.316 over 41 plate appearances. Montes spent the remainder of the season with Triple-A Albuquerque, running a .317/.400/.551 slash line over 107 contests. Teams were skeptical about that production given Albuquerque’s very hitter-friendly nature and he cleared waivers in September.

The 27-year-old returned to the Isotopes this season. He has been one of the more productive hitters in the Pacific Coast League, turning in a .335/.414/.551 mark with nine homers through 297 plate appearances. While it wasn’t enough to get Montes another look in the Colorado infield, it caught the attention of the NPB’s Giants. He’ll head overseas for the first time in his career, a deal that surely comes with a nice pay bump relative to what he’d been making in Triple-A.

Rockies Outright Coco Montes

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The Rockies have sent infielder Coco Montes outright to Triple-A Albuquerque, according to the transactions log at MLB.com. He was designated for assignment on Tuesday and apparently went unclaimed on waivers.

Montes, 27 next month, made his MLB debut with the Rox this season. He appeared in 18 games, hitting .184/.244/.316 through his first 41 trips to the plate. Montes saw most of his limited action at second base while the club was without Brendan Rodgers.

The former 15th round pick has played the majority of the year on optional assignment to Albuquerque. He’s hitting well, even in the context of a very hitter-friendly setting. Montes has hit .313/.397/.550 with 19 homers over 443 plate appearances. He’s striking out in just over a quarter of his trips but has walked at a strong 11.3% clip.

This is Montes’ first career outright assignment. He doesn’t have the service time to elect free agency, so he’ll remain in the organization and try to play his way back onto the Colorado roster.

Rockies Select Cole Tucker, Designate Coco Montes For Assignment

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The Rockies announced that they have selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Cole Tucker, with first baseman/outfielder Michael Toglia optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque in a corresponding move. To open a spot for Tucker on the 40-man, infielder Coco Montes was designated for assignment.

Tucker, 27, signed a minor league deal with the Rockies in the offseason. He was added to the big league roster last month but was designated for assignment just one week later, having taken just eight plate appearances over three games. He was outrighted to Albuquerque after clearing waivers and could have rejected that assignment based on having a previous career outright, but accepted and is now back with the big league club.

Around that brief stint in the majors, he’s taken 321 trips to the plate in 70 Triple-A games. He walked in 15.3% of those, leading to a batting line of .280/.391/.407 and 101 wRC+. Once a highly-touted prospect with the Pirates, he’s hit just .214/.263/.316 in 477 major league plate appearances thus far. At the very least, he should provide the Rox with defensive versatility, having played each infield and outfield position in his career. He can be controlled for four more seasons beyond this one but is out of options.

Montes, 26, hit .321/.401/.560 through his first 59 Triple-A games this year and got selected to the big league roster in June. But he then hit just .184/.244/.316 in his first 41 plate appearances at the major league level and has now been bounced from the roster.

Since the trade deadline has passed, the Rockies will place Montes on waivers in the coming days. His first taste of the majors didn’t go well but he’s generally produced solid numbers in the minors and spent significant time at the three infield positions to the left of first base. He will still have two option years beyond this one and has less than a year of service time.

Rockies Select Cole Tucker

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The Rockies announced Monday that they’ve selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Cole Tucker from Triple-A Albuquerque. Infielder Coco Montes was optioned to Triple-A in a corresponding move. Colorado had a vacancy on its 40-man roster prior to today’s moves, so the team is now at capacity in that regard.

Tucker, 27, returns to the majors for the fifth straight year. The former first-round draftee had played parts of four seasons with the Pittsburgh club that drafted him. Tucker didn’t find much big league success with the Bucs, combining for a .211/.259/.314 line over 469 big league plate appearances.

Last June, the Bucs lost Tucker on waivers to the D-Backs. He struggled offensively with Arizona’s top minor league club, resulting in an outright that paved the way for him to elect free agency at season’s end. Tucker hooked on with the Rockies on an offseason minor league pact and has spent 2023 in Albuquerque.

Tucker has had a strong offensive showing there, even in the context of the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. He’s hitting .311/.419/.459 over 267 trips. Tucker only has five homers but is walking at a huge 15.7% clip against a modest 19.1% strikeout rate. Of the 92 PCL hitters with 200+ plate appearances, Tucker ranks 13th in on-base percentage.

While Tucker has plenty of shortstop experience, he has split his time with the Isotopes between the outfield and second base. He brings some defensive flexibility to Bud Black’s bench. Tucker is out of minor league option years, so the Rox have to keep him in the bigs or designate him for assignment now that he earned an MLB call. If he plays well enough to hold a roster spot all season, he won’t be eligible for arbitration until the end of next year.

Rockies Activate Brendan Rodgers From 60-Day IL

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The Rockies announced Monday that they’ve reinstated infielder Brendan Rodgers from the 60-day injured list. Rodgers has yet to play in a game this season after suffering a shoulder injury during spring training. Colorado also recalled infielder Coco Montes from Triple-A Albuquerque. That pair of moves will fill the roster spots vacated by last night’s trades of Randal Grichuk and C.J. Cron (both to the Angels in the same deal). Rodgers also fills one of what had been three vacancies on the 40-man roster.

Originally, there was concern that Rodgers’ injury would prove to be season-ending in nature. Ultimately, it’ll still end up costing him about two-thirds of the 2023 campaign, though that’s surely a preferable result for the 26-year-old, as opposed to an entirely lost season. Rodgers has been on a minor league rehab assignment for a couple weeks now and has hit particularly well (7-for-20 with a homer and two doubles) since moving up from Class-A to Triple-A. He appeared in 10 minor league games and tallied 38 plate appearances before being deemed ready to go.

Rodgers, the third overall pick in 2015, has tallied 996 plate appearances from 2021-22 as the Rockies’ primary second baseman, turning in a solid .274/.326/.434 slash with 28 homers, 51 doubles, six triples and strong defense at second base. Defensive Runs Saved credited Rodgers with a whopping +22 mark at the position in 2022, and while metrics like Ultimate Zone Rating (7.9) and Outs Above Average (3) weren’t quite as bullish, he universally graded as an above-average defender and was recognized as such when he captured his first Gold Glove Award last year.

It’s deadline season and the Rockies are sellers, so it’s technically plausible that the Rox could be surprised by an over-the-top offer for Rodgers in the 26 hours between now and tomorrow’s trade deadline, though that seems quite unlikely. Rodgers has another two years of affordable club control remaining beyond the current season, and the Rox surely aren’t keen on trading away such a major piece of their roster when his value is down fresh on the heels of a season-long IL stint. Given the general state of the Rockies, however, Rodgers could emerge as an offseason trade candidate if he performs well in the final two months and sufficiently proves that the shoulder injury is behind him.

Rockies To Select Coco Montes

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12:10 PM: The Rockies have announced the full slate of roster moves surrounding Montes’s call-up, with Antonio Senzatela transferred to the 60-Day injured list to make room for Montes on the 40-man roster while Trejo was optioned to Triple-A to clear space on the active roster. Senzatela has been on the injured list with an elbow strain since early May, while Trejo heads to the minors after slashing .241/.271/.313 in 119 plate appearances for the Rockies this season.

In addition, the club announced that outfielder Charlie Blackmon was being placed on the 10-day IL with a fractured hand, with DNVR’s Patrick Lyons notes could leave Blackmon out of action for several weeks. In 242 plate appearances this season, the 36-year-old veteran has slashed .265/.347/.422, good for a wRC+ of 97. Taking Blackmon’s place on the roster is catcher Brian Serven, who has posted a wRC+ of 43 in 72 big league plate appearances since making his debut with the Rockies last season.

10:21 AM: The Rockies are selecting the contract of infielder Coco Montes, as first reported by Blake Street Banter on Twitter. The club’s 40-man roster is currently at capacity, meaning a corresponding move will be necessary to make room for Montes on the 40-man, though no such move has been announced at this point.

It’s a long-awaited day for Montes, who was a 15th round pick by the Rockies in the 2018 draft. Now in his sixth season in the Rockies organization, Montes is poised to make his big league debut after slashing an impressive .321/.401/.560 in 59 games at Triple-A this season, a line that converts to a well-above average 126 wRC+ even in the heightened offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League. In addition to that impressive slash line, Montes has cut his strikeout rate down to just 23%, which would be his lowest full-season figure since 2019. Montes has paired that reduced strikeout figure with a solid 11.7% walk rate.

While Montes didn’t hit for much power prior to reaching the PCL, with just 34 home runs in 332 minor league games below the Triple-A level from 2018-2022, Montes will nonetheless try to provide a jolt to a Rockies lineup that lost Brendan Rogers before the season and has more recently had to go without both C.J. Cron and Kris Bryant. An infielder who has plenty of experience at each of third base, second base, and shortstop, Montes figures to join an infield mix in Colorado that currently contains Ryan McMahon, Ezequiel Tovar, Harold Castro, and Alan Trejo.

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