The Rockies have signed No. 4 overall draft pick Ethan Holliday, reports Jim Callis of MLB.com. He’ll receive a $9MM signing bonus that clocks in about $229K over slot value. It’s the largest bonus ever received by a high school player.
Holliday, 18, was in the mix for the top overall selection, though that distinction went to another second-generation high school shortstop: Eli Willits. Instead of heading to D.C., Holliday will don the jersey worn by his father for the first five years of his career. Matt Holliday, of course, starred for the Rockies from 2004-08, making three All-Star teams and winning three Silver Slugger Awards along the way. He also returned to the Rockies for a 25-game stretch to close out his career and has now had two sons — Ethan and Orioles second baseman Jackson Holliday — come off the board as top-four picks in a major league draft.
Ethan Holliday ranked as the No. 1 prospect in the draft at Baseball America, MLB.com and at The Athletic. He landed second at FanGraphs and ESPN. He draws praise for his athleticism and plus raw power, with scouting reports also crediting him for the defensive tools and actions needed to stay at shortstop for at least the early portion of his career. Holliday may eventually move to third base or an outfield corner. He’s thought to possess some of the best raw power in the draft — and the ability to get to that power in games — but there are some swing-and-miss concerns and he’s only an average runner (or slightly below).
Holliday should immediately become Colorado’s top prospect, supplanting last year’s No. 3 overall pick Charlie Condon for that title — though Condon is far closer to MLB readiness, having been selected out of college. He’s already reached Double-A.
The son follows the footsteps of his father.
Hope it turns out for the best.
If he’s anywhere near as good as Matt, he’ll have a long productive career and make a lot of money along the way.
With a $9m signing bonus at 18, id say he’s already set for life
Did he need to even play baseball to be set for life? Pretty sure Matt’s great grandkids would have been fine not working.
The Rockies basically pick in the top 10 every year for the past 20 years and barely have anything to show for it. Not saying Holiday or Condon will be busts but the amount of cheap talent that they have had has gotten them no where, or they refuse to build around when they have a strong core of players, like when they had Lemeheui, Arenado, Blackmon and Story, or Tulowitzki, Holiday, and Carlos Gonzalez. They never spend any money
Kris Bryant says “hi.”
Spending money on players has never been their issue. It’s their obsession with throwing money at whoever is biggest name available rather than having some kind of plan to build an actual team. It’s like the person who has 6 college degrees but no job.
I remember when they gave out the largest free agent contract ever an 8 year $121 million deal to Mike Hampton. Kinda crazy how high salaries have gone in 24 years. That same offseason they signed Denny Neagle to a 2 year $51.5 million deal. They were trying to win back then. But really couldn’t afford them and ended up trading Hampton two years later.
Is Neagle the one that picked up an escort so they voided his contract?
Looked it up and yup. Offered her $40 and lost $19M of contract pay.
Denny Neagle was always about having a good time. When he was with the Reds he and Dimitri Young were always hanging out at the after hours parties when the bars closed down. Denny and Dimitri were both great guys who were incredibly social and just one of the guys when they were out in public.
I recall 1977, when Wayne Garland signed the first 10-year contract in MLB history. The terms were 10 years, $2.3MM. Outrageous back then, a drop in the bucket today.
By money the MLB top 7 picks go:
Tier 1
1) Ethan Holliday 2) Kade Anderson 3) Eli Willits
Tier 2
4) Tyler Bremner 5) Liam Doyle/Seth Hernandez 7) Aiva Arquette
(All over $7M. The gap between Arquette and Bremner is about equivalent to the difference between slot value at pick 6 compared to 7).
Why do fans care about money so much?
Because in the MLB draft it’s the equivalent to trades in the NFL draft. Like Eyanson should have been picked at the end of the first round or beginning of the second, but Boston got him in part because they took Phillips earlier than they should have. Rangers taking Kumar Rocker 3rd overall and bouncing back to get Evan Carter was one of the better examples out there. They picked 3rd overall and then not until the 4th round but got 2 first round talents out of it.
They don’t care enough, it runs the sport. Every decision when it comes to player evaluation in terms it worth and value is tied to how much the player makes. MLB teams are also desperately trying to stay below the luxury tax and avoid the 110% tax. So if you’re a Yankee fan who is complaining about (doesn’t look like you are I’m just using yanks as example) the team not trading for insert players name just remember you were the person saying give DJ the extra years it’s just money. Well that costs 22 million plus the tax and whatever his replacement costs plus 110% tax. To be a fan and not care about money or understand it how it affects the decisions is to not understand the game at all.
There’s too many fans that have their heads in the sand yelling their owner is too cheap. If they were more concerned about the teams budget they could properly review a trade or signing rather than just say that player is good it’s a good trade.
Rockies 2027 World Series Champions
*2127. They will finally be at sea level.
I called it! I said they would.
Give this poster a prize! The Supreme Participation Trophy!
Don’t care for how they manipulated the draft, I guess it’s common now, but good luck to him & the Rockies.
Who manipulated the draft?
I think he’s alluding that teams were worried he wouldn’t sign if it wasn’t the rockies cause he was committed to play for his uncle, which is weird
How do you figure they manipulated the draft? Washington thought Willits was better. Your team wanted a pitcher and in my opinion took the wrong one. They should’ve taken Kade Anderson. It’s all about preference position player or pitcher? College or prep? Maybe he said if he doesn’t go first then he wants to play for the team that his dad played for? I don’t think he manipulated the draft though. I think Anaheim and Seattle wanted pitching.
Where’s the ghost of Eli Manning?
John Elway?
Is condon already a failure? How is Holliday considered a lot better than him?
They don’t rank those prospect lists on who’s the better player now, they rank them on who they believe will be the better pro. Which is why you could look at plenty of guys on the top 100 and look at their numbers in their leagues and say how is this guy ranked so high with those stats.
The days of minor leaguers getting like 1000 at bats moving slowly through each level so they learn how to be a pro on and off the field is over. They’re all rushed and lack fundamentals especially the pitchers.
F signing. He may end up great. But if the Rockies didn’t draft him who else was going to give him 9 million? It’s here take 7 million or whatever the minimum amount is or have fun at college. And I wouldn’t have turned down 7m if I was him. Even 8m. Why 9? Who else was giving him 9? And if someone else was let them. Unless they have the best scouting on the planet and spoiler alert they don’t, Holiday isn’t any better a option as the others.
And since they have to over pay free agent pitchers they shouldn’t have passed on maybe the best hs pitching prospect ever.
Its basically slot value, not sure what you’re on about
Many evaluators had him at #1, and he only got $229k over slot. What’s the big deal?
Nah.
Yeah Riley pint worked out well. The Rockies have drafted plenty of high pitching prospects. It’s by far the hardest franchise to develop pitching in and because of their climate it’s borderline unfair.
They really need to reconfigure their ballpark I think. Add way more foul ground to help the pitching. It’s not going to happen but it should to even out the ballpark.
The Rockies announced today they have signed all 21 of their 2025 draft picks.
Hopefully, help is on the way.
Could have added an additional top 5 to 10 prospect to their system. Why players hire Boras I guess. He gets teams to just overpay. I’d most likely got Holiday cheaper or drafted another player. Harder to extend Boras clients as well. Doesn’t matter I guess for Colorado they will just pay Boras whatever he ask.
For a so-called small market team, Colorado has consistently been in the middle to upper-middle of the pack in total player salaries.
The 30,000 fans regularly attending Coors Field obviously help this payroll, and thankfully, there are sufficient visiting teams’ fans living along the front range to keep the seats filled.
It is just slightly sad to be a Rockies fan and see the lack of organizational focus and the somewhat disjointed philosophy on draft, develop, and trade coupled with minimal modern analytics other clubs have incorporated, leaving the Rockies behind in a cloud of dust.