Ezequiel Tovar’s bat has gone from encouraging to concerning fast, and the Rockies are staring at the downside of a long-term bet they made just two years ago.
A .617 OPS is rough territory for any hitter. For a Colorado shortstop playing half his games at Coors Field and tied up through 2030, it’s even harder to ignore. Tovar’s 2026 line - .219/.264/.353 with 13 home runs and 44 RBIs - marked a sharp drop from the player Colorado thought it was locking in when it committed $63.5 million to him in March 2024.
That deal, which runs through 2030 and includes a team option for 2031, made sense at the time. Tovar had already established himself as a dynamic young shortstop with elite defense, and the Rockies were banking on his offense continuing to climb. Then came 2024, when he hit .269 with 26 home runs and 78 RBIs and looked like one of the few real building blocks on the roster.
The problem is that the surface numbers never told the full story. Even in that breakout-looking 2024 season, Tovar’s OPS+ sat at exactly 100, which means his offense was league average once ballpark and run environment were taken into account.
He has never finished a full major league season above that mark. In 2023, his OPS+ was 79.
It moved to 83 in 2025, then fell all the way to 60 in 2026.
That’s a tough profile to sell when the home park is supposed to help hitters. Instead, the advanced numbers have painted a more cautious picture for a while now, and 2026 only made it louder.
The strikeout and walk totals tell the same story. Tovar struck out 129 times and walked just 29 times last season, a reminder that the swing-and-miss issues become a real problem when the power isn’t there to cover them up.
Still, this isn’t a case of a player who has stopped being useful altogether. Tovar’s glove remains a major asset, and he won a Gold Glove in 2024. He also stayed on the field in 2026, appearing in 146 games after injuries limited him to 95 the year before.
Colorado didn’t extend him just to have a steady defender at shortstop, though that was part of the appeal. The Rockies believed they were investing in a player who could grow into one of the most productive pieces on a roster badly in need of young talent.
He’s only 25, and the 2024 season showed he has real offensive ability in him. There’s still a path back to something closer to that version of Tovar, especially in Denver.
But the more unsettling possibility is that 2024 was the outlier. His advanced metrics have hinted at that for a while, and his 2026 season gave the Rockies plenty of reason to wonder whether their expectations need a reset.
In Other News...
Rockies Face A Young Core Debate Fans Wont Ignore
The Rockies are heading into an offseason that could say a lot about the direction of Paul DePodestas front office, with the club weighing how to shape its next core around a few notable names. Hunter Goodman and TJ Rumfield are part of that conversation, and the decisions around them will help define whether Colorado tries to stay patient with its young talent or uses some of it to address other needs.
Tomoyuki Sugano adds another layer to the mix because his status forces the Rockies to think beyond their own roster and into the free-agent market. For a team trying to build something more stable, the questions around Goodman, Rumfield and Sugano are the kind that can linger well past the winter meetings, especially when the answers are not likely to come easy. [Read more 🡒]