SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Jared Thomas did not come to the Arizona Fall League expecting a repeat trip, but after everything that happened over the past year, the Rockies outfielder welcomed it.
Thomas, Colorado’s No. 10 prospect, is back with the Salt River Rafters after playing in the Fall League last season, and this time the opportunity carries a different feel.
“I felt that last year, there's a lot of good prospects that came in and showed their tools off, and me being invited back to play in this again, I'm excited,” Thomas said. “I’m definitely looking forward to it a lot more this year than I was last year just with the time I was out.
It's more baseball also. I missed a lot this year, so I'm excited to play six-seven more weeks.”
The injury issues began during his Fall League run a year ago. Thomas hit .302/.343/.524 in 17 games, but he was playing through left hand soreness and finished with a 28/3 K/BB ratio.
The problem was more serious than it first appeared: a broken hamate that required surgery. He believed he’d be back for Spring Training, especially after pointing out that Corbin Carroll only missed four weeks after a similar procedure.
That never happened. Thomas got an invitation to big league camp, but his hand still wasn’t right well beyond the expected recovery window. He tried to stay on the field, but eventually the pain became too much.
“I knew there was something going on in there, and I'm not one of those guys that's going to shy away from something bugging me to keep me off the field," he said. "So just trying to push through it, and then, I knew something was really wrong when ... it doesn't feel good enough to even play.”
A return visit to the hand specialist revealed another issue: a bone spur on top of a metacarpal bone, which led to a second surgery.
“Then the clock resets, another six to eight weeks, so it was frustrating,” Thomas admitted. “This is the most I've ever missed when it comes to a baseball season, so you learn a new perspective.
Those days early on got dark, the game doesn't stop for you. So that was something I had to learn pretty quickly, with all that time I had off.”
Thomas didn’t get into rehab games until early July, and he didn’t get back to Double-A Hartford until the end of that month. He finished the 2025 season there, and he said the way he closed the year left him in a better place mentally and physically heading into the Fall League.
“It’s not as much live and die anymore,” Thomas said. “The perspective is a little bit different.
[Going] 0-for-25 isn't too bad when you think about being at the complex for six months out of the year. So, I think that helped a lot, going back out to Double-A, so I feel like I'm in a good spot.”
That outlook should matter as he works through the next six or seven weeks. Thomas still wants to produce, but after having his climb toward Colorado interrupted, he’s focused on finishing healthy and feeling like himself again.
“It's hard to say that you're not really concerned with the results,” Thomas said. “You've got guys who come out here and play really well, and I want to be one of those guys for sure, but if I can get out of here feeling good, feeling healthy, back to my normal self with all this time off, I feel like I'm in a great spot to go into the offseason and looking forward to next year's camp.”
Thomas is one of several Rockies players in the Fall League, along with a pair of position players and four pitchers.
Andy Perez, listed as a shortstop and third baseman and ranked No. 15 in the organization, signed for $300,000 in January 2021. He has long made contact a strength, carrying a 15.3 percent career strikeout rate, and that held up after his first move to Double-A in 2026.
The power has been more modest, but he did pile up 30 doubles with Hartford while mostly playing shortstop and also seeing time at third and second. Perez is Rule 5-eligible for the second time.
Jack O’Dowd, a catcher and first baseman, took a different route to Colorado. After a year in indy ball, he signed with the Rockies, where his father Dan once worked as general manager.
O’Dowd started drawing more attention after hitting at High-A and kept going after a second promotion in the year, even though things slowed some at Double-A. He still finished with a .307/.383/.564 line, 23 homers and 91 RBIs.
The left-handed hitter split time between catcher and first base defensively.
On the mound, left-hander Konner Eaton, the Rockies’ No. 17 prospect, brings real stuff even if the command has been uneven. A sixth-round pick in the 2024 Draft out of George Mason, Eaton has had trouble consistently throwing strikes, though his control improved in 2025 before backing up after his move to Double-A this past year, when he walked 5.1 per nine innings.
He didn’t miss a ton of bats overall, but his slider generated a 37 percent miss rate, and his fastball can reach 96 mph. He leaned heavily on ground balls, getting them at a 61 percent clip.
Sean Sullivan, ranked No. 20, is another lefty and one of the Fall League arms with big league experience. A pitchability starter, Sullivan made his major league debut in June before a shoulder impingement sent him to the injured list for two months.
He returned for a few September appearances with Triple-A Albuquerque, giving him a chance to make up for lost innings. His changeup remains his best pitch, while the rest of his arsenal is still considered fringy, and he’ll need to rediscover the plus command he lacked for much of the 2026 season.
Stu Flesland III rounds out the group on the pitching side. The 6-foot-5 left-hander, an 11th-round senior sign in 2023, has worked both as a starter and reliever throughout his pro career, with 30 starts and 60 relief outings.
He pitched at three levels this past season and spent most of it at Double-A, where he worked particularly well, posting a 1.88 ERA and a .209 batting average against over 86 innings. Now 26, Flesland uses a fastball that tops out at 93 mph, an effective upper-70s slider and a low-80s changeup.
In Other News...
Hunter Goodman Deserved Better In An Award Snub Rockies Fans Will Hate
Hunter Goodman put together the kind of offensive season that should have made him impossible to ignore, even in a year when the Rockies spent most of their time buried in the standings. The catcher cleared the 40-homer mark and finished with an .839 OPS, production that stood out not just for Colorado but across the National League. More than half of those home runs came on the road, which only adds to the sense that his bat traveled better than the team around him did.
Still, Goodman was left off the list of finalists for the National League Hank Aaron Award, a decision that is hard for Rockies fans to swallow. The finalists came from a group whose numbers can be compared cleanly enough, but Goodman's omission invites the bigger question that hangs over plenty of Colorado seasons: how much does team context cloud individual recognition? For a player who delivered that kind of power in that ballpark and in that environment, the snub feels like more than just a small slight. [Read more 🡒]
Rockies May Have Found A Rebuild Piece Yankees Let Go
TJ Rumfield has quickly turned a low-profile trade into one of the Rockies more interesting development stories. After Colorado acquired him from the Yankees for reliever Angel Chivilli, Rumfield settled in as the everyday first baseman and gave the club a steady left-handed bat in the middle of the lineup, hitting .300 with 16 home runs and 73 RBIs across 155 games.
The part that stands out for Colorado is how much on-base skill he showed while handling a full-time role, which is the kind of trait a rebuilding team can build around. Chivilli gave New York some innings out of the bullpen, but the swap now looks like the sort of move that could end up mattering more for the Rockies if Rumfield keeps stacking up production at first base. [Read more 🡒]
Rockies Offseason Suddenly Carries Pressure Fans Have Been Waiting For
A 15-game jump and a finish with 58 wins have changed the tenor of the Rockies offseason, at least a little. Team president Paul DePodesta and club president Walker Monfort framed the winter around a club that showed progress in 2026, while also signaling that the next step has to come from a more aggressive approach to building out the roster and baseball operations.
There is now added pressure to translate that optimism into something tangible, especially with payroll decisions and a new minority investment from Penner Sports Group part of the backdrop. Colorado has already identified starting pitching as a clear area to address, and the organization also made sure to credit Warren Schaeffer for helping create a more competitive clubhouse tone, leaving the question of how far the Rockies are willing to go to push that momentum forward. [Read more 🡒]