The Rockies recently announced a batch of non-roster invitees to spring training, including several of the club’s incumbent prospects and previously reported minor league signees. One new name on the list was right-hander Tommy Doyle.
Doyle, 29 in May, is a familiar face for the organization but was elsewhere in 2024. He signed a minor league deal with Atlanta going into last year and spent most of 2024 with Triple-A Gwinnett. He logged 40 1/3 innings for that club, allowing 3.57 earned runs per nine. He paired a 24.9% strikeout rate with a 9.8% walk rate. Despite those fairly solid numbers, he never got the call to join the big league club.
Prior to that, Doyle had spent his entire career with the Rockies. He was drafted by Colorado in 2017 and was in the organization through the end of 2023. He managed to toss 26 big league innings, though he allowed 24 earned runs, giving him an unsightly 8.31 ERA at the moment.
That’s obviously a small sample size and Doyle put up much better numbers on the farm. He tossed 161 2/3 innings across various minor league levels during his previous time in the Rockies’ organization, with a 3.56 ERA, 26.1% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate.
The Rockies have a fairly wide open relief mix at the moment. Of the eight guys projected by RosterResource to be in the Opening Day bullpen, Tyler Kinley and Justin Lawrence are the only two with more than 100 innings in the big leagues. They are also the only two that can’t be sent to the minors. As the club continues its ongoing rebuild, plenty of young arms will get opportunities this year but not all of them will succeed.
Doyle gives the club another depth option to potentially rely on throughout the year. If he gets added to the roster at any point, he still has one option year remaining, which would allow the club to shuttle him between the majors and minors with regularity. He also has less than a year of service time and can be cheaply retained beyond this year if he’s holding a roster spot at season’s end.