Ezequiel Tovar

Tovar was a popular sophomore slump candidate in 2024, but he shook that off to post an excellent stat line. Instead, the decline came in 2025, and there were a few causes. First, he had a sluggish start to his season due to injuries. Tovar was originally placed on the injured list in mid-April with a hip injury that sidelined him for almost exactly a month. Just two weeks later, he was sidelined again, this time by an oblique issue, and he didn't return after the All-Star break. Through mid-July, Tovar had only 138 plate appearances. What he delivered from there was mostly encouraging, despite a modest stat line. Tovar managed to cut his strikeout rate to a career-low 25.1 percent clip, but he maintained both his aggressiveness inside the zone and his ability to make contact in the zone. Similarly, his quality of contact was stable, and even slightly improved as measured by metrics such as barrel rate and max exit velocity. Despite that, Tovar struggled to convert his contact into production even in the face a league-average flyball rate due to his inability to consistently pull flyballs - perhaps a product of his oblique injury. The other primary shortcomings are familiar for most Rockies' hitters. Tovar hit only hit .172 with 15 RBI and 17 runs scored across 50 road games. What was different than past iterations of Colorado's lineup was that it remained poor even at Coors Field, limiting Tovar's overall counting-stat production. These latter two things don't look likely to change in 2026, but Tovar should deliver 20-10 production with at least a .250 batting average, assuming a return to health in 2026. Read Past Outlooks