Michael

Toglia

Toglia will get a fresh start in another phenomenal home ballpark after being non-tendered by the Rockies earlier this offseason. The 27-year-old slugger’s all-or-nothing approach resulted in 42 home runs and a staggering 373 strikeouts across 1,067 plate appearances for the Rockies over the past four seasons. His stratospheric power potential makes him a fascinating lottery ticket but he’ll need to make some strides in the contact department to regain any semblance of fantasy appeal.

Toglia, who was DFA’d on Tuesday, was the Rockies’ lone non-tender, as they opted to hold on to Mickey Moniak and recent waiver claims Troy Johnston and Garrett Actor rather than free up more 40-man roster space.

The first significant move of the Paul DePodesta era. Toglia’s run with the Rockies comes to a close after just 280 games over the last four seasons where he managed to wallop 42 home runs but also struck out a whopping 373 times over 1,067 plate appearances. The 27-year-old first baseman received plenty of opportunities but failed to cut back on the strikeouts, whiffing just over 39 percent of the time at the major-league level this past season. Toglia’s immense over-the-fence power upside remains intact but he’ll need to revamp his swing and approach to have any shot at sustained success in the big leagues.

The Rockies tried to give Toglia another shot in the wake of the injury to Warming Bernabel, but after striking out in each of his three plate appearances on Thursday they chose to send him back to Triple-A in favor of Blaine Crim. He’ll continue to work on his swing at the Triple-A level.

Toglia, who was brought back to the majors because of Warming Bernabel’s injury, is now hitting just .190/.258/.353 on the season. He has 132 strikeouts and 58 hits in 337 plate appearances. He’s probably going to get knocked off the Rockies’ 40-man this winter and deservedly so, but it’ll be interesting to see if a competent organization can turn things around for him.

Toglia returns to the big leagues for Tuesday’s game against the Dodgers after rookie first baseman Warming Bernabel required a trip to the concussion injured list. The 27-year-old all-or-nothing slugger is still capable of connecting for the occasional homer, but he continues to strike out at an astronomical rate.

Toglia batted just .195 (22-for-113) with five homers and 45 strikeouts in 31 games after returning to the big leagues back on June 16. The 26-year-old slugger’s all-or-nothing approach hasn’t translated to results at the highest level this season and it doesn’t appear there’s a path for him to regular at-bats in Colorado moving forward.

It was his lone hit, but he did also have a couple of hard-hit flyouts. The Rockies want to give Warming Bernabel a shot, but they pretty obviously don’t trust him at third base, even though he was still playing more there than at first in the minors. That means bench time for Toglia, at least unless he can get hot. The homer tonight was his 11th in 329 plate appearances. but he’s still batting just .194 with a 126/27 K/BB.

There’s no shame in having a tough day against Joe Ryan, but the 0-for, his third in his last four games, dropped Toglia’s season average back down to .199. He’s hit .210 with four homers and 11 RBI since returning from the minors last month, but most of that production came in a big first series back against the Nationals, and he has just one homer and five RBI in his last 23 games. The Rockies could decide to give Warming Bernabel a try at first if this keeps up.

Toglia’s home run was No. 10 on the year for him. The 26-year-old first baseman crushed a two-run shot off Dan Altavilla in the fifth inning. Since returning from the minors on June 16, Toglia is hitting .250/.311/.485 with four homers in 74 plate appearances. It’s not enough to be a mixed-league fixture, but it’s a big improvement.