Benny Montgomery is done with baseball. The former eighth overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft has retired from the Colorado Rockies organization, according to Eli Whitney of Blake Street Banter. Montgomery never made it to the majors. Not even a single at-bat.
He was once considered the Rockies’ third-best prospect back in 2022. By this year, he’d slid to No. 15 in the system according to MLB Pipeline. That drop tells you most of the story. Injuries kept undercutting him at every turn.
Montgomery played 323 minor league games total. He hit .249 with 29 home runs, 169 RBIs, and 41 stolen bases. Not terrible numbers, but not the kind of production you expect from a top-10 pick. His final season ended after just 41 games at Double-A, where he batted .203 with seven homers and 22 RBIs. That’s rough.
Flashes of promise that never lasted
There were moments where it looked like things might click. In 2023, Montgomery played 109 games at High-A and put up career highs across the board. He hit .251 with 10 home runs, 51 RBIs, and 18 steals. That version of him looked like a guy who could eventually force his way into the Rockies’ outfield plans. But the injuries kept coming and he never got back to that level.
You can’t help but look back at the 2021 draft and wonder. The guys taken right after Montgomery include Sal Frelick (15th overall, now with the Brewers), Matt McLain (17th, Reds), and Jackson Merrill (27th, Padres). Merrill is an All-Star outfielder for San Diego already. Frelick and McLain have both contributed at the big league level. That’s the kind of hindsight that stings for Colorado fans.
But the Rockies can’t do anything about that now. Montgomery’s name is out of the prospect conversation for good. He walked away before ever getting the call to Denver, and his retirement closes the book on a career that never quite took off.
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