Which Rockies Player Is Ricky Martin?

I think Atkins is a flat-out hitter.  He looks like the second comming of Wade Boggs or George Brett.  And will be worth the FA money.  As of right now I like him more then Zimmerman or Wright

Holliday: Will get HUGE money.  But as debated, while I think he's in the top 10 LF's in the league, I'm not sure he will ever live up to the expectations once he leaves.  He's very nice...not Superstar.

Fuentes: Closers have a short shelf life.  

Cook:  I'm still undecieded about Cookie.  I think it depends on where he goes.  If it's to a pitchers park with a nice team around him, he could be a great #2 guy.  If he tries to be an ace of a crappy team, then he'll be a bust.  He needs hits/runs and defense even more then the average pitcher.  

For the Rockies the 64 thousand dollar question is...how replaceable are any of these guys?  

Still I don't see why the Rockies can't have a baseball average payroll.

I'd rather lose all three of the players you mention as long as I knew that the problem was getting fixed in order to hang onto the next group, which I see as having more potential anyway. The one possible exception as Redhawk mentions is Atkins, but even he's no sure bet, and at 27, he's not really that equivalent to David Wright, who's just 24.

What troubles me about the Twins and Athletics models is that winning has done little to address their bigger issue of generating revenue.  Their stadium situations haven't helped, but these are teams that are competitive for the playoffs almost every year, and the Rockies (who are not competitive) are right in their ballpark with attendance. What I'd rather see from the Monforts and the front office -since they are running this team like a business- is a clear path to the higher revenues necessary to keeping core players under contract.

Controlling and expanding the Rockies brand has been a fiasco under Dan O'Dowd's watch, mostly in the beginning, as his early moves broke up the Blake Street Bombers -a very marketable aspect of the overall Rockies brand- and hampered the team with long term liabilities. Due to his moves the team was soon thereafter seen as not only directionless, but worse, hopeless. I don't mean to lay it all on his feet, as he inherited one of the worst scouting and development systems in the majors (Choo Freeman being the latest example of the previous regime's inability to find talent that would make it all the way) which he's definitely fixed. Only recently has the whole ship started to turn around, with the Gen-R group (which is a corndog and subpar nickname, I might add) coming into its own.

Even so, columns like this make the Rockies seem whiny and reactionary rather than proactive when it comes to fixing the underlying issues. Obviously that's not the case, they were attempting to move Helton, but the $7.5 million per season they would have saved would only be able to help them keep maybe one guy. That's still not a long term solution. I think it's more important right now rather than focusing on individual players, that the team has a real strategy in place to increase the revenue stream other than just bumping up ticket prices every couple of seasons and hoping the next group of prospects leads to more fans in the seats. As Minnesota and Oakland show, winning doesn't always translate to increased attendance.

To me, this means the Rockies have to continue to be active in keeping the LoDo neighborhood vibrant, they have to be a lot better with publicity and marketing (I know "R you in?" is a common poker phrase, but it's also a terrible unintentional sexual double entendre suggesting something pathetic and somebody should have recognized that) and they need to tie winning and pride to the franchise rather than to its players. PR wise, they need to control the media cycle and they need to have Charlie Monfort stop talking to the press until he understands the importance of prepared talking points to go back to.

They let themselves get hammered by the Denver media for the Jason Jennings trade, which was clearly a superior deal for the Rockies, and that led to this reaction for trying to move Todd Helton, which had they got Hansen and/or Delcarmen would also have been a solid baseball move. They can't let that happen anymore.

I have no problem with ownership wanting to be prudent with its investment, and I understand that by sticking to the bottom line on payroll each year they will be able to increase the money doled out incrementally and that someday this strategy will pay off very well, but they can accelerate the process with a little more creativity and proactivity in other aspects of the business. And they have to find a way to be able to keep Tulo and Iannetta when the time comes.