Purple Row's 2008 Starter of the Year

Let's be honest: The rotation for the Colorado Rockies in 2008 was not very good. Or not even good. Jeff Francis didn't build on his strong 2007 campaign; Ubaldo Jimenez struggled for the first half of the season; Jorge De La Rosa was maddeningly inconsistent until the last few weeks of the season; Franklin Morales didn't carry over any of his late-season success from 2007; 2006 1st-round pick Greg Reynolds failed to show he was ready for the bigs; and the experiment known as Mark Redman, predictably, didn't work.

But there was some good. Ubaldo Jimenez turned into a reliable and consistent pitcher during the second half of the season; Jorge De La Rosa transformed himself into almost a given in the rotation for 2008; and we saw Purple Row's 2008 Pitcher of the Year in Aaron Cook finally have that breakthrough season. There aren't many reasons to open this up to voting. No starter was more consistent or better than Cook.

In his third full season as a starter for the Rockies, Aaron Cook posted a sub-4 ERA (2005's 3.67 was better, but he did that in 13 starts after coming back from the life-threatening injury he suffered in 2004). The NL's ERA was 4.64. 

Cook's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 3.80, which was expected at 4.23. FIP, basically, measures what a pitcher is specifically responsible for, regardless of what his fielders did behind him. 2008 is only the second time Cook's FIP has been lower than his ERA. The other time was in 2006 when Cook had that 9-15 season.  Another stat to look at: Cook's home runs as a percent of outfield fly balls, or HR/F, was 8.1%. The average percentage is between 11% and 12%. Being able to keep that percentage that low will be a tough thing to do.