Thursday Morning Rockpile: Rockies extend Corpas

by Rox Girl on Feb 28, 2008 5:32 AM MST in Rockpile

Okay, so the team's a step or two ahead of me right now, getting Manny Corpas to sell out his arbitration years plus possibly one free agent season with an extension the sides agreed to yesterday. As the Troy Renck story indicates, much like Troy Tulowitzki's deal this one sets some precedent in the less than two years service time department, coming in as the largest extension ever to a reliever at that experience level.

This deal seems to me to carry quite a bit more risk than Tulo's does, as relievers can have vast swings in performance levels from year to year thanks to the small innings pitched samples and thanks to the more fragile nature of pitchers to begin with. I see it as a role of the dice that could turn out very well for the Rockies, however, as Corpas' career has started about as well as what could have possibly been hoped for and he certainly seems on a path to late inning stardom.

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Mark Kizla's back to writing about the Rockies, may we all duck and cover. He fawns some false praise on Jeff Francis, who despite being the Rockies Opening Day starter still shouldn't be considered the team's ace. Maybe Baldo can take that mantle, maybe Morales, but Francis is a very good pitcher, a solid number two that gives us a chance to win more often than not. Comparing him to true aces like Webb, Peavy and Josh Beckett doesn't hold water and I have troubles when people try to make the square peg fit in a round hole like this.

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As for the outcome yesterday, the Rockies know that winning against the White Sox in February could mean as much as losing would have. The games aren't meaningless so long as they are used to legitimately fine tune the team for winning in April through September, and ultimately, as Francis asserts in the Tracy Ringolsby article:

"Everybody's aspiration in spring training is to be in the World Series," he said.

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Update [2008-2-28 14:17:8 by Rox Girl]:

This week has been busy for me, so I haven't been able to check out all the sites that are normally regular reads for me and I therefore missed that Russ had participated in a Two on Two preview of the NL West at Baseball Analysts. Oops. Sorry.

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I don't know that he's worth it.

I like Manny and all but I really have a hard time believing that we're going to see anything near what we saw out of him last year. I hope I'm wrong but I think 2007 was his career year and efforts are better spent signing Fuentes to a longer term deal because we know that he's an all-star caliber pitcher.

But you know, even if I'm right, it's only 8 million over two years, the big money is locked up in the club option years. So even worst case scenario isn't that bad.

by belt on Feb 28, 2008 6:35 AM MST reply actions

Its not that bad

My read is that of the $22 million, only $8 million is certain, and then there are club option years. We aren't on the hook for a monster deal if he ends up sucking bigtime in the next couple of years.

by moomacher on Feb 28, 2008 7:47 AM MST up reply actions

I like it...

there is certainly some risk involved, but it isn't "that much" money and not that many years. If he performs close to what we expect, then signing him or replacing him with a free agent would be much higher. The next two years his price will be roughly that of Latroy Hawkins. After that, the club has an option that amounts to less than most of the closers in the league.

by DenverBears on Feb 28, 2008 7:52 AM MST reply actions

Francis

He may not be an "Ace" but he goes out and pitches his game every day. He knows what he is doing and he is working hard to improve. You cannot give all of the credit for a win to the pitcher anyway, unless he throws 74 pitches in a complete game like Cook did last year. Ace or not I want him pitching for the Rockies.

GO ROCKIES!!! JFK

by jrockies on Feb 28, 2008 11:09 AM MST reply actions

Heading out to the game

I'll try to get something together later tonight. If there's anything juicy, I'll make sure to get it posted.

To early to start a Jeff Baker fan club?

by MattTheRock on Feb 28, 2008 11:14 AM MST reply actions

Had to clean up the link

to the Two on Two, it was going to a bad Gameday link.

"Don't give up the ship!" - Capt. James Lawrence

by Russ Oates on Feb 28, 2008 2:29 PM MST reply actions

Oops again

My multitasking today isn't as effective as I imagine it to be, it appears.

by Rox Girl on Feb 28, 2008 2:38 PM MST up reply actions

The Two on Two discussion

One part upset me:
Sully: As good as the core is, it seems as though they will have four holes in their lineup. That's a lot of dead weight to lug around. Jon alluded to the great core but lacking depth and I suppose I see this as a potential Achilles heel for this team. Helton figures to come back a bit and even if Holliday, Atkins, Tulo and Hawpe replicate their 2007 output, I think Torrealba, Nix and Taveras figure to offset a lot of the productivity. The Rox are a nice team, but there's a little too much hamburg on this roster for me to be convinced they will win 90 games once again. The Diamondbacks, on the other hand, look awfully tough to me.

4 holes in the lineup? What? And how many holes do the DBacks have in their lineup then? Bah...

"This is a game to be savored, not gulped. There's time to discuss everything between pitches or between innings." -- Bill Veeck

by TheChamp on Feb 28, 2008 9:56 PM MST reply actions

I think Taveras

gets underrated a little by some because of the lack of power, but his OBP plus stolen base frequency and success rate last season adds value that probably brings him to pretty close to a league average centerfielder. Not quite the hole that Sully makes him out to be, but not quite the ideal guy, either. The second point I think that's being missed here is that one of those four holes is the pitcher slot, which is a liability for everybody in the league except for once every five days with Arizona. Given that a lot of the hitting from this slot is from the team's bench, I think we stack up pretty well in the NL. I'd put our pinch hitters up in the top two or three in the NL, Milwaukee being a pretty clear leader at the moment with Gabe Gross on the bench.

I've said before that I think Nix or Baker will surprise people with league average (or better) value added at second base, which leaves us the one hole at catcher. Depending on how much Iannetta gets to play, that might not be too bad either.

So yeah, I guess that's a long way of saying I agree with you.

by Rox Girl on Feb 29, 2008 5:31 AM MST up reply actions