Are the Rockies losing on purpose?

by GoRoxGo on May 31, 2008 9:50 AM MDT

I know this sounds absolutely nuts, and would be the stuff that "conspiracy theorists" love, but one has to wonder, given the wide variety of ways the team has been losing lately.

Something tells me that O'Dowd and ownership want to clean house this July by trading players such as Holliday, Atkins, Hawpe, and Fuentes. However, those desires could be thwarted IF the team were to make a run back to .500+ by the All-Star break. O'Dowd needs a pretext to make the wholesale changes that he desires to make. The best pretext for that obviously is to be hopelessly out of it by late July so that he can be a seller and retool the team. THIS is the reason I'm suspicious about the motives behind....

1. placing Hawpe on the DL even though he was said to be day-to-day and could pinch hit if needed.

2. placing Barmes on the DL even though the injury appeared to be one that may keep him out for only a few days. Hillman on FSN, on the night of the injury, even predicted that Barmey would play the next night!

3. placing Holliday on the DL with his hamstring strain even though the initial word was that he could just miss a few games.

4. being slow and cautious in the rehab of Jason Hirsh, who clearly needs a rehab stint in AAA but is already a better option than Glendon Rusch.

5. being slow and cautious in the rehab of Louis Vizcaino.

6. refusing to make Chris Iannetta the everyday starter even though he has clearly earned it, while pretending that Yorvit is some sort of "valuable commodity".

Sure, some of these decisions are necessary and justifiable, but when you add it all up, at the very least it appears that the Rockies are thinking long-term about their players' health and not pulling out all stops to get them back on the field quickly. At worst, though, this smacks of a front-office that is trying to "bury" the team to ensure their record will be so bad come July that they can justify a trading frenzy.

This is why I ask the question, "Are the Rockies losing on purpose"? I don't think they are actually "throwing games" such as yesterday's blown 8-0 lead, but It's still worth pondering whether the losses are EXACTLY what management wants now as we sink further and further into oblivion.

Eat. Drink. Be Merry. But the above FanPost does not necessarily reflect the attitudes, opinions, or views of Purple Row's staff (unless, of course, it's written by the staff [and even then, it still might not]).

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Haha

I think this could be my favorite fanpost ever.

I don’t think they are trying to lose, I just think they never knew how to win.

by roxintober on May 31, 2008 10:48 AM MDT reply actions

Did you even watch baseball last year?

I think they knew how to win once, but apparently forgot.

by Rox Girl on May 31, 2008 10:52 AM MDT up reply actions

This is true.

But I don’t think they know how to win over 1+ season, is what I meant.

by roxintober on Jun 2, 2008 9:37 AM MDT up reply actions

Better sinking to oblivion than rising to sub-mediocrity.

Why would O’Dowd want to tank his own team? It’s not like Hawpe was playing better than Seth Smith has, and while nobody could expect this, Spilly’s been paying as well as Holliday had. This team would have been sinking like this even without those players on the DL. Torrealba’s always been Hurdle’s guy, that’s pretty obvious.

Now, my question is why you think this team’s better off going forward with a bunch of pretty good but not great guys entering their thirties when their skills will be going down the drain than a bunch of players who are at least as good in their twenties? The housecleaning you are so afraid of won’t hurt this team as much as standing still with our deteriorating pitching situation.

by Rox Girl on May 31, 2008 10:49 AM MDT reply actions

Where did I object to the trades......

in this fanpost? I was simply explaining that in order to justify to the fanbase the multitude of moves they want to make, the team simply has to be hopelessly out of it by the trade deadline. Now, the way they’ve been playing makes that an almost-certainty. My point (and question posed) in this post is whether the front office is also trying to help this along through personnel moves, thus ensuring that the team won’t get hot and suddenly find themselves back on the fringes of the wild-card or divisional picture.

Doesn’t it seem to you that they took extraordinary precautions by DL’ing everyone at once when they probably could have been ready before the DL time is up? Holliday himself has said he will be ready on June 10th, his first day off the DL, which tells me he also probably could have been ready to play even sooner than the required time he has to spend on the DL. I suspect that’s also true with Hawpe and Barmes.

In other words, the rash of injuries played right into the front office’s hands, and they simply may have taken advantage of them by unnecessarily DL’ing all of them for two reasons: 1) to call up kids like Smith and Stewart and give them PT to see what they can contribute in order to make sure they are ready to step in for the traded players in July, and 2) oh, by the way, to prevent any miraculous comeback to respectibility, which would harm their retooling efforts from a PR perspective.

Reason #2 is probably full of crap, but I just wanted to throw that possibility out there in the public domain to see what reaction people have to the notion that teams sometimes MAY sacrifice short-term success in order to position themselves to justify moves to help them in the long-term.

by GoRoxGo on May 31, 2008 11:36 AM MDT up reply actions

I think reason #1 is more like it....

I actually think the FO already knew that this team wouldn’t make a miraculous comeback, but they really wanted to make sure they had MLB caliber players in Smith and Stewart and not just AAAA filler before making the big moves that seem to be coming and the injuries provided a convenient oportunity to do that. I think the same is true of Quintanilla, Herrera, Sullivan and Baker though, all of these guys are getting a lot of PT at the MLB level right now, and the club is getting a pretty decent idea of who they need to let go for the next group of kids.

I think the team already must know they’re going to take a huge PR hit regardless. Atkins is Renck’s favorite for the Post, and you know he’ll put up a huge stink if Garrett gets traded. Holliday was close to an MVP last season, fans will certainly not understand dealing him.

Sorry for misinterpreting the fanpost, btw, it’s just too common to see Rockies fans latch onto these players because A) they’re nice, good and they helped us get to the World Series, but also because B) the media treats them like Hall of Famers.

by Rox Girl on May 31, 2008 11:57 AM MDT up reply actions

You're probably right.....

and I guess that the continued suckiness of the team, partially due to all the injuries, is simply a “side-benefit” to the front office in their impending public rationale for making the trades. In other words, they may not be CONSCIOUSLY trying to sabotoge the W/L record by needlessly DL’ing a bunch of players, but they certainly don’t mind that they’ll have “cover” for their decision-making. The injuries also provide a convenient excuse for management to explain why things spiraled out of control. No longer do they just have the “We were playing bad, no excuses” explanation at their disposal. Now, they can say they played poorly and then were sacked with injuries, which didn’t enable them to turn it around.

by GoRoxGo on May 31, 2008 12:21 PM MDT up reply actions

really?

by Teekalong on May 31, 2008 4:02 PM MDT up reply actions

"helped us get to the World Series"

as a quality that gives fans some sort of mistaken feeling of loyalty for these guys? Dear lord. I’m not saying trades don’t need to be made and that these guys are all all-stars…but 20 years from now when we haven’t been back to the WS, you might think that this quality had a bit more importance than you are currently giving it.

by Teekalong on May 31, 2008 4:04 PM MDT reply actions

Obviously you're not one of the fans I was talking about

But you and I both know that there’s a broad swath of the Rockie attending public who thinks all that needs to happen to right the ship is to get rid of Hurdle and O’Dowd and sell the team to Monty Burns. We’re more likely to return to the playoffs keeping O’Dowd and Hurdle and upgrading our players. Of course, ridding ourselves of Hurdle and/or O’Dowd and upgrading the players might accelerate the process.

by Rox Girl on Jun 1, 2008 5:57 AM MDT up reply actions

Very true, point taken...

by Teekalong on Jun 1, 2008 10:23 AM MDT up reply actions

9-20

That’s this team’s record without Troy Tulowitzki. Seems about right, doesn’t it? I mean, I know it flies in the face of sabermetric thinking to claim that a guy’s intangible value is some sort of magic elixir that magically improves a team in its presence… but I gotta tell ya, I feel like this team’s been rudderless since Tulo hit the DL. They haven’t had any kind of on-field leadership from the players – and ultimately, you can blame Hurdle all you want, but at some point the players have to start kicking themselves in the ass, too. Tulo was the catalyst for that last year.

You surround Tulo with a good talent base, you’ll have a team that will be in the hunt.

Oh, and to stay on topic – the idea of intentionally losing is so utterly absurd that I won’t even dignify it. This ain’t the NBA.

Staying on the sunny side of Blake Street since 1993.

by Franchise26 on May 31, 2008 8:25 PM MDT reply actions

Sure it's absurd.....

but is it any more absurd than the notion you advance that Tulo is the difference between a 9-20 mark and, say, 14-15? Nothing could be as absurd as thinking one player, even one like Babe Ruth, could have a 5-win imipact in 29 games.

Now, I know that you didn’t exactly SAY that Tulo would have brought us a .500 record over the past 29 games, but the implication you made is that it would have been a heck of a lot better than 9-20. His “intangibles” certainly would have helped, but do ‘ya really think he could have added more than a win or two at the most? Also, keep in mind that Barmes played VERY well in his abense for most of this stretch of games. So to suggest Tulo is that much of a difference-maker is, frankly, “utterly absurd”.

by GoRoxGo on May 31, 2008 8:38 PM MDT up reply actions

Let's save the hyperbole...

for statements like ‘this team is pretending players are hurt worse than they really are because of some conspiracy to lose as many games as possible.’

Barmes would have been putting up those numbers at second base had Tulo been around, for the record.

I think the effects of a team losing their emotional leader are far-reaching, and they go beyond simply the abilities that that player brings to the table. Just adding Tulo’s projected contributions with the bat and the glove to what the Rox have done over the last month probably doesn’t get them much farther over that 9-20 hump. But like I said – I think Tulo’s impact is greater than that. I don’t think he’s the kind of player that would allow his teammates to fall into the kind of funk that this team is in.

But I’m not going to argue any further with somebody who actually thinks a professional baseball franchise has decided to start punting games in mid-May.

Staying on the sunny side of Blake Street since 1993.

by Franchise26 on May 31, 2008 9:42 PM MDT up reply actions

Try to actually READ the posts.....

“But I’m not going to argue any further with somebody who actually thinks a professional baseball franchise has decided to start punting games in mid-May.”

Reading comprehension not your strong suit? I wrote that as a mere question to ponder, not opining that this is the case. I also wrote that it’s probably total crap.

You take yourself WAAAY too seriously. Your Tulo theory is also nice but about as absurd as what I wrote earlier, as I said. He’s a leader, he’s good, but HE AIN’T GOD.

by GoRoxGo on May 31, 2008 11:53 PM MDT up reply actions

I read the title,

Which was “Are the Rockies losing on purpose?” That says it all about how seriously to take whatever you have to say.

Staying on the sunny side of Blake Street since 1993.

by Franchise26 on Jun 1, 2008 12:42 AM MDT up reply actions

Losing On Purpose?

DL stints for slumping major leaguers is VERY common place. SO common I ASSUMED Hawpe would be going on the DL soon, before he did. More like giving a guy a break from the pressure, to get his head together, AND to see if he has a replacement. Seeing a guy take your job…is a real kick in the ole pants seat.

Throw in the fact the Rockies need to see if Seth Smith and Ian Stewart, and some of the others are major league players as the Rockies really need to “unblock” some jammed up players in the system, and you get these wholesale moves. Do I think some of the “injuries” are trumped up? Yep….but is not the same as trying to lose on Purpose.

Now….Do the Rockies (Organization, Players and Management) really know how to win and win consistently? That’s a WHOLE other question.

Colorado Rockies: Continuing a long tradition of playing meaningless games in June!

by Redhawk on Jun 1, 2008 11:18 AM MDT reply actions