Monday Morning Rockpile:
by Rox Girl on Jun 30, 2008 10:19 AM MDT
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PrintTim Dierkes at MLB TradeRumors has a run-down on all the Brian Fuentes whispers. To his list of teams supposedly interested (Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Phillies and A's) you can add the Tampa Bay Rays, as this report indicates (it also mentions their interest in Holliday). Dierkes also notices something many Rockies fans have about our current relief situation. That is to say, Taylor Buchholz's performance to date should make it that much easier for the Rockies to deal Fuentes without remorse.
The three AL East teams and two NL East teams on the list make it likely that the Rockies will be able to extract a fairly sizable premium for Brian -at least two quality prospects/young players, I'd say- as you have a situation where teams will have added interest in not only getting his arm for themselves, but also in keeping him from going to a divisional rival. Despite his struggles Saturday night, the interest doesn't seem to be abating, and the added leverage of the compensation picks the Rockies would receive if they held onto him just make this an almost ideal sell situation. It's pretty clear that Brian will be significantly overvalued by this market.
The Holliday situation isn't so transparent, as the impact player the Rockies are after in return for him has yet to be offered, and that more than anything else is what led Dan O'Dowd to pull him off the market. I think the odds of us trading him before the end of July are signinficantly lower than those that say he stays until the offseason but a recent spate of injuries to corners among the contenders and the Rockies ugly road trip opens up the possibility more than it seemed to be a week ago.
If there is one measure of solace to be taken in this lost season, it's that San Diego seems to be in an even faster sinking boat, but with less of a core to build around going forward. I mean, say what you will about being swept on the road by the Royals and Tigers, but the Padres got clocked at home by the Mariners. Apparently, they are now ready to purge.
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No Brainer
Unload Fuentes. He should have left after last year but we were clouded with visions of grandeur. Now he is $5M albatross closer who rarely gets to close. He has had two save chances in two weeks and he blew one of them.
He has had a good run here and now we can parlay that into some quality prospects.
This team has shown no inclination that it can:
1. Hit with RISP
2. Win on the road
3. Compete with the Cubs, Phillies, Mets, DBacks all of whom appear to be in the best position.
4. At the end of the day, you have to ascertain what it takes to be the best in the NL. Regardless of how pathetic the West is, the ultimate is king of the NL. Rocks are not close.
They are what they are, a below average team who got insanely hot at the right time.
by PinchHitLancePainter on Jun 30, 2008 11:11 AM MDT reply actions
I disagree, I think we’re a very underperforming team this year with a few holes. Everything that could go wrong this year has gone wrong.
I think it's a matter of what you define "average" as.
Certainly the Rockies performance to date has been below average both relative to the NL and especially the MLB in nearly every facet of the game this season, so that’s some pretty hard evidence that the team as a whole is, in fact, below average. Looking closely at the players that are underperforming the most, however, probably helps this argument somewhat:
Just making a true talent audit of the lineup shows that the team should be a bit more mediocre, but injuries, foolish personnel decisions and underperformance are dragging us down:
C – Average with Iannetta, below average with Torrealba
1B -average at this point, no longer above, but not really below
2B – below average talent mostly, or players not suited to the position
SS – above average talent? below average performance. I hope this is just a youth slump.
3B – just a little above average
RF – a bit above average offensively but with some horrible defense that cancels it out.
CF – below average talent
LF – above average
For our starters, we have one experienced starter who’s above average in talent, two inexperienced starters who are above average in talent (U-ball and JDLR), one of whom (JDLR) may very well be tragically flawed beyond usefulness, however, and two more soft tossing starters that may or may not be better than the awfulness they’ve shown.
In all, I think the team is neither as good as it was last September or as bad as it is now, but just an average team prone to huge performance swings one direction or the other.
The problem though
is not with some aggregate rating of how good each player is with respect to some arbitrary leaguewide benchmark. When it counts, on any given day or in any given AB, the team and management have been massively underperforming and below average across the board. And the pitching with 2 exceptions has been disgraceful. You simply do not win without clutch hitting and consistent pitching, neither of which this team has shown at all.
As Parcells says, “you are what your record says you are.”
I agree
we are what we are..and that is the 3rd worst team in all of baseball. There is no way to look at that record, and say, that we are good. I think Rox Girl is being way to kind in her assessment of the positions.
How did we get to be the 3rd worst team? And how do we avoid this next year?
For a quick answer I’ll quote my favorite coach Barry Switzer, when asked if he should be running more “I” like Nebraska was or bring in coaches that knew the “I formation” in the early 80’s: “It’s not the alignment, It’s not the aligners, It’s the Alingees, and the only solution is to bring in better talent, and to recruit better. ” BUT in the Rockies case…the Alingers (coach) have a LOT do do with under performance. To me, that’s the definition of a coaches job, to get the most out of the talent and the players given to a team.
Colorado Rockies: Continuing a long tradition of playing meaningless games in June!
I think you guys misunderstand what I'm saying
There are two different ways an argument can be made on this:
1. The team’s straight up performance taking all the random variables into account- which is what both you and Teekalng are doing, and which in no way, shape or form do the Rockies measure as anywhere close to average this season
2. The team’s true talent level, what a team of that quality of player should be expected to do. And in this area, the team fares a lot better, I mean, unless you really would rather have the Pirates or Giants personnel instead of ours, in which case you’re daft.
The true talent of this team is certainly better than what the performances have indicated. It’s just a matter of figuring out why the team has underperformed and what personnel are either really dragging us down and should be booted off before next season, or which we can sell at a high premium to accelerate the restructuring.
I don't disagree with that position
in general…though I do think its possible that the Pirates and certainly the Giants would die laughing if we proposed flipping pitching staffs.
you're right about that
but what is the solution? If the team is underperforming, isn’t it the manager/coaching staff to blame? IMHO Clint Hurdle is not a very good manager, but he’s the perfect fit for the cheapskate owners who are completely happy with a losing-yet-profitable team. Since Hurdle isn’t going anywhere, how else can the team be fixed? Shouldn’t you sell high on a bullpen LHP in an attempt to inject the team with more talent and/or shakeup the clubhouse to regain last season’s competitive fire?
I like Brian Fuentes a lot, but if there really is a 6 team bidding war over him, the Rockies should take advantage of it while they can.
Aut Vincam Aut Periam
by PioneerSkies on Jun 30, 2008 12:51 PM MDT up reply actions
I'm sure its been asked
How many times has a team gone from being in the world series to finishing last in their division/league??
TGFPR!!
The optimist in me
likes to think that the Rockies are on pace with the St. Louis Cardinals of the 2000’s. The same Cardinals who, in 2004, were swept in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox. The same Cardinals that won the World Series only two seasons after that. The only flaw in the comparison is that the 05 Cards were pretty good, winning 100 games and the NL Central. The 08 Rockies are nowhere close to being on pace with that, but again, this is the reasoning of a blind baseball optimist…
Aut Vincam Aut Periam
by PioneerSkies on Jun 30, 2008 12:58 PM MDT up reply actions
Helton
Is there any market for Helton, if we ate a big chunk of his salary? At minimum, I think he needs to be benched until he can find his stroke. It seems that since he started imitating Craig Counsell stance, he started hitting like Counsell too.
Fuentes should be dealt.
Helton average
is a bit of a stretch nowadays. He has the lowest OBP among the division’s 1Bmen, and by far the lowest slugging percentage. Unfortunately this is a trend and not an aberration. His strikeouts are on pace to be significantly up (20+) from last year, while his walks will be about the same. Of the games I’ve watched this season, it seems that he is not getting the strike calls on the inside and outside of the plate that he has gotten in the past, although I’m not sure if this is the strike zone or his eye.
Last season, he definitely could have been considered average, perhaps above because of his OBP. The team needed the timely walks and the constant presence on base for Atkins and Hawpe to drive in. But as noted above, with the switch in stance his power is gone and he looks like Doug Mientkewicz (albeit in Doug’s better seasons with Min).
I never thought I’d get past Galarraga moving on, but I’ve grew to love watching Helton. I just think it might be time to figure out a way for him to do the same. At this point, does it seem likely that the team is going to get back deep into the post-season during the remainder of his contract? Or is it beating a dead horse because Helton’s not going anywhere?
Interesting thought
I always have to remind myself-when becoming attached to the old-time guys-how much I struggled with replacing Andres with Helton. I was not opposed to it, but certainly I wasn’t excited about it. Now, of course, its hard for me to imagine the Rockies without Todd on first base…
Probably meaningless but interesting to me: while every other position has seen all kinds of turnover and change throughout the years, we’ve really only had only 2 first basemen in the history of the franchise.
As for the rest, I honestly think Helton is here until he retires, so the occasional uprising to “replace” him is about as futile as hoping for new ownership. I just hope he can finish strongly enough to break through to represent the Rockies in the HOF.
You could be right...
The regression curve shows him to be better than what he’s playing at right now, but if he’s fallen off a cliff then the curve’s pretty much useless (see Andruw Jones) and it would be foolish to expect him to bounce back.
Which is what I’m doing. I think he’ll have another spike season like 2007 sometime during the duration of his contract, but I’d guess that most of the seasons left on it will be like this. Comparing him to just the division has a little bit of a selection bias since except for the Giants, the NL West is blessed with some pretty decent people. His VORP is 15th in the MLB among first basemen, which should put him right in the middle.
YOUR ACCUMULATED COMMENTS LEAD ME TO THINK THAT........
after the ALL-STAR GAME there will be changes that will redefine the entire Rockie Organization!
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