Actually, I’m buying most of them—although, I don’t really believe in the clutch hitting argument.

I’m not convinced that he has to be dealt now (nor did I see that in the article), but I think he will need to be dealt some day. If the Rockies could get a Teixeira-like deal, I’d do it. The Rockies can’t afford to lock up that much salary for that long of time on one player. Let’s face it, Holliday would have to give up a lot of money and years on his contract to stay in Denver and that may be asking too much.

4. Length of contract. Look no further then our very own Todd Helton to see how locking up a player like Holliday to say, an 8 year contract (which I am fairly certain he can get on the open market) can cripple you when his peak is over and he is on the decline. I do not want to see Holliday getting $18 million a year 6 years from now when he will be 34 years old and on the downside of his career.

Like the article mentions, the Rockies simply cannot afford to eat Holliday’s soon to be gigantic salary when he inevitably stops producing like he does for us now 4 to 5 years down the road like the Red Sox or Yankees could.

Also, I just don’t think LF is an important enough position to pay big bucks to long term no matter how productive Holliday is at the plate. It’s been proven throughout history that pitching and defense is what ultimately wins in the game of baseball. If I were the Rockies I’d only consider throwing that kind of money at elite starting pitching, elite shortstops, elite center fielders, or elite catchers and even then we probably could not afford to do so with the budget we are working with.

I would love to keep Holliday around as much as the next Rockies fan, unfortunately salary constraints are not going to allow us to do so if we want to field a well-rounded, competitive team. The Rockies goal has to become how to make the team better without Holliday and an enormous part of that is obviously the kind of package they can land for Holliday.