I don’t care

and so was Kemp. They were both ranked highly in different defensive areas.

Although we’ll have to wait and see if it’s a blip or actual progress.

as you’re confident that Colletti will fill your team’s needs, I’m sure most Rockies fans are confident that O’Dowd will figure out how to fill those that we have. It’s interesting to me that both are pretty adept at knowing how and when to use the leverage that they have. Colletti does well by waiting out for the best deals on free agents like Orlando Hudson and Manny, O’Dowd’s adept at pulling in talent when rosters get crunched at the end of Spring as he did with JDLR and Jason Hammel.

I agree that Elbert could still be a possibility to add to your team’s starting depth, he’s very much like Franklin Morales over here, a lot of promise, but a lot of inconsistency to date. I don’t know about Miller yet, I like waiting for a full season of minor league work, but your team definitely has a pretty solid track record with pitchers so I can see why you’d be bullish.

To quickly(it was my intention at first, but I failed massively) try and answer some of those Rockies questions with pure speculation (just as you speculate about the free agent adds the Dodgers will get for their rotation).

First, I don’t think the Rockies move JDLR yet, but I’m not sure they try to extend him, either. He seems to be in that Brad Hawpe category of player that they’re fine holding onto but will probably jump on an enticing trade offer for. A quality pitcher that’s just a little younger would probably do the trick. The Rosenthal report that said he wants an Ollie Perez type of contract and that the Rockies were thinking about trading him was odd because it implied some backstory into his situation that we hadn’t heard before. The only two ways the first part about the Ollie Perez contract comes up is if a Rockies insider tells Rosenthal this, meaning that the Rockies had put out feelers to JDLR about a longer term contract which is news to us, or JDLR’s agent lets Rosenthal know this, and then he goes back to a Rockies inside source with this info and learns that the team is open to trading De La Rosa at that point.

If it’s his agent negotiating through the press (and I wonder if it is as a club source probably wouldn’t specify another player and just say that he’s pricing himself out of their range or something) I can tell you that there will be very little chance that he stays with the club past next season because the Rockies don’t usually respond well to that tactic.

Rosenthal then mentioned the Rockies relying on young minor league pitching stepping up, which would be a hint that they will wait until the summer to deal him, waiting to see who’s performing the best in Colorado Springs or Tulsa out of the handful of near ready pitching prospects the team has. This would also leave open a mid-season acquisition of a SP if none of those starters looks ready to be an MLB positive and the team is in contention again (as they should be).

They could wind up holding onto De La Rosa all year and taking the draft pick(s) when he walks (this could happen if he’s pitching particularly well and the Rockies are in contention all season). At that point it would be the Rockies that might need to play catch up in the young, ready to contribute pitching category if Samuel Deduno, Esmil Rogers, Chacin and others all flame out as big league options. We’ll see.

For Stewart’s backup, the club has said they’re looking for a right handed corner bat to come off the bench and he would spell Helton, Stewart and either Hawpe or Smith in the OF. The market for these players is healthy enough that they can get a Hudson like steal if they wait. I hope they don’t fill this too soon.

Barmes isn’t a huge issue. The power and defense make him a decent bargain, the club gives him a lot of credit for intangibles. I think most Rockies fans would like an upgrade, I don’t think we’re going to get one for a couple of years.

Jose Contreras fills the setup role if Betancourt walks. My guess is that the Rockies will sign at least one of the two.