Saturday Rockpile: Jorge De La Rosa receives help from sports psychologist, gets better results; Don Baylor: getting the bats right
by Russ Oates on Feb 21, 2009 8:52 AM MST
in Rockpile
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PrintToday's Rockpile is late as theoldgrizzlybear had an emergency pop up during the night that precluded him from doing today's Rockpile. This is going to be a quick Rockpile today.
Thomas Harding has this piece on how Jorge De La Rosa turned a corner once the Rockies' sports psychologist Ronn Svetich started working with him. De La Rosa's sounding better every day.
Dave Krieger offers his view on what Don Baylor and his hitters will need to do to be successful this season.
The Rocky also has this article on where Hurdle is leaning with the batting order. The one the article offers as a front-runner right now is:
- Spilborghs
- Smith
- Helton
- Atkins
- Hawpe
- Tulowitzki
- Iannetta
- Barmes
- Pitcher
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As you've likely noticed by now,
some changes were made over the night. If you have any feedback on them, let me know, as the tech team wants the feedback.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
I have to say
I don’t like the big grey block at the end of the story. The placement of the tags beneath the story, and the “More from…” to the right-hand side, were much more ergonomic.
Blast and botheration.
Yes, that's most of what we've
been complaining about.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
Grey Wall of Text
just what every blog needs
"Suck it monkeys, the Rockies will win this year", Rox Girl 1-11-2009
I don't mind the grey box as much
But I don’t think there needs to be anything between the headline and the story. It really takes away from the natural flow, and I suspect it will become more annoying in stories that tag a half dozen players.
"Winning doesn't really matter as long as you win." - Vinny Jones
by Andrew T. Fisher on Feb 21, 2009 12:45 PM MST up reply actions
Thanks for covering this Russ...
I was out of town overnight and just got back. I’m not sure I’m liking the changes at all.
No one is.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
Looking at our referrals, it doesn't seem to be helping us get any more hits
Just a useless gray space that detracts from the site is what it seems to amount to.
Same, same, same
Is it me, or is every baseball blog trying to conform to the same set up: logo in upper left, banner ad in upper center, guide/link bar under banner ad, recent articles on the right side. SBN, Fangraphs, Baseball Musings, MVN (a little different at the top, but pretty close), MLB Trade Rumors (again, different at the top but the same elsewhere). Some places have ads instead of article links between the column and the comments, but something there seems to be pretty common.
I don’t think the article links between the column and the comments are that bad. Any extra time to digest what you’ve read and consider making your comment should be welcome in the blog world.
And there's
good reason for it. The related stories above used to be on the right sidebar, but having the tags above the start of the post doesn’t look good. Plus, there’s other stuff behind these changes.
"If we never try, we shall never succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Purple Row - Covering all your Rockies needs!
Like putting the internal links (other SBN sites) in a more prominent position to increase traffic flow around the SBN network?
In that case, it’s a pretty good idea for them and you guys. Plus, there was too much crap on the right side bar. My mind turned to mush about 1/4 of the way down.
I personally clicked on two SBN links...
Without the wall I never would have seen them before now.
Keepin' warm by the hot stove season.
Yep, it seemed to work better as the day progressed...
I did notice a bit of an uptick in cross blog traffic. So I guess it really does perform its function.
Smith
I hope Smith is not this years Nix, 3 days into ST, and the club? and writers are giving him the job in LF.
Dixie Smith
has actually hit in the majors and in his small numbers in the majors (though not so much as a PH last year). So he’s way ahead of NIx…who hadn’t hit anywhere.
See how I used the nickname for Smith?….it’s cool one!
"Suck it monkeys, the Rockies will win this year", Rox Girl 1-11-2009
Smith has not only hit well in the minors
but he has been improving his OBP practically every year despite moving up levels. He has success in the majors as well. And if that doesn’t make you feel better, he has a much more sound swing as well.
"Winning doesn't really matter as long as you win." - Vinny Jones
by Andrew T. Fisher on Feb 21, 2009 10:20 AM MST up reply actions
OBP, OBP, OBP
All of those guys at the top have a track record of getting on base at a high percentage (either in an MLB reserve role, minors, or majors. CHONE OBP predictions for 1-2-3 spots:
Spilly: .376
Smith: .361
Helton: 405
That’s a lot of baserunners for Atkins and Hawpe to drive in. Now, if Ianetta was just moved to 6th where he belongs, and Tulo back to 7th where he hits best, this lineup would make a ton of sense.
I don't mind Smith 2nd at all
by why Tulo ahead of Iannetta?!
"Winning doesn't really matter as long as you win." - Vinny Jones
by Andrew T. Fisher on Feb 21, 2009 10:21 AM MST reply actions
yeah I don't get that either
But if Tulo’s breaking it out, it might be alright. The real key I think are Atkins and Helton. They have to rebound and show they’re actually worthy of being in the middle of order. I think they’re bigger questions than the placement of Smith or Tulo. I’m just glad that Barmes is 8th. I was really worried Hurdle’s man-crush on him would have him bat second.
Ianetta-Atkins
Maybe they are bracing for the possibility that Atkins tanks with RISP again (because he should’ve been traded in December). Then it’d be a clean switch of Ianetta to 4th and Atkins to 7th, leaving Tulo’s hopefully productive bat in a productive position while Atkins works out his melancholy.
Courtesy of baseballmusings
Switching swapping Iannetta to 6th and Tulo to 7th provides a net LOSS of 0.648 runs over the entire season, which of course is not statistically significant. Then again, I’m not sure I buy that, and Hurdle certainly isn’t using this site to build his lineup…
"Winning doesn't really matter as long as you win." - Vinny Jones
by Andrew T. Fisher on Feb 21, 2009 10:55 AM MST up reply actions
ted stevens
i dislike men, you don't know what the hell you want out of life.
by pierzynskirules on Feb 23, 2009 4:51 PM MST up reply actions
Maybe they're
providing protection for Tulo?
Having CDI give Tulo some protection is probably being done because they don’t want Tulo to put too much pressure on himself like he did last year.
by rockieprogress on Feb 21, 2009 12:11 PM MST up reply actions
I would assume it's cause of Torrealba
A catcher as good as Iannetta looks to be can’t catch every day, and it would assumed Yorviet will catch at least twice a week.
Having Iannetta low keeps the rest of the line up fairly stable when Torrealba plays
Rockies Mgr. Clint Hurdle on what needs improvement in 09: "Our Record"
I'm cautiously obtimistic about the DLR piece
At least there’s a tangible reason to expect he’s turned the corner and left his streaky ways behind. A well written article.
"Winning doesn't really matter as long as you win." - Vinny Jones
by Andrew T. Fisher on Feb 21, 2009 12:43 PM MST reply actions
Thanks for covering, Russ.
Just let me know what day you want me to cover for you.
Rock rock 'til you drop!
by Bryan Kilpatrick on Feb 21, 2009 2:49 PM MST reply actions
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