Rockies Blog Review: R.I.P. Bad Altitude

One reason why I've been looking forward to adding new writers to Purple Row is that I hope that it would allow me more opportunity to read some of the best independent Rockies writing on the Internet. Now that we have those writers, I'm going to do a weekly feature highlighting posts we may have missed during the week from other Rockies blogs. I've got several on my GoogleReader feed, but if you notice that I'm missing something, shoot me an e-mail or post a link in a FanShot.

This is a late post-mortem, but one of the Rockies blogosphere's heavyweights has apparently decided to hang up the gloves for now. With their flagship blog, Dodger Thoughts, leaving Baseball Toaster's platform for the LA Times, the Toaster itself has decided to pull the plug, and Bad Altitude author Mark Donohue's indicating that he may not continue blogging about the Rockies elsewhere. While I've frequently disagreed with Donohue on several points, losing his sharp wit and well constructed essays is certainly a blow to Rockies writing on the net. I only hope that like Franchise26, that this will only be a temporary sabbatical before the itch to blog the Rockies again becomes overwhelming. Maybe I can goad him back into the game with my eternal Rockies perkiness. Hey, Mark, you know the Rockies will win the NL West this season, right?  

Bleacher Report checks in with a couple of solid Rockies pieces. David Martin, aka Sandlotkid8 wonders why the local chapter of the BWAA chose Brian Fuentes over other worthy candidates for pitcher of the year, and Anthony Masterson explores the newly opened Oakland to Colorado pipeline.  

Inside the Humidor rooted against the Cardinals in the Super Bowl for similar anti-Arizona reasons that I would have, had I watched the Super Bowl.

Mark Townsend beat me to something I was thinking about posting a link to, but check out  what Dante Bichette Jr has been up to.

Speaking of Franchise26 and MHCSports, I'm not sure if it was his blog entry or mkorpal's FanShot here that caused Troy Renck to respond quickly to put the fire out that the Matt Murton for Corey Wimberly deal was possibly a precursor to a Garrett Atkins trade. At issue here, is that in a best case scenario where everybody is playing up to their potential, Atkins probably should be dealt. Stewart would be at least as good a run producer, a better defender, and a heck of a lot cheaper. The problem with that is right now, there's no way to know for certain who will actually be playing up to their potential this season. If the team deals Atkins and Stewart flops, they're up a creek, this would be especially onerous if Atkins goes on and performs near the peak of his capabilities this season. Spring training should give the team a better idea, but I'm thinking this doesn't get resolved until May at the earliest.

The sorority of female Rockies bloggers is pretty small, so I want to be sure the ladies at Tight Ends and Hot Rox get a shout out. I've added them to the blogroll as well as the overdue additions of MHCSports and Purple Rox Squad. Now that I have some of my time back, maybe I can be more diligent about keeping that thing up to date.