While Willy Taveras had been expected and rumored to be cut leading into Friday night's contract tender deadline, Jonathan Herrera's name sort of came out of the blue, but having the flexibility of another open roster spot is a good thing. Right now it looks like the Rockies are targetting Tim Redding for the spot, but there's nothing concrete there yet, so I suppose that plan can shift as the winter continues to unfold.

This past week's moves have clarified the state of the division somewhat, here's a brief recap of what I said each team still had yet to do last week, along with a short analysis of what's actually been happening:

Arizona:

What still needs to be done: Given their fiscal constraints, targeting higher quality complementary pieces (I like Alex Cora for the Rockies, he'd fit decently in Arizona, also) would help. Restocking the bullpen should be a priority as well. Scout like crazy to make the most of their draft haul.

The Diamondbacks made a somewhat surprising end-around from the rumors in snatching up Felipe Lopez to take over at second base, and he would definitely qualify as a higher quality complementary piece considering that he takes Chris Burke's spot on the roster. They also essentially replaced third catcher Robby Hammock with Rule 5 pick James Skelton and left-hander Wil Ledezma with Scott Schoeneweis. The Lopez move does make their team a little better offensively, a little worse defensively, but if stability itself has value, it should result in an improvement over the position they found themselves in a week ago. As far as their chances in 2009 go, I can't say the same about the Skelton and Schoeneweis moves, but Skelton at least provides some additional upside down the road that wasn't there last week.

The Connor Robertson for Schoeneweis trade confuses me, and I put it in a category of the sort of expensive pointlessness that teams do sometimes. The Rockies are getting Alan Embree for just a little more than the $2 million the Snakes will pay Schoe, and he's a far more effective pitcher against right handers. I do see one good reason for this trade for Arizona: one of the main reasons the other NL West teams will want to have a solid lefty or two in their pen over the next two or three years is to counteract the Rockies many left handed hitters, and Schoeneweis if nothing else has shown he does a fine job with that with a .216/.275/.243 line for the Rox in his career against them.

Colorado:

What needs to be done: If the return fits, trade Willy Taveras and possibly Garrett Atkins or Yorvit Torrealba. Extend Chris Iannetta. Find more pitching particularly an ace that's willing to come pitch at Coors Field for peanuts. Bobo the elephant comes to mind.

Adding Alan Embree while subtracting Willy Taveras doesn't really have that much of an impact on the Rockies compared to what was already known a week ago. I haven't really mentioned this, but there's a chance that Embree could be about as valuable to the club as Brian Fuentes despite being an inferior reliever thanks solely to the effects of him not being blessed with the closer mantel, and therefore free for Hurdle to put in other high leverage situations.

Did you know that the spread between the amount of pitches swung at by Chris Iannetta outside the strikezone (16.2%) and those he swung at inside the strikezone (72.3%) was the highest in the majors since Chipper Jones in 2006? Seriously. This guy is better than you realize Rockies bigwigs.

Los Angeles:

What needs to be done: Signing Manny. And a pitcher. And an infielder. And another pitcher. And another infielder. And some bench players.

Signing Casey Blake and Mark Loretta pushes the Dodgers a lot closer to where they need to be than they were at the beginning of last week, but they still have a long way to go. Neither is the impact bat that the Dodgers need to add, and the Dodgers are running out of available top of the rotation options to pursue for their pitching staff. But they did get an infielder, and Loretta by himself counts as a couple of bench players, which is useful. 

San Diego:

The Padres failed to trade Jake Peavy, but remain somewhat of a spectacle for their highly publicized attempts. They ripped Everth Cabrera from us in the Rule 5 draft. 

San Francisco:

What needs to be done: Sign a slugger or three.

A lot of the Giants work was done prior to the Winter Meetings, so there's really not much of a change here. They are still lacking an impact bat, and it's looking less likely that they will target one before the spring training camp opens.

Brian Fuentes has until this Sunday to accept or decline the Colorado Rockies' offer of arbitration. Fuentes could make $10M on a one-year deal if he accepts and wins his arbitration case, but does anyone seriously believe Fuentes would accept that at this point? Though Dan O'Dowd has said nothing would surprise him with the state of the economy, Fuentes accept arbitration would be a surprise to me. Given the comments Fuentes' agent has made over the last month, Fuentes would need to have a serious change of heart this week to take himself off the free agent market.

Of course, the Rockies will get two picks for Fuentes when he does sign somewhere else. But the Arizona Diamondbacks will receive five draft picks all together after offering arbitration to Type A free agents Juan Cruz and Orlando Hudson and Type B free agent Brandon Lyon. The total would have been seven had they offered Adam Dunn, a Type A free agent, arbitration.

The Los Angeles Dodgers offered arbitration to Type A free agents Manny Ramirez and Derek Lowe and Type B free agent Casey Blake. The Dodgers did not offer arbitration to Type B free agent Joe Beimel, whom the Rockies have interest in. The blog entry incorrectly states Beimel (and a few other Dodger free agents) to be Type A. Thomas Harding also incorrectly writes that Beimel would have cost the signing team a draft pick had he been offered arbitration. So, the Dodgers not offering arbitration to Beimel really doesn't work in favor of the Rockies or any other team since he was never going to cost a draft pick in the first place.

Larry Walker turned 42 yesterday. Texas Rangers fans think about what they would have lost had Walker not vetoed a trade to there in 2004.

Let me start by pointing out the top relievers for each NL playoff team in 2008 by WXRL, a stat used by Baseball Prospectus which is a more effective way of measuring relievers than saves or ERA. The numbers represent a value of how many wins over a replacement level reliever each pitcher was:

Chicago

1. Carlos Marmol 5.152
2. Kerry Wood 2.232
3. Sean Marshall 0.617

Philadelphia

1. Brad Lidge 7.591
2. J.C. Romero 2.227
3. Ryan Madson 2.002
4. Chad Durbin 1.751
   

Los Angeles

1. Corey Wade 2.841
2. Hong-Chi Kuo 2.714
3. Jonathan Broxton 2.216
4. Takashi Saito 1.947
   

Milwaukee

1. Salomon Torres 3.016
2. Carlos Villanueva 1.469
3. Brian Shouse 1.053

Los Angeles and Philadelphia both had deep pens, with their fifth best reliever rating better than the third best from either NL Central team. Let's look at the Rockies:

Colorado

1. Brian Fuentes 3.619
2. Taylor Buchholz  2.528
3. Ryan Speier 0.720

The Rockies bullen in 2008 was more like a run of the mill squad than an NL elite one, and if they didn't make up the difference in the rotation like the Cubs and Brewers did, than the end result of the season shouldn't be surprising. Still, believe it or not, 2007 was much the same, just substitute Manny Corpas and Matt Herges' names for Fuentes and Buchholz. Here are  Huston Street's numbers over the last four seasons:

• 2005: 4.356
  
• 2006: 3.260
  
• 2007: 2.234
• 2008: 1.943

Okay, so there's an obvious bad direction here, which is fodder for the naysayers, but even 2008 showed him to be a valuable reliever. Whether he remains so depends on his ability to reverse that trend. What reason do we have to expect that he might? Better health will be a start, switching to a weaker league with teams more unfamiliar with him will also help. Street's still a pretty young pitcher at 25, so there isn't a lot of reason not to expect some sort of bounce-back in 2009 to his career norm (he averages a 2.948 WXRL over those four seasons). If we don't trade him before the start of the season, we should expect to see him once more be at least a two win reliever in Denver.

If the trend continues downward, we'll know we've gotten ourselves a dud on our hands, but there should be enough time to figure that out before the July trading deadline where he would still be considered of value for many GM's. Street's beauty is a reputation that hasn't been too sullied by moments of underperformance. For a quality bullpen next season, the Rockies are hoping that Street and Buchholz maintain or improve their 2008 levels of performance and that either or both of Luis Vizcaino (2.081 WXRL in 2007) or Manny Corpas can return to their 2007 level. How is this an upgrade over 2008? Before last season the main hope for three 2+ win relievers was in Corpas, Viz and a bounceback from Fuentes, with the idea that maybe Casey Weathers would be contributing as well by the end of the season. So this isn't an appreciably more comfortable position to be in, but compared to where we were with the pen three weeks ago, banking solely on returns of Corpas and Viz, it's a little easier to see how we could pull it off.

Arizona's bullpen does not have the lights out leader that Lidge or Marmol were last season. Neither do they have the quality depth that Los Angeles has so they are in a similar boat to the Rockies, albeit with fewer pitchers who have been 2+ win relievers in the past. They are hoping that losses of Juan Cruz and Brandon Lyon are made up for by a rebound by Jon Rauch and a step forward by Leo Rosales or Jailen Peguero among others. Juan Morillo is a better horse to bet on than either, so the Rockies still have the edge in prospect depth despite losing Casey Weathers for next season and Pedro Strop altogether. There is a high quality wild card for the D-backs in 2008 first rounder Daniel Schlereth, and his addition combined with Strop's loss for the Rockies has helped Arizona make up considerable ground in this department.

San Francisco's bad relievers ate too much into the work of their relatively few good arms in 2008. I don't think they have enough quality arms to change that in 2009. The Dodgers look to once again be in the best position as far as relief work goes, the Rockies will need to have several things go right for this to change and make up ground.

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The Rockies chances of trading Garrett Atkins will take a hit if Minnesota lands Casey Blake as a free agent, the good news is that this would leave the Dodgers relatively weak at third base. Last season, Blake had an EQA of .281, with Blake DeWitt lagging in the Garrett Atkins/Mark Reynolds neighborhood at .261. Ian Stewart was on the tier in between at .269. Going forward, Stewart can probably figure to be closer to Blake's contribution next season, DeWitt may make some gains as well, I can't say I have the same kind of confidence in Reynolds given his disinclination to change his approach at the plate. If you look at the cast of characters for next year, you'll see that third base is one position that we need a stronger contribution than LA or Arizona from if we want to win the division in 2009 or even in subsequent years.

At catcher we hope Iannetta is close to Martin, but expecting him to be much better is probably foolish. Arizona hopes Snyder isn't too far behind those two, but he's clearly the third rung. At first base, Helton vs. Tracy works okay, but Loney's moving ahead. At second, who knows where LA or AZ are going, but the Rockies will only get average production there unless they open the piggy bank. Shortstop should be another push, but that's only if Tulo rebounds to catch up with Drew. If LA re-signs Furcal, the Dodgers will have an edge when he plays. In right, Ethier was very good, Hawpe a tier below him, and Upton a tier below that. Long term though, this isn't a great position for us, similarly to catcher for the D-backs, and that's one of the reasons why Carlos Gonzalez was seen as a key pick-up. If his bat develops into his raw talent, the Rockies will stay competitive with the other two teams. In left field for 2009, we're competitive as long as the Dodgers don't sign Manny, and that will also have a dramatic effect on center as next season's basic formula is:

• Matt Kemp>Chris Young>Carlos Gonzalez>Andruw Jones or Juan Pierre

Long term, our relative position improves with Fowler.

What I'm trying to point out here is that at the end of the day, the one  position where the Rockies should be able to expect a clear advantage in coming seasons over their divisional peers is third base. No pressure, Stewie.