BLOGGER OF THE WEEK:

Several solid posts from Rocky Mountain Way this week, these three were my favorites.

• The Big Cat with Venezuela in the WBC.
  
• Ryan Spilborghs gets a nifty little profile.
  
• And finally, the winning entry: Don't Get No Betta Than Chris Iannetta
  

I love the way Tom weaves personal anecdotes into his posts.

OTHER POSTS OF NOTE

Moving on, I'm having to post this a little later than I'd normally like, so I'll run through what were the highlights of the week for me.

• I Live for This: My first love: On steroids and the fallen face of baseball.
  
• Alex is asking for your favorite Spring Training moment so far.
  
• Rockpile Rant (with a little help) gives a Rockies Rhyme and asks that we help and add some verses. I'm no poet and I know it.
• Up in the Rockies has a rundown of the competition for the last two position player slots. Since Matt Murton seems to have an inside track for one right now, the question right now seems to hinge on whether people feel they can live without Scott Podsednik's speed or whether they feel Ian Stewart will be able to continue to emerge in a bench role with the team.
  
• While I think some statistics are meaningless in certain short term contexts, measuring the number of hits a player gets in a week, for instance, or the number of wins a pitcher records in a season, I think over an extended period of time that they can begin to shed some light on players. One of my least favorite official stats, the hold, sort of qualifies as this. Just like a child that learns by touching a hot stove, eventually even the dumbest managers tend to figure out who their most reliable pitchers are, so a multi-season hold leaderboard like the one Neal did at Purple Rox Squad can be enlightening.
  

See, that didn't work quite as well as I expected. Feeling the need to add more and more commentary as I went along. Oops. 

FINALLY...

You're never too young to start blogging about the Rockies, as Emily, with some help from her dad, Dan, shows in new Rockies blog Dinger's Best Friend. I want her room, although I noticed we have some of the same stuff already. I love my Todd Helton Babooshka.

It was a somewhat slow week in the Rockies blogosphere, here's hoping a couple of wins pick up the production as we start heading into the heart of the Spring.

ROCKIES BLOGGER OF THE WEEK: Rockpile Rant

The winning entry this week goes to the Ranter's farewell to Spring Training blog post, "Snagged my holy grail at Maryvale, last day of vacation", as he chronicles his quests not only for some batting practice snags, but also that elusive Clint Hurdle autograph. Rockies fans who followed his trip have been treated to some great pics of the players and Rockies fans and can get a sense what a trek down to Arizona is like this time of year, and why those of us that have had that opportunity long to return.

For more great pictures of Spring Training, check out Inside the Humidor's post, "Gameday 2/28 vs Dodgers...", including the great, but disappointing picture of Eric Young Junior flailing at an 82 mph pitch (he captures the scout's radar gun as well as EY2).

NOT REALLY BLOGGERS, BUT SOMETIMES THE PROS DO BEAUTIFUL BLOG TYPE WORK:

Since it is a slow week for Rockies blogs not affiliated with the media, I thought I might point out some of the better blogging by those that are pros. First a hybrid, Jack Etkin's great story, "The back fields: where dreams are reality", is a good deal of traditional reporting, including a talk with Clint Hurdle, but also mixes a personal style more reminiscent of writing on the Internet.

Thomas Harding's post prior to the game against Mexico goes into a great spin on why the Rockies spring record isn't nearly as important as what's being accomplished in player development. It's something we have to keep repeating, but now that the team has won a couple of games in a row, maybe the sense of panic among Rockies fans that was fomenting will dissipate.

I had enough non-media posts last week to work with, but since I'm giving the pros their due this week, I would feel I was cheating you if I didn't also bring up Patrick Saunders rant on why he's wanting the Rockies to stay in Tucson from February 24th. He's got some great counterarguments to those of us that think moving camp closer to Phoenix would be ideal.

FINALLY...

A couple more posts of note, Tom Stephenson's piece on Omar Quintanilla's improving odds of making the roster will make Jabberwocky cringe, but I never got the sense that Kwentinillah's job was in serious jeopardy this Spring from the buzz prior to camp. You can usually tell who's on the fence by who the team acquires, and I'm sorry, Luis A. Gonzalez just isn't that serious a challenger to Q the second.

My favorite blog take on Taylor Buchholz's injury was written by another Tom, Rocky Mountain Way's Tom Walsh. A blog post complete with a medic symbol and a voodoo doll, you've got to like that.

So with one big chunk of the Rockies local coverage taking a hit this week, some Rox fans might be left to wonder what they can read to fill that void, that now dark and absent spot that Jack Etkin and Tracy Ringolsby, as well as their editors and support staff, so ably filled for so long. The short answer is that they can't, as bloggers we'll only manage to give amateur knock-offs of a professional product. Nevertheless, here are some suggested alternatives for a few specific rolls these writers fulfilled:

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On the beat:

Inside the Humidor and Rockpile Rant are in Tucson as we speak; we'll see who's able to keep up with the gruelling challenge of daily blogging during the season. Emily from I Live for This has already found the need for a break, which kind of bums me out since I'm just becoming aware of her work. Another pair of Rockies MLBlogs that we'll be watching are View from the Rockpile and Blogging with an Altitude (I believe this is Rowbot rockie4ever's blog). The latter would win my Rockies Blogger of the Week Award for her Hello Spring Training, Goodbye Rocky post. Very well done, madam.

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Jack Etkin's Minor League reports:

Purple Row will continue providing top notch blogging of our minor leaguers, I plan on converting my weekly Rockies Farm Report post from the RMN into a midweek post here starting in March. As usual, we will also have our daily Pebble Reports during the season, and Russ' great in-depth draft analysis. But besides the Row, be sure to check out these other blogs that will keep you updated with what's happening with our minor leaguers. If you know of other blogs specific to Rockies minor leaguers or their teams, be sure to let me know, by the way.

Up in the Rockies - Tom and Drew both sometimes offer their insightful thoughts and analysis on our minor leaguers.

Brian VanderBeek's Inside the Shell - Modesto Bee's beat reporter for the Nuts shares all sorts of interesting stuff you don't find in the game recaps.

On Base with the Asheville Tourists - Ditto Jason McGill of the Asheville Citizen Times

The Road to the Rockies begins in the Blue Ridge

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Tough thugs with sunglasses

One of the biggest troubles with losing the Cowboy is that we're going to need to find somebody that can annoy Diamondbacks fans as much as he could. So maybe some of these Rockies bloggers can help step up into the roll of goading the Snakes. At least they show that they can look mean:

via baseballsnatcher.mlblogs.com

via rockymountainway.mlblogs.com

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, classic looks. Happy Belated Birthday to Rocky Mountain Way blogger Tom Walsh.

One more, but she may be more of a wannabe:

via cdn2.sbnation.com

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But what about the cowboy hat?

Alright, that's the Rowbot assignment for this week, find me a Rockies blogger with a cowboy hat, because that part of replacing Ringolsby should at least be doable, I would think. Good luck, and go Rockies!

Jeff Francis' decision to have shoulder surgery seems to be having a greater impact outside the Rockies blogosphere than it is within it, as it seems most well informed Rockies fans saw this as somewhat inevitable. There hasn't been the same sort of pronouncement of doom here among Rockies bloggers that you see at places like SI's Spring Training Preview, either. It seems most of us are aware that the pitching depth of the team gets hit by Francis' loss, but it's not a mortal wound that we can't work around with just a little bit of good news in prospect development.

Bugs and Cranks points out the depth of starters even without Francis.

Tight Ends and Hot Rox lament Jeffy, but nobody's panicking.

Inside the Humidor and Rockies Examiner question the timing of this, and I kind of wonder myself given that it seemed pretty clear last season that something wasn't right. No use crying over spilt milk now, however. Next time, though, Rockies don't wait so long.

A "new" old Rockies blog has come to my attention by reading the comments at Thomas Harding's blog this week, and by the fact that I've made Purple Row a subscriber to this blogger's YouTube channel, but to help make up for my neglect of not giving any prior attention at all to Rockpile Rant, can we please have some Rowbots find him some wacky RV pictures to not be his mobile blog unit as he dispatches from Tucson?

Anthony Masterson at Bleacher Report has decided to take it upon himself to make his own soundtrack for Rockies players, I think I might have to copy this idea later this year when I run out of things to write about.

First up for this week's RBR is the excellent work Tom and Drew have been doing at Up in the Rockies previewing the team by position:

Starting Pitching

Relief Pitching

Infielders

Also this week, Purple Rox Squad compiled some of the pre-season projections and came to the conclusion that it all adds up to an 81-81 team for the Rockies. Obviously as Rockies fans, we're hoping that the more favorable projections (CHONE or THT, for instance) come to pass and that the more pessimistic projections (PECOTA) don't. One other thing we should be hoping for is that like our team in 2007 or the Dodgers last season, that the second half squad is improved on the first half squad. Rosters are liquid, and while it looks like things might flow our way again in 2009, it will be important to watch situations that could affect that outcome such as injuries or development (or lack thereof) of prospects.

Travis at the Rockies Examiner wrapped up his NL West previews and came to the conclusion that the Rockies are in decent shape heading into the season. He also continued a series of best of's around Coors Field with a "Best Places to Park" post.

Two opposing views on Todd Helton and steroids emerged at Bleacher Report this week in light of the Alex Rodriguez scandal. Sandlotkid8 says that Helton and other players' innocence should be rewarded, while Tyler Thompson presents the circumstantial evidence that Helton's innocence isn't so clear cut. I'm at odds with both writers on philosophical grounds. I think honesty rewards only foster hypocrisy. Here's the paradox: people will either be honest and good or they'll be frauds and cheats, but the more incentive there is to be the former, the more likely that people will become the latter. As for Thompson's piece, I believe a society that presumes guilt and carries mistrust will have a hard time moving forward from the past. Unless and until there are smoking guns on players, I'd rather not pass judgment or even speculate on their PED status unless I'm called onto a jury for that purpose. It's just not important to me. I think if they're caught, they will typically get the consequences coming to them in typical Day of the Locust fashion as the media frenzy around A-rod this week has indicated. There's hardly any reason for me to pile on.

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.