The Colorado Rockies traded former No. 2 overall pick RHP Greg Reynolds to the Texas Rangers for Chad Tracy, the 26-year-old son of manager Jim Tracy. It marks the end of a long, strange journey for the big man, the Rockies, and fans.

I remember clearly the day the Rockies drafted Reynolds. I had to go to jury duty that day. Oh, great, miss hearing who the Rockies are going to take with the No. 2 pick! I was hoping for North Carolina LHP Andrew Miller -- hey, lefties need to support one another. But then there were reports that Miller didn't want to join the Rockies because that USA Today article about the Rockies being a "Christian" ball club was still stirring people.

Whatever. I was thinking I would be fine with whomever the Rockies drafted. Surely Dan O'Dowd and his scouts would make the right decision.

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At last, after three weeks off, I am going to be posting my transactions notes column. There were two main reasons for the hiatus:

1. I anted to wait until the Winter Meetings and all of the associated roster fallout was completed.

2. Almost nothing further happens around the holidays, and with only the Winter Meetings move to scrutinize, everybody pretty much knew everything that was going on.

Since I feel that most of the past three weeks in Rockies transactions are fairly clear, this edition is going to focus on the current roster status. Many rockpile comments sections have been demonstrating a confusion about the current status of all of our new players. Who has options? Who has guaranteed contracts? Who starts here? Who backs up there? And so on. After the jump, I will break down our 40 Man Roster and where it stands going into 2012. But first, a quick recap of the last three weeks.

The Winter Meetings saw the Rockies be particularly active in continuing the changing of the guard that began with the removal of Ty Wigginton and Chris Iannetta. I already covered those moves, including the acquisition of Tyler Chatwood, in a previous column. So here is a basic summary of the Winter Meetings for the Rockies:

IN:

- RHP Kevin Slowey (trade with Twins)
- IF DJ LeMahieu (trade with Cubs)
- OF Tyler Colvin (trade with Cubs)
- OF Jamie Hoffmann (waiver claim from Dodgers)
- LHP Nick Schmidt (MiLB, trade with Padres)

OUT:

- IF Ian Stewart (for LeMahieu/Colvin)
- RHP Casey Weathers (for LeMahieu/Colvin)
- RHP Huston Street (for Schmidt)
- OF Ryan Spilborghs (non-tendered)
- OF Cole Garner (non-tendered)
- RHP Daniel Turpen (MiLB, for Slowey)
- RHP Marco Duarte (Rule 5 to Astros)
- C Beau Seabury (Rule 5 to Nationals)

Slowey, who was arbitration eligible, would avoid that process shortly after the trade by signing a $2.75 million contract plus incentives. The deal is non-guaranteed, which means that Slowey must make the team in order to be paid. While the details are not 100% clear whether or not we can use Slowey's remaining option years to keep him there, we would almost certainly have to pay him in full if we did that, meaning that Slowey will be a release candidate if he doesn't make the team whether release is mandated or not.

LeMahieu, Colvin and Hoffmann will all contend for spots on the roster, but none have guaranteed jobs. While all three players are in the pre-arbitration phases of their careers (and therefore cheap), they all have option years. LeMahieu looks to have the most direct shot towards being an impact player right now, as he will be in consideration for starting positions at both 2B and 3B. He can also serve as a utilityman at any of the four infield positions.

Colvin is in competition with Seth Smith and Charlie Blackmon for a left handed reserve outfield position on a bench that already has a notable lefty presence in Jason Giambi. Smith has that position locked down now, but with a trade looking more and more likely, it is a good possibility that Blackmon/Colvin compete for a fourth OF role, with the other starting for the Sky Sox. Hoffmann is one of the few right handed reserve outfield options available with the departures of both Spilborghs and Garner. Hoffmann does not have a great deal of MLB experience, but with the bench short on right handed bats, he becomes a better alternative than he would otherwise.

Schmidt, the only minor league addition of the Winter Meetings, has spent most of his career at the A+ level as a starting pitcher. He could repeat the level for the fourth straight year, though his career best 2011 season implies a jump to AA could be in store. His biggest obstacle is the abundance of starting pitching we suddenly have, and that AA rotation is looking mighty crowded right now, so his name could also join the list of players such as Chad Bettis, Joseph Gardner and Tyler Chatwood that are being considered for transitions to relief.

With three more notable players in Stewart, Street and Spilborghs gone, the Rockies continue their "changing of the guard" plan. This is less of a firesale or rebuilding process and more of grand remodeling. 2012 continues to appear transitional season to 2013, when the Rockies hope there will be room for their top three prospects in Drew Pomeranz, Nolan Arenado and Wilin Rosario to contribute in full MLB seasons. While all three players figure to see at least some MLB time in 2012, if not full seasons already, and their projected upside a good sign for the future, it would be very difficult for that production to take hold this quickly. Not impossible, but not expected.

After the jump, I will break down what has happened since the meetings, as well as the aforementioned roster status.

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Short entry this week, as the only major move came yesterday evening as the Rockies sent Chris Iannetta to the Angels for right handed pitcher Tyler Chatwood. However, before I get to that one transaction occurred last week thjat I missed covering due to the lack of media coverage on and around Thanksgiving.

The Rockies released infielder Ryan Rohlinger from the organization sometime around November 21st. Rohlinger was claimed off waivers from the Giants midseason 2011, and immediately optioned to the minors. Before ever being recalled, he was outrighted from the team to make room for late-season roster additions. He had one year left on his minor league contract, which prevented him from declaring free agency this year. If they chose to keep him, the Rockies would presumably have used him as a shuffling infield backup with the Sky Sox, but some combination of Tommy Field, Hector Gomez, Brad Emaus and Brandon Wood likely have about as much of second, short and third covered.

Because the Rockies did not need to do anything regarding arbitration offers this offseason, with Mark Ellis signing so early automatically giving us our extra supplemental pick, the Rockies haven't had a lot to be thinking about these past few days, while other teams look forward to the arbitration accept deadline next Wednesday. The Rockies already had plenty of room on their 40 Man Roster, so no further cuts via outright are likely before this week's Rule 5 Draft are likely.

Tomorrow might be this year's contract -tender deadline, but that status is a bit confusing. The MLB calendar still claims it is December 12th, but the new CBA has permanently moved the tender deadline to December 2nd. Because the Rockies retain 40 Man Roster room, we are probably not going to need to non-tender anybody for any reason other than salary purposes, and the only real likely candidate there remains Ryan Spilborghs. Pre-arbitration players can be non-tendered as well (see Jonathan Herrera post-2008), but it is usually a space clearing procedure for teams that didn't get a chance to outright enough players before their 40 Man Roster filled back up.

The final note before delving into yesterday's moves after the jump is a reminder that the Winter Meetings begin in four days. This period generally sees free agent and trade talks heat up significantly, before cooling down again for the holidays, during which period is almost certainly the slowest of the offseason. As always the meetings conclude with the Rule 5 Draft. I have posted the list of eligible players several times, so I'm not going to do that again. This year, assuming we don't sign two more players to MLB contracts by next Thursday, the Rockies will have at least one open 40 Man spot to potentially take a player in the MLB phase of the draft, which they haven't done since 2005 when they took Luis Gonzalez from the Dodgers (the last time they took a player at all was 2006, Salomon Manriquez in the AAA phase). The Rockies still generally tend to avoid the draft even with room on their 40 Man.

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For the first time in a while, the Rockies (and MLB in general) had a busy week in terms of transactions. In addition to rule 5 protection and arbitration offers to outgoing free agents, a new collective bargaining agreement has been announced. Most of you are probably familiar with most of its content by this point, but I will go ahead and break down some of the important transaction related notes.

11/18/11
- Christian Friedrich purchased and recalled from Tulsa Drillers.
- Edwar Cabrera purchased and recalled from Modesto Nuts.
- Andrew Brown outrighted to Colorado Springs Sky Sox.
- Brandon Wood signed to a minor league contract.

This was the Reserves Deadline. Every team in MLB chose which players they wanted to protect from December's Rule 5 draft before the roster prevented minor league promotions. The Rockies began the day with three open spots. They filled two with the most obvious Rule 5 protectees in Friedrich and Cabrera. Unlike last year where the Rockies protected six players (if you include the addition of Cole Garner before he declared free agency), the team chose to leave roster room open for future moves rather than fill it up and having to make cuts later.

The team was not required to activate Eliezer Alfonzo from the Restricted List; however, he may be counting towards the 40 Man Roster anyway at this point. Because the Rockies never reached 40 players during this period, it's difficult to tell. Nevertheless, this shows that the Rockies are at least intending to hang onto Alfonzo through his appeal. Alfonzo has only served 15 games of his 100 game suspension. Unless the suspension is overturned during the offseason, he will be ineligible to play until late June.

In addition to adding Cabrera and Friedrich to the roster, the team chose to outright offseason waiver claim Andrew Brown from the roster, taking it down to 38 players. Brown has never been outrighted previously, nor does he have anywhere near enough service time to refuse the assignment. Therefore, the outfielder returns to his minor league contract, which will expire after the 2013 season. He becomes eligible for this year's Rule 5 draft.

Finally, the Rockies officially signed former top prospect Brandon Wood to a minor league contract. Though there is no official report of an invitation to Spring Training, he will almost certainly receive one, and may even be a legitimate contender for the 2012 third base role. If he makes the team, Wood will make about $520,000, more expensive than the minimum but far cheaper than what Ian Stewart will cost.

I have not seen any official confirmation that former Twins outfielder Brandon Roberts has signed his contract, but he is still expected to join the team on another minor league deal sometime soon.

After the jump, I'll discuss Ty Wigginton, Mark Ellis, the CBA and more on the Rule 5 draft.

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Minor league free agent signings are happening at a speedy rate. The Rockies haven't been particularly active in this arena thus far. To recap, they signed outfielder Luis Terrero back during the World Series, and this past week, we at last got confirmation that reliever Joe Torres will be with us once again for 2012. The Rockies also re-signed Dustin Molleken, whose free agency was never reported by anyone but was on my list of players that should have been eligible to declare, indicating this signing may have actually happened before he declared. He has reportedly become the first player the Rockies have extended a Spring Training invitation to this offseason.

So far, the Rockies have seen 2012 pieces Edgar Gonzalez and Jim Miller sign with the Athletics, Scott Beerer sign with Baltimore and high-A level outfielder Orlando Sandoval sign with the Rangers. The rest of our outgoing free agents remain unsigned, to my knowledge, and are potential possibilities for return.

The Rockies have also agreed to terms with MiLB Free Agent Brandon Roberts, though the deal is unofficial at this time. The outfielder left the Twins organization as his initial contract expired.

Over the next week, MLB offseason procedure has two important events: the Reserves Deadline and the Free Agent Arbitration Deadline. I'll tackle the latter first. Mark Ellis was the only free agent departing the Rockies who classified as a raked free agent, in this case, a Type B. Ellis has already signed with the Dodgers, meaning they just gifted us an extra draft pick in the supplemental first round this offseason. Type B free agency is likely going to be eliminated in the revised collective bargaining agreement that is currently being finalized, but the current understanding is that even if the CBA goes into effect before this is arbitration procedure is finished, teams with Type B players still can offer arbitration to them for the chance at draft picks this year. Because the Dodgers already signed Ellis, this process is automatic for us, and no arbitration offer is necessary. The deadline for these offers is November 23rd, but the Rockies' role in this situation is already resolved.

After the jump, I'll talk about the Reserves Deadline.

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Busy weekend for me, and I'm going to have to make this entry short.

Last week saw our confirmation of the free agency of eligible minor leaguers. The list I posted last week all declared, with five exceptions:

- Dustin Molleken (2010/22 offseason signee)
- Josh Sullivan
- Leuris Gomez
- Carlos Martinez
- Kyle Hancock

Those last four are all Rockies 2005 signees whose original contacts have expired. Sullivan has been confirmed to have re-signed with the Rockies for 2012, and it is likely the others did as well but I can't vouch for there not being some sort of exception in their contracts that is simply not the kind of thing that is ever reported.

All of these players but Gomez have seen their recent careers negatively impacted by injury, while Gomez himself, 25, has only played two years of pro baseball despite signing so long ago. Molleken and Sullivan are the oldest of the bunch at 27, while middle infielder Martinez is still only 23. 24 year old Hancock has had a very strange career so far, having only pitched in 19 professional games since being drafted seven years ago. I am assuming that the Rockies want to give Molleken and Sullivan a chance to be completely healthy before letting them go, while Gomez, Martinez and Hancock are all too far behind in their careers to judge one way or the other yet.

One other note: Baseball America put up a MiLB Free Agent tracker over the weekend, and this tracker happens to list Joe Torres, minor league free agent who spent last year with the Rockies organization, as having re-signed with the team. Unfortunately, I can't confirm anywhere else if this actually happened, and BA's own Matt Eddy hasn't mentioned anything of the move in his blog series. Torres is a former first round pick of the Angels who is hanging on to professional baseball despite not having made it past AA in ten professional seasons (his brief action with the Sky Sox in 2011 was his first glimpse). Despite his age of 29, Torres was one of the best relievers in the system last year, experiencing great success as the Drillers' primary setup man. He was one of a select few departing MiLB free agents I wanted to see return, so I hope this ends up to be correct.

That's it for now. We're a week and a half away from the Reserves Deadline.

A two week edition, since I missed last week due to being in California, though really it doesn't matter. Nothing happened last week.

This week, however, saw the end of the world series and the official beginning of the offseason. The first thing to deal with is, of course, free agency and the associated moves, like contract options.

First, the contract options. The Rockies had two players with options on their contracts, Aaron Cook and Jason Giambi. Both options were mutual, meaning both the team and the player had to agree to enforce the option. In the case of Giambi, his 2012 option (worth $1 million) was picked up on both sides, and he will be returning to the team next year off the bench. Cook, on the other hand, saw the Rockies decline his option, as was expected for some time now. The $11 million option is replaced by a $500 thousand buyout, and Cook hits free agency.

Today, November the 3rd, is the day that free agency officially begins for most players. Once they file, they have a period when they can negotiate only with their ending 2011 team. The Rockies did not come to agreements with Kevin Millwood, Mark Ellis or J.C. Romero, and the three officially hit the market today. There has been some interest in re-signing all of these players (particularly Millwood and Ellis), but they are now free to sign elsewhere.

The final moves of significance this past week are the activation of our 60 Day Disabled List players. Charlie Blackmon, Jorge De La Rosa, Juan Nicasio, Jonathan Herrera and Ryan Spilborghs rejoin the 40 Man Roster, which now stands at 37 players. This is preparation for the upcoming Reserves Deadline, which is Sunday the 20th, in which 40 Man Rosters must be finalized from all roster moves except trades, designations for assignment and free agent signings, limiting each team to having no more than 40 players signed to MLB contracts until December's Rule 5 draft.

Everyone signed to a MLB contract on the Rockies is now active, except for Eliezer Alfonzo, who remains suspended. He must either be activated or taken off the roster by November 20th. Likewise, Christian Friedrich, Edwar Cabrera and any other Rule 5 eligible players the team plans to protect must be added to the roster by then.

Minor league free agency has presumably occurred as well, however I have yet to be given any official confirmation that the players have left the organization (or if any have re-signed). I have posted an updated list of players who will be leaving the organization via MiLB Free Agency after the jump.

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Another week without too many transactions to discuss. The Rockies made one move last week, signing their first MiLB Free Agent for the 2012 season, though the details at this point are a bit hazy. I'll get to that in a bit. First, I want to provide an update from last week's transactions. I edited last week's post to reflect this move, but I thought I'd add it in here just to be safe. Relief pitcher Jim Miller, who was outrighted from the roster along with several others two weeks ago, was granted MiLB Free Agency. Unlike Kevin Kouzmanoff, Miller was not allowed to declare free agency immediately. Miller's departure was likely petitioned in the same way Edgar Gonzalez' was, with he or his agent basically asking the team to start negotiating with them for next year or let them go so they can get started looking elsewhere. The long list of other MiLB Free Agents seem to be waiting for the proper declaration period, which will begin when the world series is completed.

With that out of the way, let's move on to this past week. The Rockies signed free agent outfielder Luis Terrero to a minor league contract, according to Matt Eddy of Baseball America. At one point a top prospect with the Diamondbacks, Terrero can play all three outfield positions, with the majority of his playing time having been in center.  He is a speedster type with good outfield range and supposedly a great arm. He's never been able to break out offensively, as strikeouts have been a problem. Terrero was claimed off waivers from Arizona by the Orioles after Spring Training in 2006. Despite being cut from the Orioles in July of that year, the White Sox signed him to a major league contract in 2007, only to outright him off the roster before the season began. With only one full season in 2005 and scattered active time in the rest, I have calculated that Terrero has 2 years and 105 days of service time, making him still in the pre-arbitration phase of his career. He is currently 31.

This signing is interesting, as almost all minor league signings for next year so far have been players re-signing with the teams they were with this year. Terrero has never been with the Rockies; after leaving Chicago after 2007, he returned to Baltimore where he played the entire season for AAA Norfolk. He spent 2009 and 2011 pitching for the Mexican League, which is AAA level baseball, with a stint in Cincinnati's system in 2010. WIth the world series not even complete yet, it is too early to tell if Terrero's signing is some sort of precursor to something else (though what that would be, I'm not certain) or if they actually intend to keep him through to Spring Training.

After the jump, I will be breaking down the current constraints of the 2012 payroll, and show where we have room to play with.

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