Thursday AM: Baseball Writers honor Atkins, Jennings, Carroll and Rami, prospect stuff

The BWAA Colorado chapter dished out some honors for 2006 yesterday. Garrett Atkins was selected the Colorado Rockies player of the year, Jason Jennings the pitcher of the year, Ramon Ramirez the top rookie and Jamey Carroll the "Good Guy". Also in the above linked Troy Renck article is a note that the Rockies are still in the running for Brian Lawrence. Ken Rosenthal, meanwhile, mentions that the Rockies continue to show interest in Rodrigo Lopez and have talked to Ramon Ortiz (or maybe just his agent) about coming to vie for a bullpen role. I have no idea how that would work, Ortiz is a terrible starter, but in smaller doses, maybe he'd be more effective. At any rate, he prefers to continue to flounder in starterdom, although I'd be surprised if he finds any takers for his services there at this point.

Brandon Hynick (PuRP #23) merits  watching in 2007 according to the Hardball Times Bryan Smith. Meanwhile, if you haven't checked out Project Prospect lately, they have several Rox in their top 100 and have listed Troy Tulowitzki as the top rookie shortstop for 2007.

I think this season will be an important one for gauging Tulo's ceiling as a pro, some scouting sites -such as this one and John Sickels- don't seem to see quite the same potential as BA and the Rockies' staff in his bat. Rockies brass say he could develop into a middle of the order hitter (which for his position, would indicate All-Star caliber) while the doubters have him as an above average hitting short, but not really an All-Star. He's got a lot of competition in the NL already, with Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez and Stephen Drew all showing tremendous talent at the position as well, so a strong debut might be necessary to keep him mentioned in the same league as those other three young dynamos.