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Meet your 2006, er.... 2007 Colorado Rockies

By Rox Girl

OhNoKoolAid made the following observation in yesterday's thread:

Simply put, from the viewpoint of the casual fan, the Rockies cannot trot out the same team this season as it did last season and expect fan interest to increase.  It was a nice start, but I'm sure most people in Colorado want to see even baby steps with off-season aquisitions.  The Rockies have some interesting pieces to dangle, from Barmes, to Sullivan, even a Koshansky or Smith if need be.  The Rockies' brass should not fault the fans for standing pat if the organization does the same.

The words seem even more prescient this morning with news that the Rockies have made offers to Tom Martin and Jose Mesa, two components of last season's team that had some considerable flaws in the eyes of the hometown faithful. So the key question becomes, will last season's team be enough to compete in next season's NL West? It's not a promising conjecture. It does make it easy to chart where we're likely to improve and where we're likely to lag, though.

Gains:

  • Significant OBP and a little bit of power from the catcher.
  • A few more HR in right field.
  • A more potent bench threat.
  • Shortstop offense? A little, but the difference won't amount to much.
  • More power from 1B? I think Helton will have a few more homeruns in a healthy year, but less than 30 still.
  • More production from Kim in the fourth starter slot. The more I look at it, I think he had an off year last season given his peripherals and career stats, I expect a small rebound.

Setbacks:

  • A slight step back from our front three starters, I think a step forward by Francis is mitigated by a step back from JJ.
  • Josh Fogg?
  • Jose Mesa and Tom Martin?
In other words, what we gain on offense by having Iannetta, Tulo and Baker might be offset by the non-turnover in the pitching staff. The way we're heading, I think our hopes of contention in 2007 will be resting on a handful of players with sorry careers to date having at least mediocre seasons. Believe me, this is not the place we want our team to be at. In addition to Fogg and Kim at the bottom of the rotation, I think you have to look at Yorvit Torrealba and Kaz/Carroll as the career underperformers who we have to hope step up to mediocrity in order to rescue our season.

You know Helton and Holliday and Atkins will do their things. You can even tell roughly what Tulo and Iannetta will do for us. Cory Sullivan in center is already mediocre and I don't see him getting much worse. That leaves the five I mentioned, and that's why I believe OhNo was so vocal yesterday about ditching Fogg. He makes sense. Do we really want to count on Josh for saving our season in 2007? My problem is that I don't see anybody else who will give me any more confidence than he will without a long, ugly, expensive contract.

Alright, we'll have time enough to get into the nitty gritty of this as the season gets closer, I'm sure. Anyway, one other note, the Twins have cooled on Jason Jennings, looking at the considerably inferior Gil Meche instead. They aren't going to pay enough to land Meche, so I don't believe these talks are finished yet.

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