Troy Renck goes over many of them, but wait, there's more:
The team's pitching gives away too many May free passes. - Jim Armstrong Denver Post. That's no way to run an amusement park or a baseball club.
They also allow game winning HR's to ex-teammates. So the pitching in general is being far too generous.
Alright, back to one that Renck brought up. Despite hitting at the league's most friendly park for offense, the Rockies as a team have just 19 hits from their third basemen this season, tied for the next worst would be Pittsburgh and Los Angeles at 31 apiece. It's not like the situation with Chris Iannetta earlier in the year, either, where the lack of hits is being made up for with patience and power. With just six 3B walks, the Rockies also rank dead last in the league in times on base and extra base hits.
Even with Ty Wigginton's two hits yesterday, Houston, the 15th place NL team in OBP at third base at .270, is closer to eighth place St. Louis than they are 16th place Colorado. In fact, Colorado's pitchers, at .164, have half the OBP gap the Rockies third basemen do with the Astros and three NL teams have pitchers getting on base more frequently than the Rockies third basemen.
That would be a sinkhole, a position so negative in production that it takes a superstar's production elsewhere just to bring the team back to neutral, and while contenders can have positions that lag toward the average or even slightly below they can't have a black hole sucking away all the benefit of their stars. Somehow the Rockies have to get this position turned around if they expect to compete during the season. As a fan, I'm hoping Wigginton finally proves a quick and stable answer for this. If not, and if the BABIP demon that haunts Jose Lopez doesn't get exorcised, I'll be pressing for a trade by the end of the month.
One area of the Rockies not in need of an intervention would be 1st base, where Todd Helton is enjoying another odd year renaissance. 2007 up, 2008 down, 2009 up, 2010 down, 2011 up...
Renck mentions that other bargain hunting teams have inquired about Ian Stewart, but the team values him too highly to make a deal with what's being offered. As such, they've apparently told Ian he's not getting traded, for now at least. I wouldn't expect this to be a set in stone situation if he doesn't break out of his slump.