Rockies Fest is going on RIGHT NOW. I'd kill to be there, mostly because I've never been inside of the Rockies' clubhouse (as the Coors Field tour does not include it), and I hear it's a special, special place. A couple of links for today...
Rockies ship Slowey to Cleveland, push for 2B - Denver Post
As AMart said in yesterday's fanshot, Dan O'Dowd is beginning to use some of the club's surplus of back-end arms to acquire young talent, as in flipping Kevin Slowey, he received an under-25 power arm who could see time in the Rockies' bullpen very soon. In his minor league career, Zach Putnam has struck out almost a batter per inning while only walking 2.6 per nine. He certainly fits the club's mold of high-strikeout, low-walk relievers. In limited big league action (7.1 innings), he has struck out nine batters and walked none.
As for the bottom portion of Renck's piece, apparently the Rockies are highly interested in the Mets' Justin Turner. The 27-year-old second baseman was slightly below league average offensively in 2011, both in terms of OPS+ (93) and wRC+ (97). Defensively, he graded positively in terms of UZR/150 (1.6), but not in Baseball-Reference's Total Zone Rating (-6). Over the course of a full season, I'm not sure Turner is an upgrade offensively over Eric Young Jr., Chris Nelson, or DJ LeMahieu, and he certainly isn't a defensive upgrade over Jonathan Herrera. The Rockies clearly won't be going after an impact player for the position (though they were close to landing Marco Scutaro), so it might be another season of patchwork at second.
Kiszla: Todd Helton hopes the Rockies make amends for "unacceptable" season
To go along with our freshly-written player review on Old Todd, Mark Kiszla has a piece chock-full of quotes from a disappointed Helton, who knows the Rockies squandered away a big opportunity in 2011. As Kiszla says at the bottom of the piece, the Rockies are indeed more dangerous when nobody pays attention to them. Still, with this pitching staff, I don't know about that...
Rockies pitcher Juan Nicasio says he'll be good to go by spring training - Denver Post
Accompanied with a video interview, Renck details Juan Nicasio's progress to this point. Nicasio's story is an amazing one already, and it has a chance of being otherworldly terrific if he's able to experience ANY sort of success on a big league mound. At this point, he looks to be on the fast track toward doing so, and that is just outstanding.