"We've done a lot of good things, baseball-wise, in the 20-year history of the club. But we haven't created that organizational identity and plan of attack. There are certain clubs you play and you say, ‘Hey, when you face this club, you know they're going to be very good at X.' Right now, we don't have that X."
Bill Geivett
Tyler Kepner at the New York Times has a short article about Walt Weiss's hiring and in the midst of that was the above quote from the Rockies general manager Bill Geivett, which pretty much puts my favorite baseball club in the same position I was as an angst ridden and naive college student without a direction or clue where I should go in life. That means in a few years, the Rockies will be moving back in with the 'rents and starting a baseball blog. Although I guess in the Rockies case, it's more like the angst ridden 'rents have decided to move in with their kids, which has got to make it pretty awkward whenever Charlie Blackmon wants to invite his friends over.
At any rate, while Geivett, Weiss and the Rockies struggle to define this mystical quality "X" and then formulate their plans to go out and achieve "X," other teams are trading for and signing quality players, and getting ready for 2013. What's most amazing with all of this is that despite having one of the most stable leaderships in baseball over the last decade plus that this hasn't been translated at all to an on field baseball brand that opponents and fans can recognize as a Rockies staple.
Actually, when I think about it, that's probably not the case. Geivett notes that the Rockies aren't known throughout baseball right now for being "very good" at anything, but his statement leaves open the opposite possibility, and with a 98 loss team, I could definitely imagine opponents are facing Colorado knowing that they'll be "very bad" at throwing strikes, positioning their defense, hitting or laying off breaking pitches, and a few other things that we probably can identify without applying an unknown "X" type of variable to describe them.
Other news:
Peoria beat Salt River in the Arizona Fall League final, denying the Rafters their second straight title. Kent Matthes, Corey Dickerson and Lars Davis each supplied one of the Rafters three RBI, but it wasn't enough in the 4-3 loss. Padres prospect Rymer Liriano had a big game and a solid AFL season, he'll be their future everyday right fielder and debut as soon as next season (more likely to become full time in 2014, though) and is a name to watch within the division.
There really isn't much more Rockies news at the moment, other than wishing new Rockies hitting coach Dante Bichette a happy birthday today (as well as Jamie Moyer, who is one year older than Bichette) so I'll wrap this up.