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Whoah, I leave the site with you people for a few days and bam... you go all rearranging my furniture and stuff. Not cool. Somebody's got some 'splainin to do about what happened to my favorite rug.
Wilin Rosario and Jordan Pacheco are in the running for the "Miss Congeniality" portion of the league's rookie of the year award, but likely not the award itself. The Rockies are an obscure outpost in the NL that it seems usually for them to be considered for awards the team has to actually be performing decently rather than being the cannon fodder for contenders that they've been in 2012. Rosario's offense has been enough that he should still receive consideration despite the defensive liability that he's been at times but it's a been strong year for rookie performances league-wide.
If it's any consolation for Rockies fans, the two players at the top of the heap, Wade Miley and Todd Frazier, are likely not to have nearly the long term impact as Rosario or Washington's Bryce Harper. Both Miley and Frazier seem to be having something more like the Chris Coghlan type of career peak rookie campaigns and it's likely to be downhill from here, as both are entering the league after extensive minor league careers. As a crafty LHP, it's a little trickier to make that call right now for Miley, but I'll stick with it. But the point being, by improving his contact and OBP just enough, Rosario's been able to turn himself into a keeper on offense, as Baseball Prospectus' John Perrotto quotes a scout:
"In that ballpark, he's going to hit a lot of home runs, and his power plays so well that they can move him to one of the corner positions and easily keep his bat in the lineup."
As a side note on a note further down in that last link, the Reds interim manager Chris Speier was mentioned for the job he's been doing in Cincinnati in Dusty Baker's absence. I've been able to go to quite a few Reds games this year, including Saturday when they clinched their division (ahem Rockies, still waiting..,) and can only say that if the Rockies are to replace Jim Tracy after the season, Speier wouldn't be a bad choice for that at all.
Juan Nicasio is planning on playing some winter ball, the Rockies are hoping it means he'll also be playing summer ball in 2013. Nicasio will become an important wild card for the Rockies hopes next season as the rotation needs as many candidates that could potentially pitch well in many impact innings as it can get.
Another important part of 2013, but in an almost opposite sense, would be Todd Helton. Helton's also recovering and free of pain, but his best part on next season's team should probably be a much more limited one than he's been used to. If Helton and the team can keep their playing time expectations for the franchise's best ever player to date, then all will be well.
The Rockies.com domain name is going up for sale, and could fetch $200,000 or more, as the MLB is likely to be involved in the bidding.
John Sickels wrote about former Rockies prospect Sam Deduno's long journey to being a... well, let's just say that he remains one of the more enigmatic pitchers out there, and the Twins have a gamble to take in deciding his fate for 2013.