Monday Rockpile: Thanksgiving leftovers

The most discussion-worthy piece out there today Rockies-wise is this article written by Paul Agnello (a.k.a Resolution around these parts) in which he lays out a pretty detailed plan of how he wants the Rockies to look in their next contention window centered around signing Jason Heyward next off season.

I like the idea of targeting a young, elite defensive type player, but I also have two pretty big qualms with this idea. First is the fact that you're trading your payroll flexibility problems from Tulo and Cargo to Tulo and Heyward with Arenado and Dickerson only about to start getting more expensive in 2017 and 2018. Keeping that core together will be a tall task even by 2018 if you shell out big bucks for Heyward.

Second, I despise the idea of a player opt-out in the middle of these large contracts. They almost never work in favor of the club. If the player is worth the money, then they will opt out and leave the club hung out to dry, and if they are not worth the money, then the club is stuck with that huge contract.

The general structure of how things should look going forward is a good read and I agree with most of what's here; I'm just not sure I'd want to pull the trigger on a deal like Heyward next off season.

Thomas Harding has a video update on Tulo's rehab here, but nothing too major is revealed. In this case, no major news is good news.

Speak of Tulo, I wrote a long player review piece on him. Please read it.

Grant Brisbee does not like the Josh Donaldson trade from the A's perspective ... at all.

This article from Jake Shapiro over at Rockies Zingers was written last Wednesday and linked last Friday, but it may have gotten lost in the Thanksgiving weekend shuffle and deserves a look as it does a nice job of laying out the landscape of third base contracts being handed out around baseball and how that's going to impact Nolan Arenado's future. Long story short; the Rockies are going to find themselves in a very tricky spot soon.

There's also a couple of important pieces to note on the Giants. First, they are meeting with Jon Lester today. This unfortunately makes sense. Now that the Red Sox scooped up Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco has a ton of money freed up they can spend elsewhere. The good news here, however, is that whatever club ends up making this signing is going to have to pay him a boatload. There's reports of six year offers already on the table from other clubs and the winner of this sweepstakes may have to go to seven. This is what happens when there's no qualifying offer attached to a high-end free agent starter.

The other Giants and prospects news is that John Sickels has started his review of all the farm systems for this off season. Overall the Giants currently seem to have a middle of the road system with no high end talent (Nobody is in the "A" range), but lots of depth of guys who could become something in the "B" and "C+" range.