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There's a whole host of articles from the Denver Post this morning, but first we have a feel good link where Troy Tulowitzki takes 22 cancer patients from the Children's hospital on an all expense paid trip to spring training.
This morning, Tulo had 22 kids from Denver Children's Hospital come to #RockiesSpring & meet the team: pic.twitter.com/0LiFp6WqY1
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) March 9, 2014
It's too bad spring training stats don't mean anything, because Juan Nicasio is having himself an outstanding few weeks in Arizona. There are reports of his slider is much improved, generating many more swings and misses than we've seen in the past. If true, this could be a major game changer, but I've learned not to get too excited about that sort of thing until I see it in April instead of March.
Kyle Parker and Corey Dickerson both had big days in yesterday's easy 10-1 victory over the Royals. For Dickerson, it's been part of a very strong spring where he's made it harder and harder to justify leaving him off the roster. Granted, it's a small sample size on top of the typically meaningless spring training stats, but it's just another example in a long line of examples proving that Dickerson tends to get his hits wherever he goes. There's also a terrifying video on the right side of the page on this link where Dickerson talks about getting more comfortable in center field, because despite the Rockies having three very capable center fielders on the roster in Brandon Barnes, Drew Stubbs, and Carlos Gonzalez, the club is seriously considering Dickerson for a good chunk of games in that role. Oh, the horror!
Boone Logan threw his first bullpen for the Rockies over the weekend meaning he's now more likely to be ready for opening day. Which is nice because the front office paid him quite a pretty penny to get important outs this season. There's also a nugget in this link about Jorge De La Rosa possibly being the opening day starter in Miami three weeks from today, which continues to confirm the likelihood that Jhoulys Chacin will not be ready for the first week of the season.
The Rockies are not scheduled to be part of any of the Fox national broadcasts this season, and if they're mad about this at all, they can stick it to Fox by forcing them to broadcast their games in late October.
The Colorado Avalanche are likely to play a game at Coors Field next winter. It makes sense to me as just about every other cold weather city in the U.S. which has both an NHL and MLB team has hosted one of these outdoor games.
Just a bit of house cleaning news that Greg will like in this next link. Contracts for all players have now been finalized by the club.
Mike Axisa of CBS Sports previews the Rockies and he does not have many nice things to say. He sums up his entire thought process in one sentence when he says...
"The Rockies are clearly the fifth best team in the five-team NL West to me"
Oh, and he also thinks Cargo and Tulo could be on the trading block before long, which would be much more concerning if national writers all across this country hadn't been beating that drum for the last three off seasons.
Around MLB
Yesterday, David Laurila of fangraphs posted this extremely revealing article on drug use in baseball. (Worth your time)
Cardinal's starter Jaime Garcia is going to be examined by Dr. James Andrews today. That's never a good sign.
Jeffrey Bellone takes a look at defense,specifically the level of difficulty for certain plays.