How aggressive will and should the Rockies be on the trade market?

Team-by-team winter meetings checklist - MLB - The GM's Office- ESPN (Insider)

Jim Bowden identifies starting pitching, relief pitching, and first base as the team's biggest needs. He notes that Ian Kennedy, Doug Fister, and Chris Carter are all potential targets. Additionally, Bowden indicates that Carlos González, José Reyes, and Corey Dickerson are the team's "players on the block." Finally, he pegs the Rockies "aggressiveness scale" at 4 out of 10. In other words, he expects the Rockies to be lukewarm in the cold to hot scale of aggressiveness. We'll see!

BtBS season in review: NL West - Beyond the Box Score

As part of a review of the division as a whole, Beyond the Box Score's Henry Druschel provides an excellent overview of the Rockies in 2015 with a look forward. He acknowledges the Rockies' strong farm system, but he sees 2018 as the more likely year of contention rather than the 2017 that has emerged elsewhere (like here!). With an eye on 2018, Druschel raises the possibility of trading Nolan Arenado. He approaches the question with due caution:

Arenado will still be good in 2017 and 2018, and could certainly be a big part of some winning Rockies teams. But the Rockies have a well-documented difficulty signing free-agent pitchers, for somewhat obvious reasons, and so if they want to look beyond their own farm system for starting pitching, now might be the time to do it. On the other hand, starting pitching prospects are about as far from a sure bet as you can get, so I could be very easily talked out of this. It's something to consider, at least.

Can Tyler Matzek recover from performance anxiety in his pitching? - The Denver Post

We linked this yesterday. We're linking this again. Go read it!