Briefly with the Rockies, Felipe Paulino has found success in KC
With the Rockies struggling lately and the late night west coast games (mixed in with a two year old son who usually doesn’t sleep much later than 6am) and I find myself in bed long before 10pm. Computer shut down and in bed in time to watch Libby Weaver on Fox News at 9pm (I think she has a co-anchor but I haven’t really noticed).
When I get to work in the morning or just on my phone sometime early in the am I like to go back on Twitter and see what I missed in the baseball world and today there were a couple tweets in particular that caught my eye. First, one on a former Rockies pitcher.
This comes from Joe Sheehan who writes for Sports Illustrated among other personal projects he has.
Felipe Paulino in nine starts: 56 K, 13 UIBB. #astros #rockies #whoops #royals
What was wrong with Paulino when he was with the Rockies? Why couldn’t Bob Apodaca fix him? To be honest I don’t really have a good answer to either of those questions. The Royals moved Paulino back to a starting role almost as soon as they got him and maybe it was just that; Paulino couldn’t thrive in a reliever role. Sometimes pitchers need that extra time to get warm, the extra innings to overcome that one bad inning or the confidence that comes with being a starter versus a reliever.
Paulino never said anything negative about the role, in fact when it was announced in Spring Training there were nothing but positive quotes coming from the Paulino camp. He looked forward to the opportunity, will do what’s best for the team, etc, etc. Maybe, in reality, he was down on himself for not being a starter anymore (mostly a starter for the Houston Astros before coming to Colorado).
After making one relief appearance for the Royals Paulino has put up the following stat lines in starting for the Royals (tell me these wouldn’t have helped the Rox):
June 1: 5 IP, 0 ER, 4 K, 0 BB
June 6: 6.2 IP, 1 ER, 4 K, 3 BB
June 11: 5 IP, 2 ER, 5 K, 1 BB
June 17: 6 IP, 4 ER, 5 K, 4 BB
June 23: 8 IP, 5 ER, 8 K, 1 BB
June 28: 7 IP, 3 ER, 7 K, 1 BB
July 5: 6 IP, 3 ER, 9 K, 2 BB
July 17: 7 IP, 4 ER, 8 K, 1 BB
July 24: 5.2 IP, 4 ER, 6 K, 2 BB
That all adds up to 56 1/3 innings with a 4.15 ERA and 56 K’s versus 15 BB’s (two intentional). While those aren’t spectacular numbers I would rather have those than Aaron Cook on the mound.
The second tweet involves Ubaldo Jimenez and all the trade rumors from Ken Rosenthal.
Story from late last night with @jonmorosi: #Tigers on #Rockies’ Jimenez, #Nationals’ Marquis. http://t.co/NlNW8Px #tradedeadline #MLB
The link in his tweet takes you to his blog about Jimenez which can be found here.
The team count interested in Jimenez and reportedly in talks with Dan O’Dowd is up to five teams; the Indians, Yankees, Red Sox, Reds and now the Tigers.
In reading who the Rockies are supposedly interested each blurb has the words “untouchable” or “highly reluctant” when discussing which prospects the Rockies desire in return for Ubaldo. To me this means that a trade for Ubaldo is still not close to being done.
There are still a few days left before the trade deadline and it is certainly possible that O’Dowd backs down just a bit on what he expects in return or one of those “untouchables” from the other teams becomes “readily available”.
I really don’t know what to expect but part of me does believe I will open Twitter in the next two days and there will be a tweet from Troy Renck stating that Ubaldo has been dealt.
What bums me out the most over these trade talks is that the “major league ready pitcher” that the Rockies expect to get in return is in the form of Ivan Nova, Homer Bailey, Rick Porcello or some other pitcher suited for the fourth or fifth spot in a rotation. None of them even come close to replacing Ubaldo and while the prospects listed that the Rockies desire are highly touted we all know it is fairly common for a “sure thing” to miss (Alex Gordon?). Heck, how many “sure things” have missed for the Rockies in just recent history?
Pitching is a fickle commodity.
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5 comments
Travis Lay
July 29, 2011 at 10:12 AM (UTC -6)
And not long after this post comes this reassuring tweet from Jon Heyman:
#redsox aggressively pursuing of ubaldo. #indians, #reds, #jays also fit & r interested. #yankees lurking. #tradedeadline
CodenameDuchess
July 29, 2011 at 12:43 PM (UTC -6)
Unless Bryce Harper is in the discussion DO NOT DO THIS O’DOWD!!
The Rockies have never had a pitcher that is must see TV. I know he has been erratic this year but he still has no-hit tools, works as hard as anyone, is unbelievably humble, and most important….wants to be here! Denver will always be a tier 2 market in comparison to the NYs, LAs, Chi of the world. We already lost one superstar spot light whore in Carmelo, sometime in the future another player like Matt Holiday will bail for money. The point is not all of these guys are loyal and when you have a star that wants to stay and you can afford him you f*%&^$#^&#@ keep him!!
Phil Hughes??? You have to be kidding me, isn’t he the guy who lost his fastball for the 1st half of the season? Ugh.
CodenameDuchess
July 29, 2011 at 12:44 PM (UTC -6)
Doh!! mixed Phil Hughes with Homer Bailey, still sucks though.
Simone
July 30, 2011 at 9:32 AM (UTC -6)
It doesn’t matter how well Paulino is doing with the Royals…every time he entered the ballgame with the Rox I just wanted to kick myself in the face.
Montana Steve
July 30, 2011 at 7:49 PM (UTC -6)
Guys, it’s done. Ubaldo to the Indians for prospects. Words fail me…