Blake Street Bulletin

The Rockies front office has no doubt done little to improve the team so far this offseason.  The question is could they? Have they ignored opportunities to improve the team? I do not believe they have; and this offseason shows the unique challenge the Rockies franchise faces.

Yes the Rockies need pitching. But what free agent pitcher are they missing out on? The Rockies are in the miserable position of being at a huge handicap in signing free agent pitchers. Even if the Rockies were willing to put up significant long term money for a pitcher the price would be steeper for the Rockies. Consider the top free agent starting pitchers in play for more than one year deals according to Jeff Passan’s free agent tracker: Obviously Grienke money is out of the picture. The Rockies making a serious play for Anibal Sanchez? His $80 million payday probably has to go closer to $85 or $90 million for the Rockies to sign him. Edwin Jackson? Would take 4 years $55-60 million dollars. Brandon McCarthy and Scott Baker?  A SP trying to rebuild value after injury would never sign with the Rockies unless they overpaid significantly and guaranteed more years. Ryan Dempster would probably have demanded a 3^rd year to sign with the Rockies, probably at about the same money so a total deal of 3 years, $40 million. Kyle Lohse may not even be a fit for Coors, and the 34 year old will probably be looking for 3 years, $35 million this offseason, so make that 3 years, $40 million for the Rockies.

Beyond this top tier of the FA list it gets awfully difficult to find pitchers who can pitch effectively in the big leagues for the next 2-3 years.  So are any of the above contracts ones you would have wanted the Rockies to give out?  Are the Rockies better off with Sanchez or Jackson in the rotation? Of course.  Is it worth the risk the overpay would require? I don’t know, but it is certainly a difficult quandary for the front office. The team needs pitching but if the Rockies overpay they absolutely must hit the target. Even with MLB-wide revenues increasing this franchise can’t afford an underperforming high paid starter or the dead weight of enduring that dreaded extra year the Rockies might have to offer.  Obviously the Rockies have the Nagle/Hampton affair in their history in regards to hoping an overpay works. The flexibility is just not there to absorb a possible bad signing the way higher revenue teams can. Read the rest of this entry »

Fortunately, Brandon McCarthy has recovered well after being struck in the head this summer.

Over the past couple of years we’ve seen three cases of a pitcher getting hit in the head by a line drive, resulting in a lot of talk about needing to protect pitchers.  The first occurred last year when Juan Nicasio (Rockies) was hit, falling to the ground and breaking his neck.  The second occurred this September when Brandon McCarthy (A’s) was hit, resulting in emergency brain surgery to stop a brain hemorrhage and repair a fracture skull.  Finally, during the World Series, Doug Fister (Tigers) took a hit that caromed all the way into centerfield before hitting the ground.  This last one seemed to be the final straw for everyone, including announcer Tim McCarver, who immediately blurted that something needed to be done.  On that, I couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, in typical knee-jerk fashion, the reaction has been to address the result instead of the problem, with discussions of helmets and Kevlar hat linings the only solutions currently being discussed.  While these two things add a slight amount of protection, they don’t actually address the problem – bad mechanics are putting pitchers in danger, not the line drives.

Take the example of Mike Coolbaugh, a minor league first base coach for the Rockies who was killed by a line drive in 2007. The reaction to this was to mandate that all base coaches wear helmets, even though the ball hit Coolbaugh in the neck.  See the problem here?  How, exactly, does a helmet protect one’s neck?  Whether the league was a in hurry to look like they were doing something or simply didn’t ask the right question, base coaches are no safer than they were before from this particular accident happening again.  The question they answered was “how do we protect a coach’s head if he gets hit by a line drive” when it should have been “why did he get hit by a line drive?”  That way, the solution becomes keeping him from getting hit again.  This is the exact same approach they are taking with this new problem, using the flawed logic that no coaches have died since the helmet mandate, even though you can count on zero fingers how many times a coach has been hit in the head by a line drive since.  It’s also incredibly easy to throw helmets on pitchers and claim that baseball is protecting pitchers, without doing any work to solve the real problem.  That is, until a pitcher gets hit in the neck or spine (I’ll explain in a minute) and everyone realizes the problem still exists; line drives sometimes hit pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

What would Kevin do with Fowler? You may not like it....

With free agent season upon us, I’d like to take this opportunity to suspend reality by pretending that the Rockies have non-cheapskate owners and a general manager who doesn’t need his cage cleaned once a week, and look at how I would construct the roster for 2013 if I were in charge of this team.

For starters, the Rockies have $52M committed to seven guys in 2013.  That may sound like a lot, but when you consider the rest of the roster makes the league minimum ($500K), for a 40-man roster we’re looking at a starting point of $70.5M.  Last year, the team spent $81M, so even if my fake reality still has the Monforts, I can reasonably expect to be able to spend at least $11M on new players.  I’m not going to get crazy and spend like the Dodgers, Red Sox, or Yankees, but I also believe the Rockies could easily spend $100M and still be profitable.

The first decision to make is what to do with the Rockies players who just became free agents – Jason Giambi, Jeff Francis, and Jonathan Sanchez.  I’m also going to include Rafael Betancourt, since he has a mutual option for 2013 at $4.25M.  Of the four, there is absolutely no way I re-sign Giambi.  He was valuable in 2009 and 2011, but the magic and novelty have completely worn off, not to mention a 98-loss team cannot justify wasting a roster spot on a 41-year old pinch hitter.  It’s time to move on. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the Rockies are looking for a puppet, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog seems like a terrific choice.

You’ll have to forgive us for being so quiet lately here at BSB.  It’s taken a bit longer than I expected for me to get over the seven month gut punch that the Rockies just gave us.  I’m sure the same can be said for everyone else.  The home squad lost 98 games, Tulo missed most of the season, their division rival won the World Series for the second time in three years, and it all tasted like crap.

The good news is that you probably didn’t have to see the Giants sweep the Tigers in the World Series.  Based on the ratings, I don’t think any games were shown outside of San Francisco and Detroit.  All in all, I have to say that 2012 was one of the worst baseball seasons ever.  That’s mostly because it was the worst season in Rockies history, but the San Fran championship didn’t help things.  That said, 2012 is over now and I’d like to move on from it as quickly as possible.

Thankfully the Rockies’ managerial search appears to be in its final stages, giving me something worthwhile to discuss for the first time in what feels like a year.  Now, based on how you view this managerial search, you may be even more depressed.  After all, this is a job that the worst tactical manager in baseball decided he couldn’t handle anymore, so it’s tough to get too excited.  Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that any fresh face running the Rockies dugout will be a welcome change.  And to give the Rockies some credit, one of the prospective new managers actually seems like decent choice.  Here is the breakdown: Read the rest of this entry »