2007 MLB Preview: Rockies lose NL West arms race

[Willie Bee]

Rockies lose NL West arms race

While their young position players are steadily improving, the Colorado Rockies took a step back on the mound this winter, and that can't be good.

At the end of April last season there were several good stories in the majors with a few surprise teams at or near the top of their divisions. One of those stories was the Colorado Rockies who were playing .600 ball and leading the AL West. It seemed too good to be true, and it was as the Rockies played 15-games below .500 the rest of the way to share the basement in the NL West.

Colorado was getting it done in the early going last year partly with solid pitching. Yes, that’s correct; I used the words Colorado and solid pitching in the same sentence. Conspiracy theorists will immediately point to Humidor-Gate as the reason behind some of the pitching numbers. But since I don’t buy into a lot of conspiracies, I’ll leave that discussion for someone who does.

The Rockies weren’t supposed to contend in the division last year, and while pitching helped them into the early position on top in the division, their initial 10-3 run on the road was the real reason they had the early lead. And going 23-44 away from Coors and that tricky humidor from May on was the reason Colorado eventually settled in a tie with the D-backs at the bottom of the division when October rolled around. And there’s a good chance the Rocks will reside alone in the cellar of the division this season.

During the winter every other NL West team went out and added a top name to their mound. Everyone but Colorado, that is. The Dodgers inked Jason Schmidt, formerly of the Giants, to a free agent deal. The Padres signed Greg Maddux, who spent 2006 with the Cubs and Dodgers. The Giants lost Schmidt, but coaxed Barry Zito to jump across the bay from Oakland as a free agent. And the Diamondbacks brought Randy Johnson back in a deal with the Yankees.

The Rockies? The biggest starter they added to their fold without losing an ace was Rodrigo Lopez.

OFFENSE
It might still be too early to anoint them the second coming of the Blake Street Bombers, but the young hitters are starting to come together and the offensive future looks bright. That is as long as the Rockies can afford to keep one of Scott Boras’ clients.

Matt Holliday, Brad Hawpe and Garrett Atkins are an impressive trio to add to Todd Helton. Holliday has advanced nicely the last three years and is definitely the centerpiece at this time. But with Boras as his agent, how long he remains the centerpiece in Colorado remains to be seen.

Atkins had a fantastic year with 29 bombs, 120 driven in and a .329 average. Several teams reportedly made inquiries about Hawpe during the winter, but the Rockies appear intent on keeping the young right-fielder who increased his OPS about 150 points in 2006. Assuming those three players keep getting better, it will take some pressure off Helton to bounce back from his .302, 15-HR campaign, though a lot of players would love to call that a bad season.

So that takes care of the edges of Colorado’s defense with Holliday and Hawpe in the outfield corners and Helton and Atkins the infield corners. How about the middle of the field? Willy Taveras is the best bet to roam center right now and lead off. He came from Houston in the Jennings deal and can definitely cover the big ground in Coors’ center field. But as was shown last year, if you take away the bunt base hit from him, Willy T struggles to reach base.

Outfield reserves will be battled this spring between the recently signed Steve Finley, Ryan Spilborghs, Cory Sullivan and Jeff Baker. Another guy with a chance to stick in a reserve role is John Mabry since he also has some infield experience.

Behind the plate should be Yorvit Torrealba and Chris Iannetta. Torrealba did ok last year, but Iannetta is the man the Rockies eventually want behind the mask. They could opt to leave Iannetta in the minors to start the season, but that’s only going to happen if Javy Lopez, who signed with the Rocks in the winter, shows he’s got something left with the bat. We know he doesn’t have much left with the mitt.

Shortstop appears to be Tory Tulowitzki’s job to lose this spring. He had a decent showing in the Arizona Fall League on the heels of a good Double-A season. If he falters this spring, then Clint Barmes will once again start at short. If Tulowitzki is ready, then Barmes is a backup.

Kaz Matsui and Jamey Carroll will fight it out for the Opening Day start at second, and the winner will hit second in Colorado’s order.

PITCHING
Aaron Cook and Jeff Francis would be welcome to pitch on my staff. Only they’d be somewhere in the 3-4-5 rotation slots and not in the 1-2 roles.

Cook and Francis both made 32 starts last year, combined for over 400 innings and kept their ERA’s in the low 4.00’s which is a pretty good number even if they did have that humidor cranked up at times in the Mile High City. They’re 28 and 26 respectively entering this year and give a very nice, young right-left pair in a rotation. But they shouldn’t be asked to be the top two arms at this stage.

But manager Clint Hurdle has little choice considering the hodgepodge of arms behind those two. Entering exhibition play, Josh Fogg and Byung-Hyun Kim are the 3-4 arms by default. The best thing you can say about both of them is they stayed healthy last year and combined they will only run about $6 million this season meaning it won’t feel like a huge loss when the two repeat similar performances from 2006.

The two best known names vying for the fifth slot in the rotation are Rodrigo Lopez and Brian Lawrence, with Lawrence probably not in the starting plans until early May as he continues his comeback from surgery. Early May might be good timing since that should be about the time the Lopez experiment is officially announced a failure. A lot is eventually expected from Jason Hirsh who came over with Taveras and Taylor Buchholz from the Astros. But personally, Hirsh reminds me a lot of Scott Elarton when he first came up, and I don’t expect Hirsh to become a staff ace or even a strong 2-arm in a rotation. Buchholz had flashes of brilliance last year in Houston but eventually proved as inconsistent as Tim Redding before him. Oscar Rivera is an interesting invitee to camp from the Mexican League, and the young southpaw could pay dividends before the season is out. Ubaldo Jimenez will start the year in Triple-A and could see action before the season is over. He’s a better long-term bet than Hirsh.

Brian Fuentes is back in the closer’s role and the 31-year-old lefty should deliver another season with 25-35 saves and a decent ERA. LaTroy Hawkins, Ramon Ramirez and Manny Corpas, all right-handers, are the top bets to perform in the seventh and eighth innings. Corpas had some solid success in the closer’s role o at the Double-A level before being advanced quickly through Triple-A and was up with the big league club by seasons’s end.

There’s an interesting mix of veteran names also looking for work in Colorado’s bullpen, including Ryan Speier, Tom Martin , Matt Herges and Mike DeJean. But one name that sticks out is Dave Veres who is trying to get back into the bigs following hip surgery. He’s a long shot having last pitched in the majors in 2003, but still an interesting story

Key Player(s): Certainly a lot of pressure on the front two in the rotation, Cook and Francis, especially Francis who just took home a nice contract extension in the offseason. And there will be pressure on Helton to get back to his old ways as well as the youngsters Holliday, Atkins and Hawpe to continue to advance. But their ability to actually compete this season and not totally embarrass each other a 90+ loss season will ride on the success of the rotation’s back end as well as the bullpen.

Futures: Bodog lists Colorado at 13:1 to finish on top in the NL West, 35:1 to take the NL Flag and 100:1 to win the World Series. That’s more respect than I would give the Rockies, though it has proven to be a bit if a funky division in years. The Greek has the win total break at 74½, the fifth lowest total among the 30 MLB teams posted at the site.

Unless someone like a Fogg, Kim, Lopez or Hirsh comes through with an unexpectedly solid season, I see 90 losses as a very real possibility. I’ll give a little on that and project the Rockies at 73-89.

[bigboydan]

This is one team I'm really scratching my head about in regards to trying to figure out there pitching staff.

The humidor factor is whats i'm trying to factor in to play with this team. People claim that this humidor there using makes the ball equal to every other park out there in regards to velocity, but I'm not sold on that fact at all myself. If anything I feel it's a bit less really, because some of those scores in Coors last year were extremely lower than some of the other N.L. parks averaged last year.

[Willie Bee]

Dan, the biggest problem I have with the whole humidor deal is they've been using one at Coors for several years now. It's only that its use became wide known last year. And while this is just my opinion, I think it's become an excuse for a lot of people, from players who didn't hit as well there last year to the betting public that just ho-hummed their way into the season thinking that winning overs in Coors games would be a cakewalk.

And Coors is NOT the only stadium that kept balls in a climate controlled box last year or in previous years. Balls have been kept in air conditioned rooms at Houston ballparks for about 42 seasons now. And not once did I ever hear anything about how those 'humidor balls' being used in the old Astrodome were the cause for decreased offensive potential.

What the Rockies have been doing is now going to become the standard for all 30 clubs and their stadiums.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070208&content_id=1798 476&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Much of the focus on baseball storage is on the Rockies, who began operating the humidor in 2002. Before then, runs and home runs were at an off-the-charts pace at Coors Field. The prevailing theory was that the increase was due, partly at least, to the mile-high dry climate of Coors Field in Denver.

Whenever there is a run of high-scoring games, the Rockies are questioned about how they're operating the humidor, but Solomon said what the Rockies are doing "will be the industry standard in the not-too-distant future."

As has been the case for the last five seasons, the Rockies must file weekly reports with Major League Baseball, and MLB operations will travel to Coors for periodic checks. Solomon said the Rockies are monitored more than any other club.

[bigboydan]

Battle for final roster spot hot one

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The roster sizes are dwindling and the Opening Day light at the end of the Spring Training tunnel is beginning to shine brighter and brighter.

But the heat isn't getting to Rockies' Alexis Gomez, John Mabry and Ryan Spilborghs -- the trio believed to be fighting for Colorado's final roster spot. All three say they are satisfied with what they have done this spring and feel no pressure to make a last-minute surge to secure a spot with the team.

"I think the impressions have already been made," said Spilborghs, who had a pinch-hit RBI single in the eighth inning of Sunday's 3-2 loss to the Diamondbacks. "We've been here five weeks. I would hate to think one at-bat in the last week is really going to make the difference."

All three had late-game at-bats off the bench Sunday -- exactly the situation the winner of the battle likely will be asked to perform in come the regular season.

"We play in the National League, and there is a lot of pinch-hitting and double switches, so I know that is going to be my job," said Gomez, who had a single Sunday. "I feel like I'm ready to do that. Last year with Detroit, I did good in that position."

Mabry, the 36-year-old veteran of the bunch, said his biggest priority to make a serious run at making the team was to stay healthy.

"You come in every year and don't know what to expect from your body as you get older," Mabry said, who was hitless in his only at bat Sunday. "But I have a pretty good program going, and I've felt pretty good about the way things have gone this spring. I've come in here and gotten the things done this spring I wanted to get done, but I don't know what is going to happen. Everyone here has had a great spring. Everyone is hitting the ball."

So good, in fact, that the trio are all three among the team's leading hitters this spring.

Spilborghs is hitting .458 in 24 at-bats.

Gomez, who hit .272 last year with Detroit, is hitting .375 with six RBIs in 31 at-bats and Mabry is hitting .407 in 27 at-bats.

"I think I've done a good enough job of putting pressure on these guys to make this a tough decision," Spilborghs said.

He also credited much of his preparedness this spring to playing winter ball in Mexico, where he said he got to play center field on a regular basis and got in "about 200 more at-bats than most guys" because of it.

Rockies manager Clint Hurdle, who didn't address the media Sunday, isn't expected to make a decision on Gomez, Mabry and Spilborghs until the the final moments of the spring.

"As long it's before the game starts April 2," Spilborghs said, "it doesn't matter to me when they make the decision."

Lopez cruises: The way Rodrigo Lopez pitched in Sunday's B game with the White Sox at Hi Corbett Field, you'd never know he was struggling through a brutal spring.

The Rockies' No. 3 starter, who has a 9.00 ERA in three Cactus League games, pitched an efficient seven innings (innings three through nine) against Chicago for the win. He faced 25 batters, throwing 79 pitches, allowing two earned runs on five hits and striking out four with no walks.

Pitching coach Bob Apodaca said he was happy with what he saw from the righty on Sunday, "and I'm hard to please," he said. "I saw great inroads to what he needs to do do get consistent. He accomplished a lot."

Apodaca said Lopez was keeping the ball down in the zone well and was working very fast through his first six innings until giving up a two-out triple in the ninth that seemed to rattle him. But the pitching coach said he liked Lopez's fastball and his breaking ball "had a real good tilt to it."

Lopez is 1-2 this spring (B games do not count toward spring records). He has allowed 19 hits, 12 earned runs and four homers in 12 innings.

Brian Fuentes pitched the first inning of the B game, striking out two of the three batters he faced.

Byung-Hyun Kim, recently relegated to the bullpen, faced four in the the second inning, with one runner reaching on an infield error. He forced two groundouts and a popup to center.

Lawrence feels awesome: Brian Lawrence, who threw six nice innings in a loss Sunday to the Diamondbacks, said his right shoulder is feeling "awesome," but thinks the Rockies want more proof the surgically repaired shoulder that kept him out of last season is healthy.

"I think they want me to pitch a few more times, every fifth day before they're assured of where it's at," Lawrence said. "But as far as my end, I feel awesome."

Tulowitzki wins award: The impressive spring turned in by shortstop Troy Tulowitzki already earned him the starting nod at shortstop. On Sunday, it also earned him the organization's Abby Greer award as the team's Spring Training MVP.

The award is named after Rockies fan Abby Greer, who was hit by a car and killed after a Colorado game on Aug. 26, 2002. She was just 6 when she died.

Included in the inscription on the plaque presented to Tulowitzki before Sunday's game: "The recipient of this award best represents Abby's love of the game, her pursuit of perfection, and her desire to be the best she could be, whether it was climbing trees or playing sports."

Previous winners of the award have been Luis Gonzalez (2004), Cory Sullivan (2005) and Ian Stewart (2006). Entering Sunday's game, Tulowitzki was hitting .342 in 13 Cactus League games, including five doubles and six RBIs.

[Razz]

Anyone that claims to have the NL West figured out is an idiot or a savant.