The T-Rex Era is Now Extinct

With Dealin' Dan O'Dowd more than willing to shake up the Rockies roster this offseason, the first word out of the GM meetings in California is that O'Dowd is already starting to make waves within his own organization.

The first move was made this morning when he placed a call to closer Brian Fuentes and told him any one of these three lines:

1. "It's not you, it's me."

2. "I like you, but I'm not in like with you."

3. "Though you are the Rockies' all-time saves leader and were lights-out for most of the season, never complained once about your demotion from the closer's role, nor became smug when you regained it successfully, we'd much rather not try to bring you back to the ballclub. Instead, we're going to replace you with a guy who just finished an inconsistent season while getting paid the money that should rightfully be yours."

Any one of those three lines would suffice.

This is a major mistake by Dealin' Dan and the Monfort brothers (team owners Charlie and Dick). Though much has been made about the true value of a closer in baseball's current sabermetric world, the bottom line is that Fuentes was nails for much of the year.

He saved 30 games, his fourth consecutive year with more than 20. At one point, he saved 17 consecutive games, including a stretch between Aug. 15 and Sept. 17 in which, in 13 innings, he gave up three hits and two walks and struck out 24. He was so unbelievably unhittable that he made Rockies fans forget his, ahem, "hiccup" on last year's disastrous 1-9 road trip at the end of June.

Though Fuentes could reportedly command a contract upwards of three years and $39 million, the Rockies should try to pony up the dough to bring back T-Rex. He's coming off a year in which he was as dominant as ever. His fastball had new life, frequently hitting the mid-90s on the radar gun, and his changeup and slider routinely baffled batters.

Fuentes, though 33, is an attractive piece on the free agent market; the Mets, Angels, and Indians, among others, have shown significant interest thus far. He's seen as a less-costly option to the market's marquee free-agent closer, the Angels' Francisco Rodriguez.

The Rockies are combing the free agent market for a shutdown arm to pick up the slack in the late innings, but what Dealin' Dan doesn't realize is that he already had one on his own roster. Come 2009, don't be surprised if Fuentes gets a phone call in the middle of the night from a sobbing Dan O'Dowd, crying about how he was the best the GM ever had.

...and 5 to grow on!

Well, I already outlined the 5 main reasons the Colorado Rockies sucked in 2008, I would be remiss if I didn't come up with a tidy little list of a few things the Rockies actually did well this year. No, really, there were 5 things. I promise you there will be no repeats.......probably.

1) Tulo's 2nd Half
- Tulo's 1st half was at the top of the Things-That-Sucked-List, so it's only fitting that Tulo's second half be at the top of this one. Tulo's second half basically begins when he returned from the disabled list for second time (after getting into a bar brawl with one of his bats and losing...badly) on July 21. At the time he was hitting .166 with 3 home runs and 15 rbis. Not quite MVP worthy if you ask me. In that July 21 game against the Dodgers, Tulo announced his prescence with authority with a 5-5 game, raising his average 34 points in only one game. From that point on, Tulo had himself a hell of a season hitting .335 the rest of the way and picking up his power pace a bit by clubbing 6 homers and knocking in 32 runs. His final stat line of .263, 8, 46 nears David Eckstein territory for uselessness (unless you count "being a gamer" as usefulness) compared to his monster 2007 numbers (.299, 24, 97), but to see how abysmal Tulo was at the beginning of the season, dealing with his injuries (some self inflicted), and bouncing back to have a second half that we came to expect in the short time we've known Tulo was a huge relief to Rockies fans and front office alike. Now that he knows how to handle adversity for the first time in his career, he's going to be better for it when 2009 rolls around.

2) The emergence of the Young Guns
- Yeah, that's right, I'm talking about Chris Iannetta, Ian Stewart, and Ubaldo Jimenez (What? You thought I meant Charlie Sheen, Emilio, and Kiefer? Pssshhh). Those three guys were big question marks coming into the 2008 season. Chris was the Opening Day starter last year, but ineffectiveness and lofty expectations ultimately led to his demotion to the Springs for a brief period to get his confidence back. Though he showed some pop at the end of last season in his return, he was still stuck behind Yorvit "Mr. "Clutch"" (yeah, quotations in quotations) Torrealba in the depth chart. Everyone here at Frost Brewed Baseball realized early on in the year that Iannetta was ready to be a productive member of the ballclub when he was outhitting Torrealba in half the at bats. Once Hurdle finally realized it too, Iannetta took off. He finished the year 5th in home runs among catchers (18), 8th in RBIs (65), 2nd in on base percentage (.390), and didn't commit an error the entire season behind the plate. The upper echelon of catchers in the big leagues (Mauer, McCann, Martin) might have a new member.

King Stew had always had pounds of potential but had never turned that promise into production at the Major League level. Some in the organization were wondering whether or not he would ever be the player they thought he'd be. Those worries were allieved this year as soon as Ian saw consistent at bats when Helton went down for the season. Garrett moved to first to make way for Stew Daddy and Stewart responded with power and defense. A late season slide masked the outstanding season this kid had in the 2nd half. His final numbers of (.259, 10, 41) don't show just how impressive Stewart was this year. On top of his highlight reel defense, Stew slugged huge home runs and hit lefties at a ridiculous .370 clip. He should be a cornerstone of our infield for years to come (and will probably necessitate the need to move Atkins to another team.)

No one knew what to expect from Ubaldo this year. He'd had success near the end of the season and in the playoffs, but he was still only 24. When he started out 1-7, the critics were ready to write off Jimenez as a flash in the pan. A million dollar arm and a 5 cent head to quote Bull Durham. Then the calendar turned to July and all of a sudden Jimenez was nearly flawless. His fastball was hard and biting, his slider made hitters flail helplessly, and his command was spotless. He went 5-1 in the month with a 1.74 ERA and cemented his spot at number 2 in our rotation. Though his August was a bit of a setback, he finished the season strong with a 2.90 ERA in the month of September ending the season with a hard-fought 12-12 record and 3.99 ERA. Though it was a bit up and down, this kid is going to be fun to watch for years to come with that 100 mph heat.

3) Cookie's career year
- For a while Aaron Cook's season looked destined to be the best in the entire history of the Rockies franchise. He had 16 wins by the time they calendar turned to September, one short of the Rockies record, but a high volume of innings pitched eventually caught up to the red-headed right hander and he was forced to miss a few starts down the stretch. The ones he did start however, Cook looked like a shell of the pitcher we'd seen at the start of the year. Nevertheless, Cook had one of the finest years of any pitcher in the history of the ballclub. Signed to a contract extension in the offseason, he was one of the only players that the front office invested in that actually earned his paycheck in 2008. He finished the year at 16-9 with a 3.96 ERA but those numbers don't tell the story of how dominant Cook was for the majority of the season. He played the roll of stopper early on in the year rolling off 6 straight wins, most of them after Rockies losses. He was even the second Rockies starting pitcher to be selected to the National League All Star Team (the other being everybody's favorite $121 million man, Mike Hampton in 2001), and responded by throwing 3 shutout innings in said All Star game (including a magic act after the AL loaded the bases with nobody out thanks to Dan "My Fielding Is" Uggla's 2 consecutive errors.) Though his performance was historic, he ultimately paid the price by not responding well after the break and having to sit out with lower back pain. Cook finally pitched like the ace he was supposed to be and we'll look for that sinker to dominate next season as well.

4) T Rex's Total Domination
- Though he came into the season as the set up man due to Manny Corpas' unreal 2nd half last season, Brian Fuentes had the kind of year that guys can go their whole careers without having. Thrust back into the closer's role after Corpas had his Fuentes-esque meltdown to start the year, Brian responded by saving 30 games, his 4th consecutive season with at least 20. At one point, he saved 17 consecutive games including a stretch between August 15-September 17 where in 13 innings, he gave up 3 hits, walked 2, and struck out 24. He was so unbelievably unhittable that he made Rockies fans forget his, ahem, "hiccup" on last year's disastrous 1-9 road trip at the end of June. Most everyone agrees that it's a foregone conclusion that Fuentes will be a goner this offseason, that he will command too big of a contract for the penny-pinching Rockies to afford. Plus, they say they already have a bona-fide Major League closer in Manny Corpas. Or are they only saying that because they're set to pay Manny $5.5 million this year and don't want to be paying that kind of money to a set up man? In my opinion, we need Fuentes. He's the franchise's all time leader in saves and has the makeup and stuff to still dominate the 9th inning for years to come. He's much more important to me than Atkins, who is easily expendable and a good piece of trade bait if we can land a quality starting pitcher. He's replaceable. Fuentes is not and it will be a shame if the Rockies front office doesn't at least make a decent attempt to re-sign T-Rex.

5)..................
- I got this. I know there has to be a 5th positive from this season. Hawpe had a pretty sweet year and finally started to hit lefties (.282 average, 6 hrs.) Barmes proved himself to be a quality option at second base (at least until EY, Jr or Corey Wimberley are ready to make an impact.) Taylor Buchholz was nearly unhittable in the setup role (6-6, 2.17 ERA), and Jason Grilli stepped up to provide some solid innings late in the game. There, there's a few things that went well. Livan Hernandez won't be on the team next year! That's another one. That's all I have right now. Be grateful I found 4.

Coming up, the worst 5 games of 2008.

Rox Recap 4/16/08

I know, I know, I missed a game before posting this. To all my fans, my sincerest apologies, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t feel like talking about Tuesday night’s Rockies game. The fact that we were almost no-hit by a journeyman pitcher who missed almost all of last season due to injury hurt enough that reliving it would be like having a bad acid flashback in the middle of your corporate board meeting. I feel like a psychiatrist. Let’s just focus on the good times, the times when our offense is hitting, and we’re getting quality performances from a guy who has to muscle up to throw harder than Jamie Moyer. Don’t think about the negatives. Stay positive!

1) Alright, positive, positive…10 runs in a game are pretty good. So is a 7 run 9^th inning. Especially considering the fact that we came into the game having scored the least amount of runs in the National League and only the lonely Nationals had a worse team batting average. Though this game was a nail biter until late, there were some performances that stood above the rest. This is one of many epiphanies that came to me last night in the triumphant sleep I always have after a Rockies victory: CHRIS IANNETTA NEEDS TO START. Phew, that felt good. I love Yorvit for his good nature and superb handling of our young pitching staff almost as much as I love the way he says “fastball” (pronounced “fah-boh”), but we need to give Chris a chance. He’s got a greater upside than Yorv, only a year ago he was touted as the catcher of our future, and finally he’s starting to hit like it. He struggled last year and was sent down to get consistent at bats in Colorado Springs, but when he returned in September, he hit .306 in 12 games and showed an improved confidence in all aspects of his game. He has continued that same stretch of good faith this season in his limited duty hitting .400 in only 15 at bats. Last night he went 3-4 with the go-ahead RBI double in the 6^th inning that put the Rox up for good. If Hurdle doesn’t exactly give him the job outright, he should at least give him a few more at bats here and there rather than starting him once or twice a week. Yorvit hasn’t performed well enough to warrant a guaranteed starting spot, and I think once we bypass the month of April, Hurdle might start to make some changes.

2) Speaking of making changes, Clint Barmes must have summoned the power of Greyskull in the last week screaming “I have the power!” while his bat became his Battlecat. He’s been tearing it up lately. It started in the depressing 10-3 loss to the D-Backs on Saturday where he came into that game in the middle and finished 2-2 with an RBI. Then he got the start over Tulo on Sunday and smashed a dinger, finishing with 3 hits and 4 RBIs. He inexplicably didn’t get the start over Jayson Nix at second on Tuesday, but Hurdle came to his senses and penciled his name in for Wednesday’s contest. All Barmes did in response was rack up another couple of hits along with a 2 RBI single in the 7 run 9^th. He also crushed a ball that would’ve been out in any other ballpark, but I forgot that to hit a ball out of PETCO National Park you have to 1. Be on steroids, and 2. Take away that silly gravity that the people of Earth seem to hold so dearly. He also made an incredible defensive snag of a screaming liner off the bat of Tad Iguchi which would have given the Padres the lead in the 3^rd inning. I don’t know what else he has to do short of performing John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” acoustically for Clint Hurdle while the skipper sleeps.

3) It was also a fairly promising performance for Mark Redman who finally beat his hometown team for the first time in his career. I feel like a broken record describing Redman’s starts thus far this year. The stats won’t jump out at you, but he kept the team in the game by going 5 innings, giving up 2 runs and only 3 hits. If our bullpen throws the ball like we did last night, those stats are going to win us a lot of ballgames. Herges, Buchholz, Fuentes, and Corpas combined once again to throw 4 no-hit innings with only 1 walk. Fuentes especially has yet to give up a run in 7 appearances this year and he looks like the T-Rex of old.

Jeff needs to start pitching like we know he can tonight. He gets the unenviable task of squaring off against Jake Peavy who only has a 3-0 record to go along with his 1.64 ERA, but who’s counting? All I remember about Jake Peavy is the Rockies lighting him up in the play-in for the play-offs last season. Boo-ya.