Spring Sneak Peek: The Rockies Infield

Now that I've dissected the 2009 Colorado Rockies starting rotation and bullpen as part of my season preview (albeit the last entry being over a month ago), I feel it's time to tackle the infield prospects the Rockies will be molding as they prepare for the regular season.

Let's begin with the obvious.

Troy Tulowitzki will man the shortstop position for as long he keeps his batting average above the Mendoza Line and the splintered ends of his bats out of the flesh on his palms.

If the pain in Todd Helton's back doesn't continue to be a royal pain in his ass, you can pencil the legendary lefty into the three-spot in both the batting order and the fielding lineup.

If his back pain flares up, however, it will set in motion a shuffling of players reminiscent of an old parlor game of three card monte.

Garrett Atkins, the incumbent third baseman will shift over to first bringing Ian Stewart in to replace Atkins. Stewart's time at third will give more playing time in left field to Seth Smith or Matt Murton or whoever wins the left field job coming out of Tucson.

Stewart's potential and production last year in his time with the Major League club should pay off in the form of a full season with the Rockies in whatever position Skip Hurdle needs him.

Hurdle has told the media that Stewart will be taking ground balls at third and fly balls in left in hopes of finding a spot for his powerful bat more games than not.

Second base will be an interesting option for Hurdle this year because of his options at both the Major and Minor League levels.

Clint Barmes will be given the chance to win or lose the position in Spring Training after a solid, if unspectacular performance (.290, 11, 44) at the position in 2008. Jeff Baker will also be given at bats to try and crack his way into Clint Hurdle's starting lineup, a feat he's never been able to consistently accomplish in his four years with the Rockies.

Coming up quickly through the Rockies' ranks are youngsters Eric Young, Jr., a familiar face around Tucson thanks to his father, and Chris Nelson, the 2004 number one pick who's finally starting to hit his stride offensively (.321, 6, 17 in 29 games in the Arizona Fall League).

Young absolutely tore up the AFL as he led the league in hitting with a .430 average in thirty-one games while knocking five home runs (one inside-the-park) and tallying twenty stolen bases in only twenty-one attempts. His coming-out party earned him an invite to Tucson and he projects to start the year in AAA Colorado Springs barring a spectacular performance in the month of March.

Omar Quintanilla will perennially provide dazzling defense and lackluster lumber while prospect Christian Colonel, former Rockie Luis A. Gonzalez, and pint-sized speedster Jonathan Herrera will also get the opportunity to prove they belong in the infield mix as well.

I'll profile the catchers in the next exciting installment of Generation Redemption: the 2009 Colorado Rockies.

...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.

Stupid SI Cover Jinx, Go Pick on the Patriots

There are few things you can count on in this lifetime. Death and taxes, sure. The Pope remaining Catholic? Why not? British soccer dominating Italian soccer? Unfortunately yes (but we’re comin for you, Eric.) We can now officially add the Sports Illustrated cover jinx to that exclusive list. Though pretty much universally acknowledged as a scientific fact (see when they picked the Dolphins to win the Super Bowl in 2005 only to see them barely win 10 games from that point to now), it really hit home today when we found out that our beloved shortstop and SI cover boy Troy Tulowitzki, on top of his less than stellar .152 batting average through the first month of the season, will more than likely be out until the All-Star break with a torn quadriceps muscle. That sentence would probably have gotten me kicked out of the English department here at Kenyon College had I put that on a term paper but oh well, I’m graduating soon. I digress. Since SI put together their baseball preview issue this year of the stars of the 2005 draft class (Ryan Braun, Justin Upton, Tulo, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, and Ryan Zimmerman) with a huge article on the intangibles Tulo possesses, he’s failed to even live up to the lowest of expectations. I love Tulo, and it was incredibly hard for me to watch him play this first month of the season. His line of a .152 average, 1 home run, and only 11 rbis to go along with his .083 average with runners in scoring position and 2 outs and paltry .232 on base percentage hurt even more. Let’s compare Tulo to his 2005 draft counterparts to see how he stands (counting average, home runs, and rbis:)
Ryan Braun: .287, 4, 21
Justin Upton: .327. 5, 15
Tulo: .152, 1, 11
Jacoby Ellsbury: .280, 3, 11, 8 steals
Clay Buchholz: 1-2, 4.08 ERA, 1 complete game, 27 k’s in 28.2 IP
Ryan Zimmerman: .233, 3, 13
It seems about half and half so far with Tulo by far being in the worst shape out of all of them, especially considering he’ll now be living with those disappointing numbers until around the All-Star break. Since the focus of the SI cover was mainly about Tulo, he seemed to have a greater burden on his shoulders this year. He had a lot to play for including proving that he deserved the colossal contract given to him in the offseason. He put so much pressure on himself that I think it got to him as he tried to do too much instead of just being our everyday shortstop. Tulo, if you’re reading this (if you are, leave a comment or give me a ring and we’ll go grab a Coors and just vent), everyone in Denver loves you, you’re the man, and we have no doubt you’ll come back and turn it around. Elway-speed.
P.S. I went to the Indians-Mariners game last night at Jacobs Field (I’ll be damned if I’ll ever call it Progressive Field) and caught Grady Sizemore’s first inning home run to the left field stands. Here’s the video to prove it: I’m the dude with the ball in my hand.

Rox Weekend Recap 4/20/08 (The Morning After the Madness)

For the Rockies since 2000, Minute Maid (Enron) Park has seemed more like Jurassic Park to the Blake Street Bombers. When you first get there, you’re overwhelmed by the majesty and excitement of this new experience, but soon you’re knee deep in Triceratops shit, being hunted by Velociraptors, and listening to Jeff Goldblum ramble on about chaos theory. Going into this weekend’s 3 game series in Houston, the Rockies carried the burden of a 6-20 overall record to go along with countless heartbreaking walk-off defeats (2 coming last year during T-Rex’s Fall-of-the-House-of-the-Usher-esque implosion.) With their 22 inning epic in the rearview mirror, the Rox weren’t expected to do much when they arrived in Houston at 9 am on Friday morning. Everybody had a right to be exhausted and if they would’ve just thrown on their unis and sleepwalked their way through the initial game of this series, no one would’ve blamed them. Instead they made a statement that will hopefully carry through the rest of the season as they ended up taking 2 of 3 from the punchless ‘Stros.

1) Friday’s 11-5 victory was an alarming surprise to the baseball world. The Rockies actually were the opening story on Sportscenter on Friday for probably the first time ever (I actually did check outside for plagues of locusts and rivers of virgin blood, but all I saw were two drunk guys pissing on my neighbor’s car.) The Padres, the losers of the historically long affair, were shut out in Arizona while the Rockies offense got their second, third, and fourth winds with their second string lineup. The Pebbles (Rockies bench players? Just trying it out) accounted for 11 runs on 12 hits including a 6 run first inning where they showed no ill effects of weariness in knocking Astros starter Chris Sampson out after only 2/3 of an inning. Though Franklin Morales did his best to make it interesting in the bottom half of the opening inning by immediately giving back four runs, he settled down and kept the Astros at bay while lasting 5 innings without giving up another. 113 pitches in those 5 innings however is a troubling stat that will have to improve if he hopes to remain in the rotation.

2) Friday’s game gave us a glimpse at the Tulo we remember so fondly from last season when he enjoyed the greatest season ever by an NL Rookie shortstop. He followed his game winning double in the 22^nd inning on Friday morning with another 2 hits, racking up 3 RBIs in the process. Saturday’s game was a step back but on Sunday he knocked in an RBI with a go ahead single in the 7^th. His average is army crawling towards the Mendoza line but he’s putting together more quality at bats than he was even a week ago.

3) Brian Fuentes’ Minute Maid monsters surfaced again on Sunday as he coughed up the 1 run lead the Rox had mustered in the 8^th inning. Former Rocko Kaz HazMat-sui, apparently completely recovered from his surgery to repair an anal fissure, yes, an anal fissure, rocked a 2 run single off the wall to give the Astros a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Fuentes did pitch a scoreless 8^th in Saturday’s ballgame and until today hadn’t allowed a run in 9 appearances. He’s worked four times in the last five games and should hopefully have the day off tomorrow.

4) I’ve been saying our bullpen has been incredible thus far this season and now I have the statistics to back up my ramblings. Our bullpen has a 2.86 ERA in the season’s first 18 games, the best in the bigs. 5 of our relievers have ERAs under 3.00 leaving only closer Manny Corpas and backup lefty Micah Bowie as the runts of the Rockies’ bullpen litter. If we get any consistency from our starting staff, we’ll be one of the elite teams in the National League. Our offense is starting to rumble and it’s only a matter of time before they’re consistently putting up 5 or 6 runs a game.

5) Ubaldo gave another inconsistent performance on Sunday. Through the first 3 innings, he’d thrown 28 pitches, 23 for strikes and looked unhittable. In the 5^th, the wheels fell off the schnitzel cart. He got two quick outs, then couldn’t hit asphalt if he fell out of a Volkswagon. He walked three in the inning and gave up a bloop single that led to a run before getting out of a bases loaded jam. He ended up surviving for 5 2/3 innings, but in the end, you can just add another uneven line to his career stat sheet. 5 walks and 6 strikeouts won’t cut it for a whole season.

Our 9 game road trip through Arizona, San Diego, and Houston finished with a 5-4 record, a quality road swing for a team whose best season road record is 39-42 (accomplished last season.) The Phillies from Philly come to Coors for a two game set. Mark Redman looks to keep his early season success going as the visitors will definitely be looking to enact some revenge on the Rocks for that embarrassing postseason sweep last year. Pseudo-MVP Jimmy Rollins won’t be making the trip however as the added weight of his conscience from knowing he wasn’t the true MVP in 2007 finally caught up with his balky ankles. Let’s git-r-duuuuuuuuuun.

Rox Recap 4/17/08 (The Neverending (s)Tory)

I’m not even sure where to start. Last night’s game was the ultimate test of a Rockies fan’s mettle. Maybe the Rox were trying to weed out the bandwagoners that tried to hitch a ride during last year’s playoff run because what they did last night definitely wasn’t for the casual fan. Being out here at Kenyon College in Ohio, the morning hours kept creeping by until I was positive I could see the beginnings of the sunrise on the horizon. This marathon of a game (by that I mean, I probably could’ve walked 26.2 miles in the time it took to finish it) can really only be defined by the numbers it produced: 22 innings, 6 hours and 16 minutes to play, 41 players used, 658 pitches thrown, 37 combined strikeouts, 25 hits, 3 seventh inning stretches, 1 hat eaten by Padres broadcaster Matt Vasgersian (who said in the 10^th inning that if the game went 18, he would eat his own hat), and 1 bleary eyed kid in his dorm room in Ohio, cursing his beloved team until they made his dedication worthwhile. What a night for the Colorado Rockies.

1) The game ended at 4:21 am local time here in Gambier, both my roommate and girlfriend had been asleep in the room for four hours while I sat up doing everything I could to not let the sandman enter (insert obscure Metallica reference here.) The Rox offense, wow, I was texting Eric throughout the whole game and we were wondering if it was in fact that lowest scoring 22 inning game of all time to which my response was that, well, it couldn’t be much more lower scoring. 2 runs in 22 innings is a 3 game slump for most teams, but the Rockies managed to hammer it all out in one agonizing victory. The important thing is, however, when you look at the score at the end of the day, the Rockies went into their division rival’s ballpark and took 2 of 3…or 3 of 4 and a half, whichever way you want to look at it. Willy Taveras set a Rockies franchise record for most at bats in a game with 10 and like I predicted in my Rox Recap on Sunday, Tulo did indeed have a multi hit game in San Diego. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that he would need 9 at bats in a contest to do so, but I just wanted to point out that my prophecy was correct. Bradley Van Hawpe was the only Rockies regular to take the collar in the game, going 0-7 with 4 strikeouts, but he did garner an all-important RBI walk in the 14^th inning (after an incredibly questionable ball call on the 2-2 pitch to which the Padres broadcasters started screaming in disgust.) It didn’t matter what the Rockies did throughout the course of this game, they just could not score. They would get leadoff doubles, runners on first and second and nobody out and still come away empty handed. It was only fitting in the longest game in either club’s history that the winning run would score on an error, a stolen base, another error, and a line drive double by a guy hitting just above the Ricky Ricardo line (that would be .150…and I totally just made that up.) All in all, I’d be much more worried if we had scored 2 runs and not won, but since we did, I’ll just stay cautiously optimistic.

2) No need to be cautious about being optimistic about our bullpen. What a bunch of gamers. In the 3 game set with the Latin American Parents, the Rox bullpen gave up a grand total of 1 run in 23 1/3 innings. No, that wasn’t a typo. The only run allowed was by Manny Corpas who failed to hold the 1-0 lead in the 14^th yesterday, but he even recovered to get out of a bases loaded 1 out situation (of his own doing, yes) by getting two perfectly placed ground balls. These guys have the guts of a kid who just climbed the Aggro-Crag. When even Micah Bowie is throwing 2 hitless innings you know you have a good thing going. Rex-Mex kept his ERA at a comfortable 0.00, Buchholz’ two scoreless innings brought his down to 1.00 while also adding 3 strikeouts, Ryan Speier, who pitched 3 huge frames in the post adolescent innings knocked his ERA down a peg or two to 1.17, and Kip Wells, the odd man out in the rotation but the deserving winner in this one now is the proud papa of a 1.84 ERA. Who are these guys and what have they done with the old Rockies pitching staff?

3) Jake Peavy was incredible last night in lowering his ERA to 1.20 and racking up 11 strikeouts. He was focused, intense, and fiery and deserved much more than he received…..but Jeff Francis matched him pitch for pitch. In the first sign that the Franchise has put his early season woes behind him, Francis threw 7 shutout innings, to the tune of 7 strikeouts and only 1 walk to go along with 3 hits allowed. He Picasso-ed the outside corner consistently all night even if the home plate umpire tried to make the strike zone into a Pollack. Last night was the shape of Francis to come.

4) Also, the catchers for each team, Yorvit Torrealba and Josh Bard, each caught all 22 innings yesterday. I don't even have to explain how incredible that feat is in and of itself, especially after the game when Tory said he wouldn't have minded catching 30. He's definitely fiery, and he deserved his probable day off for tonight's game.

Though the Rocko’s modern life has them arriving in Houston for a 3 game set at 9 am this morning, I guarantee they would be more exhausted had they not pulled that win out just before the roosters were crowing here in rural Ohio. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up for the first pitch.