SB Nation User Blog: GoRoxGo

Magic Number Watch

GoRoxGo — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:02:48 -0000

After last night's exciting win, the Rockies lead in the WIld Card race by 5 1/2 games. For the first time in Rockies history, we can start talking about "magic numbers". We never could do that in 1995 or in 2007, our other two playoff years, because we were never the frontrunner for the playoff spot and earned them in our final regular season games. Now we are a frontrunner, for the Wild Card spot even if not the division (yet). So, let's examine our current magic number situation after the jump....

As of the morning of September 12th, the Rockies' official magic number is 16 for clinching the Wild Card playoff spot. This means that any combination of 16 Rockies wins or Giant losses will guarantee us a spot in the playoffs.

The Rockies have 20 games remaining, and the Giants have 21. Say the Rockies go 10-10. That means that the Giants would have to avoid losing 6 games or else they will be eliminated and the Rockies clinch a spot in the playoffs. So, the Giants would have to go 16-5 just to tie the Rockies and force a play-in game (assuming the Rockies don't overtake the Dodgers in the meantime).

If the Rockies go a more reasonable 12-8, then the Giants must go 18-3 or the Rox are in the playoffs. Even if the Rockies swoon and go just 5-15 in their final 20, the Giants would have to go 11-10 to tie the Rox, or 12-9 to overtake them for the Wild Card.

In other words, we are sitting pretty! It's not over by any means. As the Rockies themselves proved in 2007, winning out down the stretch can make up for a lot of lost ground. I don't think the Giants have what it takes to go anything close to 18-3, but my bet is that is almost what it will take for the G-men to overtake our Rox.

The fun thing about the magic number watch is that we get to count down the magic number until we clinch a spot. Yes, it would be more fun to overtake the Dodgers and win the NL West. But the point is to get to Rockober, and so the only thing that matters now is the number 16.........and counting.

The New Jimenez Nickname Contest

GoRoxGo — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:06:53 -0000

Everyone wants Jimenez, who has arrived among the elite of major league power pitchers, to get a nickname. Fox is using "K-Baldo" today which is lame, IMO. Do you have a better one? I do. Read it after the jump, and then chime in with your own. I think mine will stick, but I'm all ears.....

My new nickname is "The Big Uball". Get it? Instead of The Big Unit, another great power pitcher, we make a similar nickname that plays off his first name, and has "ball" in it. As in baseball. I think it's pretty good.

If you have one better, have at it.

Early returns are in: Tracy >>>>> Hurdle!

GoRoxGo — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:38:47 -0000

Jim Tracy is night-and-day from Clint Hurdle. Not saying he's a great manager or even average. However, he's clearly the best manager the ROCKIES have ever had (which is a low "hurdle", no pun intended). Last night's game was won totally because of Tracy. He did things that Hurdle would never think of. Some examples follow....

1. Behind 4-3 in the 6th inning with runners on 1st and 2nd, he left Jimenez in the game to hit for himself. Hurdle would have pinch-hit him. Instead of having Ubaldo try to bunt the runners to 2nd and 3rd, as the bunt-happy Hurdle would have done, Tracy faked a bunt and had Jimenez instead try a slug-bunt, which was perfectly executed and hit past the drawn in 1st baseman into right field for a game-tying single.

2. Then, with runners on 1st and 3rd, Tracy had Dexter Fowler lay down a suicide squeeze bunt. Now, Clint bunted with frequency unseen in MLB in this era (led MLB in bunt attempts or was #2 every season he was here), but he almost never tried a squeeze play for some reason. Tracy did it and succeeded, with Ian Stewart scoring from 3rd base in a close play. His slide into homeplate would have made Larry Walker proud.

3. With a 6-4 lead heading into the 9th inning and only Manny Corpas available to close (Street had saves the last four consecutive days and was unavailable), Tracy leaves Jimenez in the game to try for the CG. That's right. He hadn't even taken Ubaldo out after 7 innings even though he was at 104 pitches through 7! Think Clint would ever have thought of that? Jimenez gets the 1st out on a line drive to Hawpe. The second batter walks on a 3-2 pitch that was almost thrown to the backstop (high and away). Here comes Tracy to the mound with Corpas still warming up in the 'pen. Everyone assumed that he had called on Manny at that point. Instead, Tracy asks Ubaldo to be honest with him and tell him if he has gas left in the tank! He told his manager "yes", and Tracy believes him and leaves him in. Jimenez gets the final two outs of the inning and gets the CG win. HUGE confidence boost for Jimenez and the team thanks to Tracy's belief in his player. Yes, he threw 127 pitches (a career high for Ubaldo), but he has an extra day off before his next start and should be fine.

Clint would have never had the desire to do that, and I never saw him do that (as a matter of fact) in 7 years of managing here with any starting pitcher.

I should point out one other thing. The REASON we had Huston Street able to come into 4 straight games for the 4 saves was because Tracy didn't waste him for an appearance in last Sunday's game, a blowout victory in St. Louis. You see, Street hadn't pitched since the prior Tuesday, and Hurdle had a policy that relievers get into games "to get work" and "stay sharp" if they haven't pitched in over 3 days. Tracy obviously doesn't believe in that silly rule, and so he used Corpas in the 9th inning of last Sunday's victory instead of wasting Street when he might be needed the next day for a save. In fact, this wise decision allowed Tracy to use Street the next four days!

Yeah, it's a small sample at only 15 games, and I know reports on Tracy were mediocre at best from what I read when he was picked to replace Hurdle. But, there's no doubt in my mind that I like him better than Clint, Buddy Bell, Leyland, or Baylor as an in-game manager from the bench. He's pushing all the right buttons now, is 11-4, and has won 9 in a row. After that horrendous start, the Rox are 29-32 and only 3 1/2 out in the wild-card standings. The Rox this season have gone from almost unwatchable under Hurdle to entertaining in the span of 2 weeks!

The confidence level of the players indivdually, and the team collectively, has skyrocketed. WInning baseball IS confidence (as Yogi said, the game is "90% half-mental"), and a manager's #1 job is to instil confidence in his players and get them to produce. Tracy has done that in short order. Amazing.

The Case for Managerial Change

GoRoxGo — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:10:52 -0000

On the heels of Bob Melvin's firing, questions are increasing as to whether Clint Hurdle is on thin ice, and whether he's next to go among MLB's managers. I will simply look at the record in this post, and make the case for change....

First, a great place to look for Clint's record among his peers is here:

All-Time Manager Register

Clint Hurdle ranks 102nd all-time in games managed, all with the Rockies. However, he ranks 70th all-time in career worst winning percentage (.462), and he has the 2nd worst winning percentage among all currently active managers. Only Manny Acta of the Nationals has a worse record at .403 in 351 games.

Hurdle has also managed 1,141 games with the Rockies, and is 87 games below .500. He ranks 52nd all-time in games under .500, and NO active manager is more games under .500 in his career than Hurdle. Again, Acta is up there at -68 while Bruce Bochy is 60 games under .500, but he has done that in far more games, 2,278, and has a career .487 winning percentage.

So the record shows that Hurdle, compared to his peers, has managed a lot of games, been given a chance to lose a lot of games with one team, and is not showing that he can improve upon his record.

Now, ignoring the record, what do the Rockies have to lose by making a change? The team is playing inconsistently this year in a weak division that most felt was one we could contend in most of the season. It has not turned out that way. The main reason is the Rockies have performed poorly in the close contests, going 0-8 in one-run affairs.

How does a manager have anything to do with a poor record in close games? It's not measurable, but I believe that he's popular with his players who know that he's under the gun this year. I think these same players are trying too hard in the close and late game situations, at least subsconsiously trying to keep their manager from getting fired. They feel the pressure as much or more than Clint does. A managerial change could just help the team relax, go out and play baseball.

That relaxed mindset after the managerial change was the type of mindset the team had in mid-September 2007 when they appeared to be out of the NL West race, 6 1/2 games behind. Going out and playing loose, without anything hanging over their heads suchs as a manager's job, could help the Rockies get hot, as it did in '07. And with the Dodgers now vulnerable to returning to the pack in the next 2 months without Manny, this is the time to try to see if this season could be salvaged.

So, in sum, Hurdle has had his opportunity to lead this team, and in fact a longer stint than any managers with losing records have ever had with one team. You can find this truth on that link. His team is going nowhere right now, but has an opportunity to make noise if they get their heads (and a few bullpen arms) on straight. A managerial change can't hurt, and may very well help at this point in time, and I think the timing is right. What say you?

How Hurdle Lost a Monday Night Game......

GoRoxGo — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:05:39 -0000

Yes, the bullpen imploded, especially Fuentes and Vizcaino, to hand us our 8th straight loss while ending San Diego's 8-game losing streak. But, the game wasn't lost in the 9th inning. It was lost by Hurdle in the 6th. Let me explain....

With an 8-3 lead, De La Rosa gave up a homer and two hits. At that point he had allowed 11 hits in the game. You'd think that Hurdle would have someone warming up in the bullpen to start the inning. But Nooooo! Only after the hit after the homer did Clint get Ryan Speier off his duff to start warming up.

Chris Iannetta, sensing that De La Rosa was out of gas and that Speier needed time to warm up, walked to the mound to talk to his pitcher. This is a classic move by a good catcher and is meant to buy time for a reliever to get ready. Iannetta did his job.

Hurdle didn't.

Right after Chris returned to the plate, out pops Clint from the dugout to pull his starting pitcher. I'd say Speier had about 90 seconds from the point of his first warmup toss to being called upon. He clearly wasn't ready. This was followed by a walk and single, and then Clint does it again! He brings in Corpas with minimal warmup time! Manny gave up a couple hits and the lead.

Now, what does a halfway competent manager do in that situation? Any manager worth his salt knows to have a reliever warming up from the START of the 6th inning, not after his starter is showing he's done. Failing that, any competent manager knows he has TWO trips to the mound to work with. After Iannetta's trip to the mound, at which point Speier had been warming up for a minute, a good manager would have sent his pitching coach on a slow walk to the mound, solely for the purpose of buying more time for Speier to get warmed up. Only after the coach returns to the dugout should Clint finally show his face, and go to the mound to get his starter. And that walk should really be a slow one in order to give Speier another couple warmup pitches (when Clint went to the mound, he walked briskly).

These are the subtleties of managing a game effectively, something that is totally foreign to Clint Hurdle. He is among the worst at handling bullpens and getting his guys warm in time to avoid trouble. I've seen this same thing before with Clint on numerous occassions, but this episode was especially egregious since it's a game we HAVE to win, having lost 7 straight and facing another struggling team.

Fuentes was the losing pitcher, but shouldn't have even had to make an appearance in this game. Hurdle contributed greatly to this loss, and I'd give him the loss in this one.

Are the Rockies losing on purpose?

GoRoxGo — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:46:01 -0000

I know this sounds absolutely nuts, and would be the stuff that "conspiracy theorists" love, but one has to wonder, given the wide variety of ways the team has been losing lately.

Something tells me that O'Dowd and ownership want to clean house this July by trading players such as Holliday, Atkins, Hawpe, and Fuentes. However, those desires could be thwarted IF the team were to make a run back to .500+ by the All-Star break. O'Dowd needs a pretext to make the wholesale changes that he desires to make. The best pretext for that obviously is to be hopelessly out of it by late July so that he can be a seller and retool the team. THIS is the reason I'm suspicious about the motives behind....

1. placing Hawpe on the DL even though he was said to be day-to-day and could pinch hit if needed.

2. placing Barmes on the DL even though the injury appeared to be one that may keep him out for only a few days. Hillman on FSN, on the night of the injury, even predicted that Barmey would play the next night!

3. placing Holliday on the DL with his hamstring strain even though the initial word was that he could just miss a few games.

4. being slow and cautious in the rehab of Jason Hirsh, who clearly needs a rehab stint in AAA but is already a better option than Glendon Rusch.

5. being slow and cautious in the rehab of Louis Vizcaino.

6. refusing to make Chris Iannetta the everyday starter even though he has clearly earned it, while pretending that Yorvit is some sort of "valuable commodity".

Sure, some of these decisions are necessary and justifiable, but when you add it all up, at the very least it appears that the Rockies are thinking long-term about their players' health and not pulling out all stops to get them back on the field quickly. At worst, though, this smacks of a front-office that is trying to "bury" the team to ensure their record will be so bad come July that they can justify a trading frenzy.

This is why I ask the question, "Are the Rockies losing on purpose"? I don't think they are actually "throwing games" such as yesterday's blown 8-0 lead, but It's still worth pondering whether the losses are EXACTLY what management wants now as we sink further and further into oblivion.