SB Nation User Blog: MattTheRock

Peavy

MattTheRock — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:21:18 -0000

Call this an exercise in curiousity. Not that I expect this to happen for a number of reasons. What if the Rockies got serious about going after Peavy?

According to Buster Olney, the Pads are looking for two young pitchers and someone who can become their everyday centerfielder in the not too distant future. What's more, the Pads are not adverse to trading within the division. Peavy's also looking to be traded to a contender in the NL, which we would be with him in the fold.

Imagine for a second, a rotation that looks like this:

Peavy, Cook, Ubaldo (might be the best name ever), Francis, JDLR.

Would that be something you might be interested in?

But back to reality for a minute. What would we have to give up...

Something along the lines of Dex, Morales, and ... fill in the blank pitching prospect. Maybe Reynolds.

There's also talk about the Pads wanting to unload Greene as a part of this. If he's willing to move to second, I say we tell them fine, but you take Atkins. Allows us to play Ian everyday, and I'd have to believe that Greene would be a capable 2nd baseman. Also gives us an insurance policy against an injury to Tulo. Think our roster would look something like this:

1B Helton
2B Greene
SS Tulo
3B Stewie
RF Hawpe
CF Spilly/Smith
LF Holliday
C Ianetta

Wouldn't be half bad.

Now for the ugly bits. Peavy, 27, will make $8 million in 2009, $15 million in 2010, $16 million in 2011 and $17 million in 2012, and he has a 2013 option for $22 million, with a $4 million buyout (thanks ESPN). So it'd be a good buy for next year, and then it gets a little hazy. In effect, I believe we'd be pushing all of our chips to the center for a run next year. But Helton is coming off the books soon, so it's not completely out of the question.

So like I said, none of this is serious. I'm just playing a 'what if' game here. I know there are massive holes in this scenario that I've not really thought through. In truth, I'd like to see Frankie bounce back next season, so I'd rather us be able to keep him. But at the same time, suppose it's worth thinking about.

Matt at AT&T Yesterday

MattTheRock — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:02:20 -0000

I love it how things have a way of just working out. As a part of getting my visa approved to work in Korea, I had to make a trip out to San Francisco Wednesday morning. It occurred to me late Tuesday night that the Rockies were there too, so my last Rockies game ended up being at AT&T Park.

Ended up the same way as the last game I went to at Coors (stupid bullpen), but I've got a ton of pictures, so let's get to 'em...

via i303.photobucket.com

How's that Bullpen treating you there?

via i303.photobucket.com

They've got a pretty awesome statue of Willie McCovey overlooking the cove out there. I'll give them this, the view from this stadium are slightly alright. K, they're fantastic.

via i303.photobucket.com

Yeah, those aren't too bad. Here's the inside views:

via i303.photobucket.com

That last one is the view from my seat. I picked out a spot right in front the Rockies Bullpen there. Made for some decent shots during warmups...

via i303.photobucket.com

Little known fact about Todd... he warms up by doing Irish jigs. I didn't know that until I snapped the picture.

Unfortunately, I was completely out of it by this point. I was running on about a hour of sleep... so I ended up not taking a lot of pictures during the game. I snapped out of it just long enough to get a quick snapshot of Herrera's first AB:

via i303.photobucket.com

They've got one hell of a scoreboard out there. That thing has got to be one of the clearest things I've ever seen.

As for the game, same problems as usual. We just could not get a hit with a runner in scoring position. The Giants did have a great play by Lewis in left to keep the lead, but the biggest play of the game was a very small one.

Bottom of the 6th, U-Ball walks Lewis to start off the inning. He then quickly gets a chopper to 2nd, Herrera then charges the ball needlessly... catching the ball off balance with his momentum taking him out of the basepath. He reaches back to try and tag Lewis, misses and throws to 1st to get Velez. A small play, but not when Winn softly lines a pitch into center to score Lewis.

I'll tell you, a major league 2nd baseman waits on that ball another split second, quickly flips that to Barmes and at least gets the lead runner, maybe gets a double play. Instead, the Giants tie the game, U-Ball gets pulled, Speier hangs a slider, and I'm left with this sign to cheer me up afterwards:

via i303.photobucket.com

I almost had to give that guy a dollar just for standing outside the stadium with that sign.

Matt's going to Korea!!!

MattTheRock — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:03:45 -0000

So yeah, that about says it all. No, I'll tell you right now, this has very little to do with the Rockies at all, outside of the handle being MattTheRock. Just wanted to say that we'll now have representation on three continents. So that means we've just got to get to the other four and the world domination of Rockies fans and occasional bloggers will be complete!

So I'm headed over to teach English for a year, which means no awesome videos from Spring Training next year, but there should be tons of excuses to post semi-related thoughts from Korea here...

Anyways, I'm putting out an open invitation for anyone up and about... I'm headed to at least the game here on Wednesday against the Cubs. I know I'm breaking a cardinal rule of mine (no games against the Cubs, too much hatred) but I really don't have much choice here. Anyway, if you're going to be at the game, shoot me a quickie email and I'll pass on some contact info. Or just look for me in the Rockpile with a bunch of other rowdy peoples...

Matt's in Tucson- Day 2

MattTheRock — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:38:58 -0000

Love to say that I saw the D'backs-Rox game, but I didn't. I saw mostly our major league lineup get absolutely worked against the White Sox.

I'll give a per inning breakdown of action:

1st- Cook's sinker was in fine form, while he gave up a hit, it was only because it happened to find a hole between Tulo and Garrett. Nevermind though, because he got Thome to GIDP to get out of the inning. In our half, really wasn't anything worth mentioning. We went in order, Spilly-Tulo-Helton. Looks like Todd hitting third is getting a real look this spring from what I can tell.

2nd- Cook ran into some trouble quickly in this inning. Konerko started with a single, he walked Crede and then gave up a double to the White Sox new Cuban acquisition, Alexei Ramirez. No joke, if that guy keeps it up, I'd keep him in mind for your fantasy squads if he gets a roster spot. Cookie gave up three runs this inning before getting out thanks to a busted hit and run and the bottom of the Sox order. The Rox inning was uneventful again. Holliday-Atkins-Hawpe combined to make Contreras look downright dominate.

3rd- Fuentes came in and was a little Helter Skelter. He walked Swisher, got Ozuna to pop out, walked Thome, then got Konerko to fly out before striking out Crede. The Rox half had a little fireworks thanks to Marcus Giles (I know...). Giles beat out a infield single, stole second, advanced to third on a terrible throw. He was brought in by a Seth Smith flyout and then we went quickly in order from there.

4th- The first inning of good ol' Victor Zambrano. He gave up a quick double to Ramirez and an infield single to Anderson before he got two outs. It looked to be an uneventful inning before completely losing the strike zone again. Swisher doubled, Ozuna singled, then he gave up two walks to Thome and Konerko before getting Crede to bounce hard to third. Generally, an ugly inning all round. In our half, we were reintroduced to Scott Linebrink, and it went pretty much the same as last year. Singles from Tulo-Helton-Holliday led to a run before Atkins bounced into an easy double play to kill the rally. Hawpe finished it out by popping to short.

5th- Zambrano #2... He calmed down considerably. Gave up another single to Ramirez before getting a pop out and a GIDP to end their half. Linebrink was replaced by Adam Russell for our half. Giles walked, and then promptly got picked off. Might've been the highlight of the day right there. Two popouts later and we were done.

6th- Now for the Taylor Buchholz report of the day. He was the one bright spot of the day, outside of the 85 degree weather you know. Just thought I'd slide that in there. He book ended the inning with two strikeouts. Our sixth inning had some promise, but ended as quickly as it started. One strikeout, a walk, another K, a single from Holliday, and then a groundout.

7th- Buchholz continued looking strong. He walked one, but struck out two and got the other to pop out to end the inning. He had a nice line for the game, 2 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 4 K's. And in our inning... well, Smith got brushed with a fastball. So he got on base. Yeah that was about it.

8th- Herges got a nice round of cheers before the inning. He then promptly gave up a double to a backup AAA catcher. Ah well, it was that type of day. The runner came around to score, but that was it for the inning. The fury of Oneili Perez greeted the Rox their next AB, and we promptly had three consecutive singles to get back a run. And that was about it.

That's more or less all I stuck around for. Had to make a tee time and all...

To give a quickie recap, there was not a whole lot of good to take out of today's performance outside of Taylor Buchholz. Everyone else seemed half asleep. Zambrano did nothing to make him stand out, Giles still sucks, and everyone generally looked bad. A couple of flashes, and that was that. Final Score: White Sox 12, Rockies 3.

Matt's In Tucson!!!

MattTheRock — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:27:32 -0000

[editor's note, by Rox Girl]-Accounts from Spring Training will get bumped to the front page for the next month, especially if they're as good as this one, but don't feel you have to include video to make it - RG

Just to make everyone jealous, yeah, it was just as nice out here as it looked. High 70's with a slight breeze.

I guess I'll give a quick rundown of what I saw at the game there for those of us who missed it.

Most pressing issues- 2B Battle: Nix played most of the game, got three AB's, took it to a full count each time with two walks and a swinging K against Danks. His defense was good enough, nothing spectacular. He did boot a ball with A.J. Pierzynski up, but he had plenty of time to leisurely pick up the ball and still throw to first.

Marcus Giles is a waste of roster space. That is all.

Most pressing issue- 5th starter: Towers was pretty decent out there. He did give up a pair of doubles today, but only one was really well hit. Cabrera's double was just a bloop that happened to land in the right spot. Redman was Redman, he got into trouble, doesn't have an out pitch, but still got out unscathed. He's worth keeping around for mop up duty, that's for sure.

Outside of that, things were pretty normal. Tulo's blast came on the sixth pitch of the game, and Holliday hit a blast that would've travelled 450 ft at least. Unfortunately, there's a massive batter's eye at Tucson Electric about 30 ft. high in dead center that Holliday hit dead on. Did leave a pretty impressive mark.

The kids are pretty interesting too. Fowler misplayed a ball in center at one point, but made up with that with good day with the bat. His double in the eighth was just impressive. He can absolutely fly around the basepaths. McKenry also was impressive with a hard double leading off the eighth and one heck of a snap throw to first that almost nailed Alexei Ramirez off first. We've still got some serious talent down there.

Good news, we've got a ton of pictures and some videos that we'll try to get up soon as we can. I'll provide the links when I can.

Update [2008-2-28 1:19:16 by MattTheRock]: Video compilation of Dexter's day. He's gonna be something else.

NLCS: Rockies Scouting Report

MattTheRock — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:47:35 -0000

So SouthByTheBorder had a decent idea. Since we both have a mutual, if somewhat begrudging, respect for each other's teams, he figured that we spend a little time in these couple of off days getting to know each team in depth. You guys post the Snakes report over on Purple Row, we post the Rocks scouting report here. At the very least, you caught my attention, even though I consider myself somewhat informed about you bums...

But yeah, so I'll try to update this everyonce in a while, because like hell if I'm doing this all at once. And Silverblood, if you're around, help a brother out please.

Just go through the likely order:

2B Kazuo Matsui: My boy. Waiting for him to get a contract extension. Basically, your goal should be to keep him off of the bases for this series if you don't want an incredible headache. He's better from the left side than the right, but keeping him from reaching base is the key.

SS Troy Tulowitzki: The Rookie of the Year, and I won't have any argument on this. Great power from a SS, basically owns Steven Drew right now. Has had the most chances in baseball to commit errors, and hasn't committed too many all year. What's even better is this kids attitude. If you want to credit one player with changing the Rockies clubhouse, you can give it to Troy.

LF Matt Holliday: MVP. Not great defensively, but still average to slightly above when you grade him against the rest of the dogs in the league. Byrnes has him beat defensively, but everytime he comes up be afraid. Oh, and don't make him angry (HBP). He has a bad habit of hitting in 450+ if you tick him off.

1B Todd Helton: OBP machine. The eye is still there, the bat comes and goes. Didn't have a great series offensively against the Phillies, but still is Todd. Best defensive 1B in the league, rallying point for our run. His walkoff blast against Saito all that time ago started this beautiful run.

3B Garret Atkins: Started off terribly, but is still a tough out when he's on, and he's been on since... June. His defense, well, needs some work. Frankly it's an adventure. Not a Ryan Braun adventure, but an adventure nonetheless.

RF Brad Hawpe: Highly underrated. What's even scarier for opposing teams is he's starting to hit lefties. Has a cannon from right, so taking an extra base doesn't happen that often. He's not really the guy you want to see with runners on and two outs, since some ridiculous number of his RBI's come that way (70+ out of 115+).

CF Ryan Spillborghs- To think at one point we had Steve Finley on the roster over him. Streaky hitting, decent defense. He's in depending on what happens with Willy T. I'll get to the bench and others later. As usual, he's come up big for us this year. Might have the best AB music in the bigs.

C Yorvit Torrealba- Has taken a lot of flak from us on the Row because of Hurdle's insistence on playing him almost everyday. But it's paid off, so there you go. Hits much better at Coors, isn't great defensively (we saw what you did to the Cubs), but handles pitchers really well. Granted, our young guys have a ton of talent, but Yorvi is always talking to the pitchers when they start flying open and such, calming them down and getting them back to form. Deserves a lot of credit for our run.

I think that's good for now. Go ahead and post us a scouting report over there if you'd like. If you want deeper details, let me know. I'm writing this right before bed, and I tend to be a bit lazy with the stats.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics- Thought's on Awards and Biases

MattTheRock — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:46:14 -0000

WARNING: SARCASM AND HYPERBOLE ALERT!!!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/baseball/fungoes_blog/2007/09/nl-west-rockies-rockies-rock ies.html

Start there. The most damning quote- pulled from today's discussion:

"Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus: San Diego by just a little bit, mainly for the edge Jake Peavy has on Brandon Webb, and their having the best offense of the three teams."- Regarding the Rockies, Pads, and D-Backs chances in the playoffs.

I'm trying not to get emotional here, but this type of stuff is ridiculous. It's well known the struggles of the Pads to score runs. As David and Rox Girl pointed out in the discussion, there's not even stats that can back that up. So to make that claim is absolute donkey ballocks.

But of course, there are other examples of national stupidity concerning our Rockies:

MVP: David Wright- Um... can anyone legitimately make this claim any longer? Mr. Holliday has him beat in almost every statistical category, but he plays at Coors. But Wright plays a premium defensive position in a big market, so obviously he's MVP. If we apply any consistency to this argument, that logically means:

ROY: Ryan Braun- He hits homeruns! Homeruns are everything! Nevermind that his defense is historically bad. Defense isn't important, especially at 3rd base. He hits homeruns! That's all that matters!!! That Troy kid, he plays at altitude. That's why his defense is so good. He hasn't completely changed the mindset of a team or anything.

Cy Young: Jake Peavy- Altitude doesn't affect pitching. C'mon, we all know that since they put in the humidor, it's not harder to pitch there. Not an argument against Peavy or Webb mind you. But Francis needs to be in the discussion. If he finishes out of the top 5, it'd be utter stupidity.

MOY: Well nevermind, but I think you get the point.

I'm really trying to understand how this works. It all goes back to the modern sportswriter, stat-head, or whatever not needing to be consistent. I remember Steve Phillips, which I understand is a shaky example, saying the Rockies are a lock for the division. Two bleeding days later, the Rockies are out, the Phillies will take the WC.

Will we make the playoffs? Maybe. We've put ourselves in a great position with this incredible surge. But one thing is for sure. Our guys will not be recognized nationally for their stellar play unless we do. Holliday is a no-brainer. Troy should be ROY. Francis should end up in the top 5 in the Cy Young. Do I have the slightest amount of faith in the voters to make the right selection? No.

If we make it in the playoffs, we are the only team that can legitimately say no one believed in us. Hell, half of us have fallen off the wagon, clammored back on, jumped off screaming, and tenatively came back for a beating that hasn't arrived yet. So here we go, one week that decides the year. Hopefully we shove these brainless arguments right back in their faces.

Rockies Trading Deadline Wish List

MattTheRock — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:15:31 -0000

Thought we could play a little game here, with it being the All-Star break and all, we have a little time to scour the other teams for potential pieces that would look really nice in purple.

Only thing with this is that we should try to keep this relatively realistic here... no trading for A-Rod and having him play catcher. I'm mean, if he's willing we should definitely make the call and all but I kind of doubt it.

My picks:

Pirates pitching- Doubt there's any chance of landing any of these, but I'd feel alright about Duke, good about Gorzelanny, and my jaw would hit the freaking floor if we landed Snell. It'd probably cost Atkins, Hirsh, and U-Ball for Snell, but damn would that kid look good in purple. I say kid, but he's 25.

Dontrelle Willis- Unfortunately, he'd be a rent-a-player there, because I don't see us being able to pay him after the season. That and Florida is going to half to die after the break to make him available. Again, there'd be a hell of a price on him as well. Probably Atkins and some pieces, so they can move El Gigante Cabrera over to 1st or something.

Either way, those are just two of the dreams around. Fill in the rest that you'd like!

Vent Frustrations Here

MattTheRock — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:30:24 -0000

Here's the truth of the situation- right now, this team is incredibly frustrating to watch right now.

The in-game management is Hurdle-esque. This isn't hard to imagine from the manager who was rated one of the all-time worst. But personally, the continued use of Hawkins in the eighth inning needs to stop. So far Hawkins has had 4 good performances, 3 terrible performances in 5.1 innings. We cannot keep running a guy out there in critical situations who is going to continually make me reach for copious amounts of alcohol when he's in.

Our bats have not been very good right now. We have wasted many chances to blow games open or even put up an insurance run or two because we have not been able to knock a man in at critical junctures in the games.

Also, the baserunning goofs have got to stop. This is absolutely ridiculous. For a team that is struggling scoring runs, we need to stop giving them up because of dumb decisions. This I primarily blame on the coaching of the team. I understand that they are young, but because they are young, the coaches need to be a little more difficult on them.

Furthermore, Steve Finley is a shell. There is no point in having him on the roster right now. Please, cut him. In the words of the venerable malakian, "FREE RYAN SPILBORGHS!"

Okay, there's the vent. I understand that a lot of us are probably feeling the same way about all of this right now, so that's why I put this out there. With that in mind, we should try to keep things in perspective. We are only 2 games under .500 right now after a nine game road trip where we did not play well at all. A good homestand, a 5-2 homestand, and we're feeling pretty good about this team again. So it's not time to panic quite yet. We might be able to see that time on the horizon, but we're not there yet.

But for the love of all things holy, get Finley off this team.

Matt's wrap-up from Tucson

MattTheRock — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 04:45:05 -0000

It's been a great week in Tucson. There's nothing quite like the Rockies practice facility, where if you're not quite paying attention, you might look up and realize that BK Kim and Jeff Francis just walked right by you. One thing that's good to note, Francis seems eve taller in person. I always thought he was a little guy, but he's a good 6'4".

Today I staked out the Rockies practice facility before heading inside Hi Corbett to catch the Rockies-White Sox game. One note for anyone heading to Hi Corbett for a spring training game; check the weather report. If it's a sunny day, make sure you get off the metal bleachers, because they'll turn a 80 degree day into a hundred and ten degree day in a hurry. Pay the extra five bucks for lower box seating, and you'll be much more comfortable.

As you have already heard, today was a bit of a slugfest. It's what you get with 26 runs, 32 hits, and 4 errors between the two teams. Thankfully, this was a spring training game so we were still only baked in the sun for a good three hours.

Hirsh looked decent in the first inning. Nothing spectacular, as Darrin Erstad stung a pitch out to right for the first AB of the game, but was left stranded at second. What was impressive was the pure speed of the top of the order. It's hard to find faults with those two jackrabbits when they're getting on base. Tavares was particularly impressive since he stole second every time he reached first while I was out here, save one fielder's choice where he broke up a double play in the third inning today. That let the inning continue for Spillborghs' three run shot over the left field fence. I cannot see a way that the organization can fathom sending him down to AAA. He just keeps on hitting.

Some other important notes from the day's action:

-Hawpe was completely overmatched by Buehrle today. Both times he faced him, Buehrle struck him out easily. None of Hawpe's swings came anywhere close to the pitches. A good three inches or more on each wiff. Once Buehrle came out, Hawpe easily took a very shaky Mike McDougal's fastball out to right for a double off the wall.

-Scary moment here too. Ianetta took a Buehrle pick off his right hand, made a nasty sound. He shook it off and ran down to first, so luckily we've still got a young gun healthy. Best wishes to Troy.

-Outside of a bomb to Jim Thome, Brian Lawrence looked pretty good. After the shot, he settled down and went through the White Sox's order without any real problems.

-Fowler looked very promising. First off, he's a skinny guy. He can't weigh anything over 155, so he'll have a chance to put on some muscle. What really impressed me was his plate discipline. He got down 1-2 quickly to Nick Masset, Sox back of the bullpen/ first call up from AAA right hander, before fighting off four or five pitches to work a walk out of it. Hell of an AB. Even better that it was immediately followed up by a double from Quintanilla where he easily scored from first. Impressive showing from only two AB's.

-Tom Martin is an absolute train-wreck against righties. When it gets to the point where you turn to someone and say "there's about a 25% chance that Eduardo Perez jacks a homer off Martin," and it goes off without a hitch, that's a problem. Then when you turn to the same person and say that "Martin will somehow turn this [six-run lead] into a save situation," and you're right again, there's a huge friggin' problem. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of good options here.

-Javy Lopez is still killing the ball. The only out he made today was a shot he ricocheted off the pitchers leg right to the first basemen. He's worth a look if we've got the room.

-The White Sox were absolutely frightened of Ian Stewart for some reason. They walked him four times, and none of them were particularly close. I think he had one full count on him the entire day.

-I'll stress this again. I'm in love with the top of our order. As long as Tavares and Matsui keep getting on, it's going to cause havoc for the other team. It's just fun having Willy on, because you know he's going to run. They know he's going to run. And there's not a damn thing they can do about it. Today was the closest that he came to being thrown out while I've been here, and he was still safe by a good foot by my eye. Keep in mind, I am a complete and vicious homer.

So there you all go. That's a complete wrap up of today's action. After a week of 80 degree weather, I'm headed back to the lovely state of Colorado to really get back to work. This is a great vacation if anyone can make it out here. If you need any sort of tips on Tucson, drop me a line and I'll recommend some places.