I'll be a bit disappointed if the Rockies and Torrelaba split up over $500K according to this article. Personally, I think the Rockies would be doing a disservice to their fans, themselves and the players if they don't agree to it. Yorvit is offering quite a discount for a very serviceable platoon back-up player.

. Seriously, the Rockies are getting a heck of a deal for a starting/back-up catcher if all Yorvit is asking is $5.5 for two years. Just look at his competition. At minimum he should recieve a payday bigger than Schneider, Castro, Molina and AJ. However, I'll be amaze if he get Mauer's Money

*Disclosure: Yorvit is my most favorite Rockies catcher other than Iannetta. I still would like Chris being the starter though.*

This is perhaps the most pointless post I have ever written. I think almost everybody here, outside of new followers to this blog have a great idea of the Rockies demand and supply. So I felt the apparent need to test a working hypothesis, and that is by letting attentive fans dictate the Rockies Club moves. In summary I would like to see a series of poll questions that us( the fans) would vote on and compare the results where we have a super majority i.e. (66% voted in favor) to see if the Rockies follow it in the off season.

Here are some of those questions followed by a real one....

1.Starting outfield...

a) Hawpe, Spilly,  Cargo

b) Cargo, Smith, Fowler

c) Hawpe, Cargo, Smith

2. 5th starting pitcher...

a)  sign Marquis

b) let our farm system handle the problem

c) sign a minor league FA

P.S.

I hope this data wouldn't prevent a person from making a decision.

The Breakdown

The Roster

The Pay

The people we cut....

Omar  Q...because Barmes is better with a glove and bat. (Young needs seasoning)

Garrett Atkins... Stewart offense and D is good enough right now and we got a good back-up in McCoy

Hawpe or Giambi... we need to cut only one, I prefer cutting Giambi because Hawpe is younger and can play 1B

Alan Embree ....it's obvious

Matt Herges.... think about retirement please

The people we resign...

Yorvit Torreabla..... 2009 is reason enough to exercise a cheap $4mil option

Jason Marquis....I think Coors works great for him but if he doesn't want to stay fine. Hello Rockies Rookie Jholy Chacin (Christian Fredrich)!

Huston Street...I think he's out of our price range (secretly, I hope we don't sign him so I win the bet with RMN)

Bottom line:  I think there is a legitimate case to be made that the Rockies have the most talented and balance,  pitching rotation and line-up in the majors come 2010 if not in the whole NL West. All for under $80 mil :)

Well, I’m back from my first Astros game, they played the Cardinals and ‘shock’ lost. I ran into two Russians girls there surprisingly and they wanted me to explain baseball to them in 5 minutes or less. Let’s, just say they quickly lost interest in the game and left after the 3rd inning and then I turned to the baseball fan of choice for me, a mathematician who worked at MD Anderson. (for some odd reason it seems like the number crunching people are attracted to baseball like none other sport). He and I quickly dissected the Cardinals and the NL Central…in rather very rough terms. Basically we broke up the six teams in the division by management/ownership and their history involving building team recently.
1. Cardinals-Cardinals have a very impressive management and ownership group, they are perhaps the model of well run mid market team. Except for that minor feud with Walt Jocketty.
2. Cubs-Dear God, how the heck did this management team screw up so badly? They need a little stability.
3. Reds-New ownership group hired Walt Jocketty, their native, their smart and they stole Walt (aka Branch Rickey). I expect the Reds to once again rise as the Big Red Machine.
4. Brewers-Mark Attansio knows what he is doing, have you heard of this group doing anything dumb lately? I haven’t.
5. Pirates-Looking at how lacking their success is, it’s obvious there is failure in management…so don’t expect them to be in contention within a decade till management/ ownership changes philosophy.
6. Astros-This club is FUBAR till somebody comes up with a decent plan. Dayton McLane, God bless him, but randomly signing big bats without good starting and bullpen pitching is waste of money.

Anyway, that’s my long term analysis of the NL Central division and I pretty much expect only the Cardinals and the Brewers to be the only contending teams in the division for at least 3 year till at least the other teams figure something out. Short term analysis- the Cardinals better pray that they don’t get the Rockies because the Rockies are coming from perhaps the 2nd toughest division in the league to the weakest division in all of baseball. The Cardinals stats are simply inflated because their competition is that bad, Rockies in four.

I like it. I follow only one teamvery closely, but apparently not close enough compare to other fans here. I kinda of follow the Dodgers because I grew up in L.A., so I follow maybe two teams. However, shouldn't baseball analysts be follow all 30 teams?

I could've told them this was going to happen at the beginning of the season but now they look like they are caught with their pants down. Look at Passan and Brown! Did Passan seriously say he expects the Dodgers to win the West?!!! Bartender! I want whatever he is drinking.

Brad Hawpe situation blows my mind or rather
 his critics blow my mined People said he couldn't hit lefties but there wasn't a huge difference in his batting average between lefties and righties in 2008, 2009 and 2005. To me it seems that the law of average says any batter would eventually hit his ~b.a. regardless of whether the pitcher was a rightie or a leftie. As another example look at Pujlols stats. Sure there are some batters who have drastic deviations in the b.a. when it comes to lefties and righties but those are really rare, in my opinion (i.e. I should probably research my opinion). Anyway my point is how do we not know that Brad Hawpe was in the start of a slump in 2007 when he goes against leftie pitching? What if the critics were just saying that he couldn't hit left handed and it became the self-fuffiling prophecy for 2007. Now all of sudden in 2009 he's an All-Star, please who didn't see this coming, he's a great player!

Anyway, for lack of a better conclusion. I think more analysis is needed on the lefty vs righty b.a. differences. Coming soon to you an Excel spreadsheet!!!!! Let me know if anyone of you guys want to join in on this madness.

If you are Clint Hurdle and you have Greg Smith as a flyball pitcher in your rotation and Coors Field as your park....

A) Do you pitch Greg Smith on the 5 day rotation or...

B) Do you just try to make Smith pitch on the road and/or against teams that suck at hitting homeruns when he has to pitch at home or...

C) Hope to God Dan O'Dowd trades him quick.

I'm leaning towards option B/C but I don't know if anything like that has ever been done in baseball.