November 29, 2007
Keeping the Team Together
Bad Altitude is happy with the return of Torreabla and Herges:
These are great deals -- the Rockies are keeping valuable pieces, but not at rates that will hurt them or at contract lengths that will create dead money to deal with in three or four years' time. Has a franchise's overall apparent health ever swung more from one offseason to the next than Colorado's has from last year to this one? Clearly, everybody -- and particularly me -- was way too down on the club entering last year. A decade of losing will do that to you, but with no other NL team (and particularly the Rockies' immediate competition in the West) having done anything real exciting in free agency thus far, it's not unreasonable to look ahead and see at least a few years of winning baseball for the Rockies and their young, good, cheap core.
That cheap core will allow the Rockies to make a major move when the time is right.
. . . as long as the Rox get someone to play second. If Matsui leaves, this could become a big issue.
Except Matsui isn't very good. And isn't a very big loss.
Matsui isn't very good, but he's a lot better than what the Rox have available as other options at 2b right now. Maybe trading Atkins for a decent 2b and bringing up Ian Stewart would work, but there's no one in the system or available as a FA that is as good as Matsui, sad to say.