Rockies Off To Hot Start

April 21, 2013

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English: Jhoulys Chacín, a major-league baseba...

It’s pronounced “yo lees shah seen”

My Colorado Rockies are off to a blazing hot start this year, with a 13-4 record through 17 games – 2 1/2 games ahead of defending World Champion San Francisco in the NL West.  It’s true that you can’t win a pennant in April, but it’s also true that every game you win in April is one that’s in your pocket come September.

Health is a big reason why the Rockies are playing well this year.  Jhoulys Chacin has the stuff to be an ace, but fought through injuries last year before getting shut down.  Lefty Jorge De la Rosa is just coming back from an injury of his own.  If those two guys are healthy, the rotation becomes much more formidable on the offensive side.  On the offensive side, having Troy Tulowitzki back from injury means that the Rockies have added one of the best all-around players in baseball to the lineup.  Dexter Fowler has seven homers so for this year – more than half as many as he had last year.  Many observers have been waiting for Fowler’s power to develop for a number of years, and this is his age 27 season, which is a breakout season for many players.  Don’t be surprised if Fowler becomes a perennial 25 homer guy – and if he can provide that sort of power with a good on base percentage and quality defense, that’s a damn good player.

Surprises

As we look around the league, which teams surprise me?  Definitely the Angels, who started the season 4-10 before winning their last two games.  With Oakland losing their last two games, the Angels have closed the gap to 5 games – still a horrible spot to be in at this point of the year.  While sophomore Mike Trout is off to a good start (.868 OPS), he only has attempted one steal in 17 games, after stealing 49 in 139 games last year.  Newly acquired Josh Hamilton actually has a negative WAR (wins above replacement) so far this year.

The other LA team (Dodgers) are also proving that your can’t buy success.  Their pitching staff has suffered some injuries and has floundered to a 7-10 start.

Derek Jeter

Jeter has an owie – out until after the All Star break

The Yankees, of course, have a sky-high payroll and find themselves two games behind the Red Sox.  However, I’d actually say that the Yankees start is surprisingly good, considering how many All-Stars they have on the disabled list.  I can’t really see the Yankees playing this well in spite of missing so many cogs in their lineup.  Sorry, but this team is destined for a fall.

Perhaps the Phillies have been a surprise, but some of their key players are getting older.  Tampa Bay lose two key starters, which can definitely hurt a team in the short term.  Toronto added a ton of talent from the Marlins fire sale, but sometimes it takes time for all the new players to jell.

Looking around the league, I don’t see a ton of other big surprises.  The Royals are hanging tight in the AL Central with the Tigers?  James Shields and Wade Davis were a big upgrade to their rotation, and might have the added impact of showing a young team how to win.  The Braves off to a hot start in the NL East?  That’s just a good team.

Random notes

For years, I’ve been trying to impose the nickname Mickey on Mike Morse, now with the Mariners.  By referring to him as Mickey Morse, you can help me in this quest.  M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-R-S-E.

Matt Harvey of the Mets is really, really good.  He won’t sustain a 0.93 ERA, but he’ll most likely keep it under 3.00.

Oakland’s Coco Crisp is among the leaders in Wins Above Replacement.  He’s hitting .317 with 5 homers and 5 steals.  The steals are legit – he had 39 last year.  His career high in homers, though, is 16 – so expect some regression.  About a dozen years ago, I saw Coco play in low A Peoria when he was using his given name of Covelli.  During the same timeframe, I also saw Albert Pujols play during his brief time with Peoria.

 

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Rockies Roundup (And Other Baseball News)

June 1, 2012

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Rockies news

LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 25:  Dexter Fowler #24 ...

My Rockies swept a four games series from the Astros.  Coupled with the Brewers sweeping the Dodgers in a four game series, this means that the Rockies have cut LA’s lead from 14.5 games down to 10.5.    While that’s still a significant deficit, it’s a pretty big improvement – and a weekend series against the Dodgers provides the opportunity to make up even more ground.  Both teams will be without major stars, as Matt Kemp of the Dodger’s re-injured his hamstring and Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies suffered a groin issue.

The Rockies exploded for 40 runs in the four games series.  Dexter Fowler woke up on Monday with a .237 batting average for the season.  By the time the day was over, his batting average was up to .276, thanks to seven hits in nine at bats (also a  walk and a sacrifice fly) in the doubleheader.  He had a homer and he won the nightcap with a walk-off triple.  I have to think that the walk-off triple must be one of the more rare plays in sports.  Most of the time the runner on first – who generally is taking lead – is going to cross the plate before the batter can reach third … and as soon as he crosses the plate, the game would be over. 

Fowler has been an enigma for years, mixing red-hot streaks with slumps.  However, he’s still pretty young (barely 26) and hopefully is coming into his own as a hitter.  At the moment, he is just a couple of plate appearances short of qualifying for the league leaders list (which requires 3.1 plate appearance per team game).  If he qualified, his .954 OPS would rank ninth in the National League.

When the series picked back up on Wednesday, teammate Carlos Gonzalez took the role of star from Fowler.  Fowler continued to hit – going 4 for 8 with a homer in the final two games of the series, but Gonzalez was an absolute monster.  CarGo went 6 for 9 with four homers.  The four homers were in consecutive at bats – three in Wednesday’s game and one in Thursday’s.  For the month, Gonzalez hit .351 with 10 homers and 26 RBI.  Gonzalez lead the league in runs (44), is tied for the lead in RBI (44), second in OPS (1.054), tied for second in homers (14), and is tied for fifth in batting average (.332)  and has also added 8 steals.  Like Fowler, Gonzalez is just 26.

Pujols Watch

Is Albert Pujols washed up?  Seems that there might still be some magic in his bat.  Pujols hit 8 homers in May (after zero in April), including four in a five game stretch.  Even with the horrible April, he’s still on pace for 25 homers.  It’s not a stretch to think that he can get to 30.

WTF?

Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy broke his hand in what can best be described as a freak accident.  While Lucroy was on the floor looking for a missing sock, he wife shifted a suitcase that was on the bed.  The suitcase fell and landed on Lucroy’s hand, breaking it.  His wife has been the object of considerable wrath from Brewers fans.  Seriously?  It’s not as if she ran down Lucroy intentionally with a car.  It was an accident.  These sorts of things happen from time to time.

The Draft

Baseball’s draft kicks off Monday.  This will be the first year of what is effectively a hard slotting system.  Each pick in the first 10 rounds is assigned a specific dollar value.  Teams are then assigned the total value of these picks, and this is the amount of money they can use to sign players picked in those spots.  They could opt to spend all the money on one player (and not sign the others ) or spread it around.  However, penalties from exceeding this cap are very steep.  Going 15% over the cap would cause a team to lose two future first round draft picks.

Picks in rounds 11-40 can receive a maximum of $100,000.  If there is money left over from the pool for rounds 1-10, this money can be spent on later later players.  For example, if $1 million is left, a team could give an 11th round pick $1.1 million.

I’m not a fan of this change at all.  Baseball’s draft has always been a case of each side having leverage.  Due to baseball’s draft eligibility rules, many of the top players often have the options of attending college and being drafted again in a later year.  Teams who are unable to sign a player receive a compensatory pick in a later draft.  At times, talented players slip down to teams with deep pockets, but this could be fixed by allowing teams to trade picks (so that they could extract maximum value from the pick by getting rich teams to bid against each other).

Who will be picked first overall?  USC pitcher Mark Appel and Georgia high school outfielder Byron Buxton are the names that pop up most often.  High school pitcher Lucas Giolito may be the most talented player in the draft, but a minor arm injury has scared some teams away (in any case, high school pitchers are a risky proposition in general). 

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Sports wrapup

April 6, 2009

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Baseball

Today is the official start of the baseball season (although most teams begin games tomorrow). I have been waiting for this day since October. While most of you are watching the NCAA championship game tonight, I’ll be watching baseball.

First, let me provide a link to my earlier post of some of the best baseball web sites, in case you missed it. If you didn’t see this when it was initially posted, do yourself a favor and take a look at it now.

My Colorado Rockies have decided to keep top prospect CF Dexter Fowler with the big club to begin the year. I’m a big fan of Dex. He will be a reserve outfielder to begin the year, but hopefully he can play his way into the lineup and stay there. Fowler was a 14th round draft pick in 2004. He would have gone much higher, but he had basketball scholarship offers, and teams were not sue if he would sign a contract if he was drafted (many baseball players are drafted out of high school, and a lot f them decide to attend college rather than sign a pro contract.) The Rockies gambled, drafted him in the 14th round, and offered a signing bonus of $925,000 – much more than the typically bonus for a 14th rounder. So far, this appears to be money well spent.

It appears that Rockies prospect Ian Stewart will not take over the third base job, as Garrett Atkins has not yet been traded. Look for Clint Hurdle to get Stewie’s bat into the lineup often, playing him at 3B, 2B, and OF.

Another guy to watch is catcher Chris Iannetta. If you look at he stat, Iannetta actually had a breakout year in 2008, but a limited number of at bats kept his numbers down. If he can avoid having Yorvit Torrealba vulture some starts, Iannetta could emerge as an elite offensive catcher.

One of my fantasy leagues dried up. This was a bit disappointing, as it was a keeper league, and I had drafted for the long term when the league was created in 2007. My team was looking like it would be a very strong contender for a decade. I suspect that some other GMs came to this realization, and that this is a reason why the league folded.

Other stories from around baseball:

Potential Hall of Famer Gary Sheffield was released by the Tigers with 14M and 1 year left on his contract. Baseball contracts are guaranteed, so Sheffield will make 14M even if he does not play this year. If another teams signs him, they would only have to pay him the league minimum, with the Tigers picking up the bulk of the contract.

Andruw Jones is going to stick with the Texas Rangers. I guess he and hitting coach Rudy Jaramillio have a good thing going. I’m hoping Andruw bounces back after a horrible 2008.

NCAA basketball

North Carolina will face Michigan State tonight in the NCAA title game. Many people expected UNC to be in the title game; few expected MSU to be. Tyler Hansbrough will try to cap off a tremendous career with a national title, while Michigan State will attempt to get revenge for a savage beating suffered earlier in the year against UNC

Baylor, the subject of an earlier article, fell just one victory short of a championship, falling to Penn State in the NIT title game. Sure, it’s just the NIT, but after everything Baylor has been through, they should be extremely proud of their post-season accomplishments. The coach of the year awards aren’t typically given to the NIT runner-up, but maybe we make an exception this year? Great job, Scott Drew.

Football

The Jay Cutler fiasco is coming to a head. The Broncos were involved in trade discussions for Matt Cassell (Cassell ended up going to the Chiefs) and Cutler has been very upset ever since. The Broncos have now said that they are looking to trade Cutler.

The police officer who detained Texans player Ryan Moats while Moats’ mother-in-law was dying in a hospital has resigned. Yes, Moats ran a red light, but this could have been handled much better. The cop could have taken Moat’s information, told him to report to the police station in he morning, and let him go. Instead, he kept him away from hospital room, despite the pleading of nurses and another cop. During this time, Moat’s mother-in-law died.

Donte Stallworth was charged with vehicular manslaughter after he hit a man with his car. Stallworth says he flashed his lights to warn the man, who was allegedly outside of the crosswalk. Working against Stallworth is a blood alcohol level in excess of the legal limit.

NFL prospect BJ Raji, though to be a top 5-10 pick, will likely slide down the draft board after a positive drug test. This could potentially cost Raji tens of millions of dollars.