Questions? After having one of the most befuddling offseasons in the league, you be we have questions for the Colorado Rockies.
What's the big plan?
After two straight last place seasons, it isn't clear that the Rockies are away of their lot in life in the NL West. They had a perfect opportunity to trade veterans like Michael Cuddyer, Jorge De la Rosa and Rafael Betancourt before the trade deadline last year to help stockpile their burgeoning farm system… but they declined.
What they chose to do instead was to trade Dexter Fowler right as he was headed into his prime in exchange for a bench player and fringe starter. This was a trade that caused so much head scratching that many burrowed all the way through their scalp until they were scratching skullbone.
The apparent justification for the Fowler trade was that the team was frustrated with his inconsistency and lack of growth but mainly so that they could clear his salary. What did they use that money for, you might ask? Well, they spent it on 32-year old Justin Morneau and 29-year old reliever Boone Logan. Adding a platoon first baseman and a left-handed specialist hardly seems worth giving up a decent center fielder and leadoff man for.
More importantly, adding piece like Morneau and Logan are the kind of moves you see being made by teams on the verge of a championship run, not by a team that has lost 88 or more games each of the last three seasons. They went out of their way to get older when they should be getting younger.
No, seriously, what's the plan?
The one other major move the Rockies made this offseason was acquiring Brett Anderson from the Oakland Athletics. Having just turned 26, Anderson is at least young, but it is another move that suggests the Rockies are in win now mode. Colorado has a top ten farm system that is close to producing some impact players, but that puts them in a window where they'll make their first real challenge in the NL West in 2016, if they are lucky.
What the Anderon acquistion showed though is that the Rox continue to not have a great understanding for the challenges of their own home. Research suggests that playing at altitude increases a player's odds of injuries and the Rockies just intentionally traded for one of the most injury-prone pitchers in all of baseball. One would think that the Rockies would know better than anyone how much a body can break down playing at Coors as they have struggled to keep their best player, Tulowizki and Gonzalez, on the field the last few years.
But that understanding basic misunderstanding of playing at Coors extends to other parts of their roster construction as well. Despite having the most expansive outfield in baseball, the Rockies are now headed into year three of Michael Cuddyer in right field. That borders on criminal negligence. They also sent out a decent center field defender in Fowler and are now going to replace him with a combination of Drew Stubbs and Charlie Blackmon, both of whom rate as below average defenders. Or they might double down on the stupid and move Carlos Gonzalez to center field where he would both be stretched defensively and be given a harder workload that will only increase his risk of breaking down physically.
Wait. There is a plan right?
Maybe the problem here is assuming that the Rockies actually have a plan. We've seen in recent years that they have made impulsive decisions like converting to a four-man rotation in mid-season and then scrapping the idea immediately after the season. Last offseason they hired a new manager in Walt Weiss but were apparently so unconfident in their own hiring decisions that they gave him a one-year contract.
Maybe the front office has just become so blind to their state that they actually think that they really are just a few minor roster tweaks away from a 20-win improvement. Nobody could blame them if they decided to go all in as Tulo and CarGo only have a few years of their prime left, but if this is their idea of going all in, then they need to realize that they are playing at the nickel poker table while everyone else is at off at the no-limit, high roller table.
If they don't think they can make post-season noise this year then the more logical explanation would be that Rockies ownership just wants to pursue marginal roster upgrades and maintain a modest payroll so that the team is just barely competitive enough to keep Colorado in the top ten in attendance. That way the coffers stay filled and the fans' collective frustration is held at bay long enough that the team can wait until all the top talent in the farm system reaches the bigs in a few years.
For Rockie fans, let's hope it is the latter. Even if that plan is doused in cynicism, it is an actual plan as opposed to the former which is a total break from reality.
