Heatin' Up

While the temperature in Denver is dropping below freezing, the Hot Stove league in baseball is really heating up. The most notable players have been the NY Mets and the Chicago White Sox, with the Mets landing Carlos Delgado from the Marlins and signing Billy Wagner from the Phillies and the ChiSox obtaining Jim Thome from Philadelphia and re-signing their own free agent Paul Konerko. The Rockies plans for participating in the free agent activity seems to resemble the weather forecast for Denver...cold. The opinion of most seems to be that this isn't a bad thing. Tracy mentioned in the RMN a couple of weeks ago that there appears to be a cycle within baseball where teams get themselves into bad contracts, spend a couple of years trying their best to get out of those contracts, and then a couple of years later forget the lessons they learned and get themselves into a whole new set of bad contracts. One thing you have to give the Rockies credit for is the fact that they have not forgotten about the dilemma that the Hampton and Neagle signings got them in. Now that they are out from under those contracts, they shouldn't have license to make the same mistake all over again. It seems to me that may be what some teams are doing, such as Toronto and B.J. Ryan. The most important thing the Rox have been doing lately is talking to Fuentes about a long-term deal. Once you know you have a reliable closer, you'd better do what you can to keep him. San Diego obviously has known this for quite some time. Speaking of San Diego, reports are that they have agreed to terms with Brian Giles. For the Rockies sake I was hoping he would be leaving the NL West.

Lately I've been spending more time on the website than the blog. I have a few new features that I am rather excited about. First, if there's ever a day you are wondering "how long until Spring Training?" or " how long until Opening Day?", go to my website and you can find out. Second, I have added a feature I call Around the Horn, which is a collection of baseball news from various sources. Lastly, the feature News on the Rox is a similar collection of news, but just about the Rox and includes blogs as well as news sources. With these features there's no need to check the various sites and blogs for the latest postings. You can get all the news and blogs in one place. I think it's cool, I hope you do too. I also have a new poll up on the site, so visit and vote. As always, I welcome comments and suggestions.