Bring Them Back

If you are still wondering about the sentiment in Denver towards Jim Leyland, read Dave Krieger's column in the Saturday RMN. He pretty much sums it up as well as anything I've seen so far.

Dirtgate continues to be interesting. While everyone associated with baseball appeared to be minimizing the entire episode, the media at large and the blogging community was not. Rogers has not wavered from his claim that the substance on his hand was a mixture of dirt and resin ( except to add spit as an ingredient later) and LaRussa says he didn't believe it was dirt while the umpires don't know because they didn't inspect it. Bad Altitude makes a good point, since when are the umpires obligated to enforce the rules only when a manager requests it? If the substance on Rogers' hand was illegal, then he should have been ejected and suspended for the rest of the postseason. If the substance was not illegal, then they would have asked him to wipe it off and he would have continued to pitch. The latter is exactly what happened, by most accounts, but yet an element of doubt will forever trail Rogers and the Detroit Tigers, regardless of the outcome of the World Series. I'm guessing that the umpires now wish they knew and had taken that extra step of actually looking to see what the substance was on Rogers' hand. If they had, then Rogers would either be guilty or innocent, but dirtgate wouldn't be a topic of conversation. Instead, we can only speculate about Rogers, and the other Detroit pitchers for that matter, and the topic of dirtgate will continue to feed the media's hungry appetite.

We here at DITR are taking on a cause. It's not an important cause, but a cause nonetheless. Now that Vinny Castilla will be retiring, we believe it would be a great idea for the rockies to bring back the members of the Blake Street Bombers for a "reunion" of sorts and have a special day of recognition at a game during the 2007 season. Galarraga, Walker, Bichette, Burks and Castilla deserve a special tribute and the fans deserve the opportunity to honor players that were part of one of the most impressive offenses baseball has ever seen. In an effort to gather and document support for this cause, we have created an online petition. The goal is to deliver the signatures of the petition to the rockies at the beginning of the year to introduce the idea and encourage the rockies to pursue an event of this nature. If you agree with this cause, there are two ways you can help. First, go sign the petition and second, tell others about it. Let's work together and do our best to get these five players back together at Coors Field for one last time.

Until next time, go rockies!

Awards

As an addendum to the post regarding Jim Leyland a couple of days ago, Bad Altitude has done their share of reflecting on Leyland's tenure with the rockies the last week or so and Admirable Thoughts has the Jim Leyland Award, given to someone who quits on it's team early in the season. The bottom line is, if there's a Jim Leyland Bandwagon in Denver, there are plenty of empty seats.

On to the Annual DITr Awards Presentation.

NL Rookie of the Year
Winner: Hanley Ramirez SS, Florida. The Marlins surprised everyone by not losing 100 games and did it with a handful of rookies who all had decent seasons. Ramirez hit 17 homeruns, good for 4th most among NL shortstops. Ramirez added 46 doubles and 11 triples while batting .292 for the season as well as stealing 51 bases. Ramirez' 26 errors and .965 fielding percentage were the only weak spots for his rookie campaign.
Runner-up: Ryan Zimmerman 3B, Washington.

AL Rookie of the Year
Winner: Justin Verlander SP, Detroit. Detroit led all of baseball in ERA and pitching was the key to their emergence as a top team this season. Verlander was the best pitcher in Detroit's rotation, earning 17 wins against 9 losses with a 3.63 ERA.
Runner-up: Kenji Johjima C, Seattle.

AL MVP
Winner: Frank Thomas DH, Oakland. The A's surged in the second half of the season to take control of the AL West and Thomas surged also. Thomas had 39 HR and 114 RBI for the season while batting .270, however he hit .298 with 68 RBI after the all-star break, propelling Oakland to a division title.
Runner-up: David Ortiz DH, Boston. Ortiz had a season worthy of an MVP award with a .287 Avg., 54 HR and 137 RBI, however, there can only be one winner and Boston faded when it really mattered.

NL MVP
Winner: Albert Pujols 1B, St. Louis. I won't carry on about Pujols' legitimacy as an MVP since anyone who's reading this could almost recite his credentials from memory. Despite a mid-season injury, Pujols managed to finish 2nd in HR and RBI and 3rd in Avg and we here at DITr give the MVP nod to anyone in the top 5 in all triple crown categories.
Runner-up: Ryan Howard 1B, Philadelphia. Howard had a MVP-caliber season, leading all of baseball in both homeruns and rbi. Howard's one down fall was finishing 8th in average and, to no fault of his own, playing in the same league as Pujols. If Howard can maintain this level of productivity, then he will be competition for Pujols for years to come.

AL Cy Young
Winner: Johann Santana SP, Minnesota. Santana is no stranger when the topic of the Cy Young award is mentioned and his mantle is quickly filling up. Santana won 19 games versus six losses and led all of baseball with a 2.77 ERA. Santana continued to be a strikeout machine, leading MLB for the second consecutive season.
Runner-up: Roy Halladay SP, Toronto. Like Santana, Halladay's name is frequently in the conversation when talking about the Cy Young award.

NL Cy Young
Winner: Brandon Webb, SP, Arizona. On a team that wasn't particulary good, Webb was lights out for the majority of the season, winning 16 games while losing 8 and posting an ERA of 3.10. For large periods, Webb was downright dominating.
Runner-up: Roy Oswalt SP, Houston. Oswalt had another fine season, going 15-8 while leading the NL in ERA at 2.98.

AL Surprise of the Year
Winner: Frank Thomas DH, Oakland. Most in baseball had written off Thomas and had determined that his career as an impact bat was probably over. Thomas re-emerged as a dangerous hitter and re-established himself as "The Big Hurt".

NL Surpise of the Year
Winner: Jamey Carroll 2B, Colorado. Carroll was acquired by Colorado from Washington as a utility/bench player and ended up the starting second baseman for the majority of the season. While performing adequately as a leadoff hitter and batting .300 for the season, Carroll committed only three errors all season and could be in line for a Gold Glove award.

Until next time, go rockies!

Enough Already

The only good thing about the Tigers sweeping the ALCS from the A's is that we get a reprieve from the endless accolades Jim Leyland has been receiving from the Fox commentators, and everyone else for that matter. You only had to watch a game for an inning or two to get a look at Leyland in the Detroit dugout and get a solid dose of how great a manager he is. The commentators have painted a picture of confidence, swagger and a winning attitude wafting off of Leyland. Unfortunately, the only thing wafting off of Leyland when he was in the rockies' dugout was cigarette smoke. Leyland may very well be a very good manager, but a great manager does not quit on his team, as Leyland did in 1999 with the rockies. A manager would not tolerate that from one of his players, so how can a great manager do that very same thing himself? Now, we get a second dose of Leyland and his winning ways, this time from a local source, making it even worse. "Leyland" and "winning" were rarely mentioned in the same sentence during the 1999 season. Leyland is quoted as saying "When I've had good players, I've done pretty well. And when I haven't had good players, I haven't been worth a (darn)." If that isn't an indictment on the 1999 rockies, then I don't know what is. Now, I'm not saying that the rockies were a championship caliber team, but the rockies did have talent and should have finished better than last place in the division. The best collection of talent in the world isn't going to win with a coach/manager that's disinterested. Going into the 1999 season, the rockies made few personnel changes other than the manager, believing that a top-notch manager could make the difference. Unfortunately, the rockies did not get that in Leyland and it cost the GM Bob Gebhard his job. Needless to say, I'll be routing for either the Mets or Cardinals in the World Series.

If you haven't been to the website recently, go visit. I've made some significant improvements and added a few features.

Until next time, go rockies!

Us and Them

A quote in the footnotes of Troy Renck's column Saturday in the Denver Post troubled me. It's been no secret that the rockies have been in contact with Jason Jennings' agent about a contract extension. Here was JJ's response:

I would have to think long and hard about (a multiyear offer). I like the city and the core of young players, but I would like to see what players we are going to add.

Thus far during the existence of the rockies organization, the first choice of potential free-agents was almost always to remain in Colorado. That may not be the case anymore. In 2007, JJ will be entering his sixth full season with the rockies and hasn't been on a team that won more than 76 games. The competitor in him might be tired of losing. JJ is obviously content to ride out the last year of his current contract at $5.5MM and test free agency for 2008. The list of teams willing to overpay, especially for pitching, seems to grow each season (them). The rox will not be showing up on that list anytime soon (us). If teams such as the Yankees and Red Sox will pay the likes of Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano, respectively, $7MM they will certainly a pitcher the caliber of JJ $8-9MM. If not the Yankees or Red Sox, then someone else. It seems that 2007 may very well be the last we see of Jennings in a rockies uniform. If the rockies are not in contention come late July, Jennings will be highly sought after at the trade deadline. Sadly, my gut tells me that we may have only three more months of JJ in our beloved team's rotation. Eventually, the rox are going to have to extend their resources and overpay for somebody, if not JJ or Matt Holliday, then an impact free agent or two. If not, then the organization will once again enter into a rebuilding phase while the losing and excuses will continue to flow like the nearby Platte River.

For those keeping score at home, the rox lost Justin Hampson and J.D. Closser on waivers. Hampson was claimed by the Padres while Closser was claimed by the Brewers.