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Trade deadline passes, Rockies stand pat

The non-waiver trade deadline has now come and gone, and the Rockies’ roster looks the same as it did last night.

Brian Fuentes is still a Rockie.  So is Willy Taveras.  So is Matt Holliday.  Dexter Fowler and Ian Stewart are still in the system.  I’m not really sure what the Rockies are doing here.  On the one hand, the Rockies were evidently trying to acquire a starting pitcher (Jarrod Washburn?  Paul Byrd?) but thought the asking prices were too high.  On the other, the Rockies may or may not have been trying to trade Fuentes, but didn’t think they were being offered enough in return.

This confuses me.  If the Rockies think they have a realistic chance of making the playoffs, why did they not make a move to improve the team?  This Rockies team is still missing a couple of pieces to make a legit run toward the playoffs (namely, a couple of starting pitchers.)  Skeptics can point to the fact that the Rockies made it to the playoffs last season with guys like Mark Redman and Elmer Dessens making starts down the stretch, but last year’s team had a strong enough offense to overcome mediocre starting pitching.

On the other hand, if the Rockies don’t view themselves as serious contenders, why is Brian Fuentes still in a Rockies uniform?  There’s not a whole lot of point in having him around if the Rockies aren’t going to be making a playoff push, since he’s a free agent after the season and probably has more value to other teams than he does to the Rockies.  It’s possible that the Rockies’ asking price for Fuentes was simply too high: while trading him for peanuts wasn’t a good idea, take a look at what the Mariners got for Arthur Rhodes (a 22-year-old starting pitcher in AA right now) and assume the Rockies could have gotten something similar.  Now, the Rockies are consigned to attempting to make a waiver-wire trade in August (a risky proposition; Fuentes probably would not clear waivers) or letting him go and taking some compensatory draft picks.  Or re-signing him, probably for a huge chunk of cash since he’ll be asking for closer money.

The Rockies’ front office continues to mystify me.  Oh, and the Dodgers apparently picked up Manny Ramirez at the last minute.  Yeah, that’s going to make it easier to come back and win the West.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.