Colorado Rockies

AAA All-Stars Announced

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:40:00 -0800

The rosters for the Triple-A All-Star game have been announced. Some names of note:

Eric Young Jr. (Rockies)
Clay Bucholtz (Red Sox)
Andy Marte (Indians)
Shelly Duncan (Yankees)
Chris Shelton (Mariners)
Brandon Wood (Angels)
Matt Murton (Rockies)

The Rockies are angry, determined

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:50:00 -0800

As Ricky noted earlier today, the Rockies and Jason Hammel suffered a 1-0 loss to the Dodgers on Wednesday that essentially came down to one at-bat. Thus, the Rox left Los Angeles stung, losing the series two games as they attempt to carry their scorching June into July. Colorado is 2-10 against the Dodgers this season. The Rockies are angry at the series outcome, but are still a confident team. That is quite a change from where this team was at the beginning of June. Colorado was a team looking for a way to get back to the promise they showed in 2007. Pitchers started pitching well and hitters started hitting, and Colorado had their June.

They went 21-7 in June. That hot streak gave Colorado a new confidence after Clint Hurdle's May 29 firing. It's a confidence they won't easily let go of. "We showed that we can play with them," said manager Jim Tracy after his team finished 5-4 on the road trip. Jason Hammel also chimed in. "They know we are a different team now, and that it's going to be a dogfight until the end," said Hammel. Those quotes don't sound like they're coming from a team aware of its futility against the team leading their division.

Home Run Trot's June All-Star Team: Position Players

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:20:00 -0800

The monthly All-Star team is another feature I'm bringing over from my old blog. For those unfamiliar with my previous work, here are the April and May posts. I'm bringing the All-Star team over to MLB Notebook with a twist. It's going to be divided into two posts. One for the position players and a second for the pitching staff. Now that I'm working with some other great writers, these monthly posts can properly be used to start a discussion.

*All stats are compiled as of 7 PM EST on July 1.

Catcher: Bengie Molina, San Francisco Giants
Making this selection was not tough, unlike April and May. Molina is making his second appearance on this team. He leads all catchers with 10 home runs and 45 RBI. He also has 14 doubles and a triple. His numbers stayed pretty even with his April and May numbers. He's also sporting a .996 fielding percentage with only 2 errors.

First Base: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
Pujols makes his third straight appearance on this team. Pujols leads MLB in home runs (30) and RBI (77). He's also scored 61 runs and has a .332 batting average. This pick was a no-brainer.

Second Base: Chase Utley, Philadelphia Phillies
Second base has proven to be perhaps the toughest pick to make. Utley makes the team for a second time because he picked up the pace in June with 6 home runs, 19 RBI and a .320 average. He's tied for second among second basemen with 51 RBI. He leads all second basemen with a .999 OPS.

Third Base: Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco Giants
Sandoval takes the spot from Evan Longoria on the strength of his June. In 94 June at-bats, Sandoval had 8 home runs, 20 RBI, 9 doubles, and a .394 batting average.

Shortstop: Hanley Ramirez, Florida Marlins
Ramirez makes the team for the first time. He's batting .345 with 100 hits in 290 at-bats. He also has 13 home runs, 58 RBI, 26 doubles, and 12 steals. His middling .975 fielding percentage and 7 errors can be overlooked this time.

FB365's Morning Drive 7/2/09

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:41:55 +0000

Jordan Zimmermann is getting a lot of fantasy love lately. I was on this guy in late April. He out-pitched Josh Johnson yesterday.

Cody Ross hit his 14th bomb of the season of newly acquired Sean Burnett. Ross is slugging .633 vs. left handed pitching this season.

Josh Johnson left the game after only 3.1 innings. No injury, just a rain delay and 4 walks to go with a rising pitch count.

Ricky Romero continues to impress. He's stranding over 85% of runners and his FIP is a run higher than his ERA before his start yesterday. Walks and the AL East are my concerns, but he's definitely a guy worth rostering right now. He's only owned in 33% of Yahoo! leagues.

Brad Bergesen impressed against the Red Sox. He's not going to strikeout a ton of guys, but he's keeping the ball on the ground and keeping the walks to a minimum. His next start comes against the Mariners. If you need a spot start, he's worth another go.

Yovani Gallardo struck out a career high 12 in 7 IP against the Mets. If Gallardo can reduce his walk rate, he's basically Lincecum light.

Gil Meche, coming off a "dead arm" period, threw 121 pitches in only 6 innings. His arm looked fine with a fastball sitting in the mid 90's, but minor injuries have been an issue this season. If I'm A Meche owner (or a Royals fan) I'm not happy about the pitch count at all.

Billy Butler, 4-4, continues to outperform James Loney, but it seems no one is paying attention.

Jason Hammel has been pitching well for the Rockies lately. He's not quite the ground ball pitcher Aaron Cooks is, but he is getting enough groundballs and limiting walks to be an NL-only add.

Troy Tulowitzki got cold just as fast as he got hot two weeks ago. I think he'll finish with an AVG around .270.

Jimmy Rollins took another o'fer, but so did most of the Phillies against Jair Jurjjens who only allowed 1 hit.

Justin Verlander was touched up last night. That makes two less than spectacular starts in a row. I'm not reading much into it.

Jose Contreras has struck out 8 batters in 3 of his last 4 starts.

Randy Wells pitched well again and got his third straight win. I'd start him again at home vs the Braves in his next start.

Johnny Cueto brought back the strikeout last night against the D-Backs. Of course the D-Backs are second only to the Marlins in team strikeouts.

Kevin Millwood and Jered Weaver squared off in a battle of the "sell highs". Neither faired particularly well and neither are likely to repeat their first half numbers in the second half.

Nelson Cruz left with a back injury. It didn't sound serious, but I never like to hear about back problems. Keep an eye on the situation.

Albert Pujols did not hit a homerun, but he did go 2-2 with a stolen base. Can he go 60/20!!? Not likely, but this is just amazing to watch.

Matt Cain continues to strand runners like crazy. 8 Cardinals left on base and only 3 strikeouts.

Adam Wainwright struck out a career high 12 in 9 innings. He's throwing a curveball or slider on nearly 40% of his pitches. That combined with only 132 innings pitched last season raises a bit of a red flag for potential time missed later this season.

Adrian Gonzalez did play last night after leaving the game with a knee injury the night before. He went 0-3 in the game and is now hitting .268.

A Strange At-Bat Gives Hammel The Loss In The Best Game Of His Career

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:50:00 -0800

Looking for something to write that is non-Rays related, I wanted to a quick pitch f/x on someone. Then I found former Ray Jason Hammel pitching arguably his best start of his career, going eight innings of one run ball and only five hits allowed at Los Angeles. And unfortunately for him, Hammel lost the game 1-0 as that run came in the bottom of the eighth as the Rockies offense cooled off against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers pen. Nothing to talk about in the pitch f/x except for a 40 mph pitch he threw. Wait, 40 miles per hour? Grandma speed limit?

It turns out is happened in the most critical at-bat in the game and one of the strangest pitch f/x ABs you will ever see.

First thing is that I didn't witness that following three pitches so I don't have the entire story. Regardless, it all started with a 40 mph pitch and ends with a strange twist.

Rosenthal: Wells, Holliday, Rockies

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:25:00 -0800

Notes from Rosenthal this morning:

Vernon Wells is unlikely to be moved, due to his no-trade clause and massive salary. However, his teammate Alex Rios could be a popular target.
Matt Holliday is not being shopped by the A's, who would "need a strong offer to move him".
The Rockies are looking for bullpen help, but there aren't a lot of options available at this point.

Morning Notes: Meche, Bob Melvin, Minor Perfection

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:10:00 -0800

Gil Meche will fight through injury issues and pitch in the Royals series finale with the Twins tonight.
Former Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners manager Bob Melvin is accepting a job with the San Diego Padres. There is no word on what that job may be.
Rockies minor leaguer Brandon Hynick threw a perfect game yesterday. Good for him.

Wednesday's Games of the Day

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:35:00 -0800

July begins with several teams either looking to extend winning streaks or stop losing streaks. San Francisco and St. Louis continue a series that impacts the early Wild Card race. Colorado looks to turn their luck around against the Dodgers. Plenty of pitchers are looking for win number eight, nine, or ten on July 1. Nyjer Morgan joins the Nationals. Adam Jones and Marco Scutaro begin July looking to end recent slumps. Those, and plenty of other good storylines, can be found in Wednesday's Games of the Day.

Washington at Florida: The Nyjer Morgan era begins in Washington. He and his new teammates will face the 7-1 Josh Johnson. Johnson is 4-0 agains the Nats in his career. Nick Johnson has a .556 batting average against Josh Johnson.

Tampa Bay at Toronto: The Rays keep rolling. They defeated Toronto 4-1 on Tuesday running their win streak to 8 games and handing Toronto their fourth straight loss. The series finale features James Shields and Ricky Romero, two very exciting pitchers. Shields is 0-2 with a 4.09 ERA in his last three starts against the Jays. Look for him to turn it around thanks to his team being hot right now. He'll get help from Marco Scutaro who is in the midst of a 1-for-16 slump with his last hit coming on June 26.

Boston at Baltimore: Josh Beckett goes for win number 10 against Brad Bergesen. Bergesen was 3-0 in June. Beckett is 4-1 lifetime at Camden Yards. I'm looking for Adam Jones to rebound from a poor June. Doing it against Josh Beckett might not happen. Teammate Luke Scott has a .545 batting average with 1 homer and 3 RBI against Beckett.

Tuesday's Games of the Day

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:50:00 -0800

All 30 teams are on the field Tuesday with three new series' beginning. Derek Lowe attempts to match his April 5 performance against the Phillies. John Smoltz looks for his first win as member of the Red Sox. Cliff Lee attempts to keep the Indians from skidding any further. Randy Johnson and Chris Carpenter face off in the pitching matchup of the day. Andre Ethier and Garrett Atkins look to solve their respective pitching riddles.

Philadelphia at Atlanta: The Phillies take their two-game winning streak to Atlanta to face Derek Lowe and the Braves. Lowe is 7-6, but he opened the season on April 5 by pitching 8 shutout innings against the defending World Champions. That's been his only start against the Phils so far. Joe Blanton pitches for the Phillies. Ryan Howard is a lowly 2-for-22 against Lowe.

Boston Red Sox at Baltimore: It's take two for John Smoltz. This time he faces Rich Hill and the lowly Orioles.

Chicago White Sox at Cleveland: The Indians attempt to halt their losing streak at three with Cliff Lee on the mound. Lee is 1-0 against the White Sox this season, going 7 shutout innings on May 13. Paul Konerko is 16-for-45 with 5 home runs against Lee. He'll have to pick up the slack for teammates Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome who don't do well against Lee.

Fantasy Links of the Day

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:25:00 -0800

I found a fair amount of links for tonight's list. The focus is definitely on the Hitter Links and the Pitcher Links with a smattering of links in the other areas. Carlos Carrasco, as can be seen after the jump, is a worthy prospect.

Closer Links:

Bullpen Usage Report discusses Huston Street, Brian Fuentes, J.P. Howell, and Mike MacDougal.

Depth Charts and Hot Seat.

Hitter Links:

In Leading Off, Eric Karabell professes his fantasy love for the Tampa Bay Rays. He's right, while we all watch their pitchers, it's the Rays offense scoring the fantasy points.

Is Clint Barmes worth owning? (Yes)

Jacoby Ellsbury is like Juan Pierre.

MLB Top 10: Halos Grab AL West Lead

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:06:55 -0500

Sometimes when I think about this list during the weekend before Mondays roll around, things end up looking a bit differently than I pictured. This was one of those weeks. Over the weekend, multiple winning streaks were snapped, teams unexpectedly played poorly, and my top ten list underwent some major reconstruction. The result? A drastically different list compared to what we would've seen on Friday.

1. Los Angeles Angels (41-32)
The Halos have won five straight, including a series win over the red-hot Rockies last week. They followed up the impressive series win by sweeping the woeful Diamondbacks over the weekend, and they now hold a 1.5 game lead in the AL West over Texas. They get the chance to widen the gap this week when they continue their road trip in Texas, in what some are calling the biggest series for the Angels this year.

2. Tampa Bay Rays (42-35)
Don't look now, but the Rays are only two games back in the AL wildcard race after a successful homestand that saw them take two of three from the Phillies and sweep the Marlins. While they're in third place in the AL East, the Rays would be leading nearly every other division in baseball with their record -- only Detroit and the Dodgers lead their divisions with better win percentages.

3. New York Yankees (43-32)
The third of three teams in the Majors that are on five-game win streaks, the Yankees continued their dominance over the Mets over the weekend, capping off a strong week in which they also took two of three from Atlanta. Thankfully CC Sabathia is fine after an injury scare in Florida, and if Sunday night was any indication, Chien-Ming Wang may have everything figured out. Still, considering that they're only three games behind the Red Sox, you have to wonder if they'd be leading the division if they could figure out a way to beat Boston head-to-head.

4. Colorado Rockies (40-35)
Someone finally slowed them down last week, when the Angels managed to take a series at Angel Stadium. The Rockies don't appear to be rattled, though, considering their weekend sweep over the Oakland A's. With the Giants losing their weekend series in Milwaukee, the Rockies are now only a half game behind San Francisco for both second place in the NL West and the wildcard lead.

5. Detroit Tigers (42-33)
To be honest, I was planning on putting the Tigers at the top of the the list before their weekend series against Houston rolled around. They entered the series winners of seven straight, and were facing off against a pretty mediocre Houston club. What happened? The Tigers lost two of three, and nearly got swept before stealing a win in the 9th inning on Sunday. Still, the Tigers have won 8 of their past 10 games, and deserve a spot in the top half of this list.

6. Seattle Mariners (39-36)
No team continues to irritate teams needing a trade than the Mariners. Not only do they seem to refuse to fall back to Earth, but they're still threatening in the AL West -- not only won't they be selling anytime soon, but they may in fact be buying. This past week, the M's followed up a predictable series win over the Padres with an unpredictable series win over the Dodgers, holders of the best record in baseball. They're now three games over .500, but they'll face a real test this week with an East Coast road trip to New York and Boston. If they can survive that trip, perhaps Texas and Los Angeles have something to be afraid of.

7. Boston Red Sox (46-29)
There haven't been any crazy win streaks lately, but all it really takes to guarantee yourself a playoff spot is to win 2 out of 3 in every series. The Red Sox have lost two straight games exactly once this month, and have only seven losses in total. Considering the slump they finished May with, I'd say that's pretty good, wouldn't you? With David Ortiz hitting again, the Red Sox lineup has started to look more intimidating than it's been all year. With teams like the Orioles, A's, and Royals filling their remaining schedule before the All-Star break, there's no reason to believe that they won't continue to win 2 of 3.

8. Chicago White Sox (37-38)
They're still under .500 and their offense is still very unreliable, but they continue to get good pitching, and are capable of going on a pretty good run if the ball is bouncing their way. The ball definitely bounced their way in the past week, as the White Sox stunned the Dodgers and Cubs for series wins in a six-game homestand. They're still not much of an intimidating club -- you're not going to worry when you see them come up on the schedule -- but they're still only 5 games out of first in the AL Central.

9. Minnesota Twins (39-38)
They finally dropped a game to interleague rival Milwaukee last week, but that didn't stop them from taking another series from the Brewers. The Twins followed that series by going into St. Louis and effectively shutting down every Cardinal bat that didn't belong to Albert Pujols. The Twins, as usual, don't do anything great but do a lot of the little things very well -- even when Joe Mauer appears to suffer the effects of the Sports Illustrated cover curse.

10. San Francisco Giants (40-34)
They did lose a weekend series in Milwaukee, but they were one crazy bottom-of-the-ninth rally by the Brewers away from actually taking that series. Pablo Sandoval continues to carry the San Francisco offense (he's hitting .340 with 11 HR and a .965 OPS), while the pitching does the rest. Following what should have been an encouraging win on Sunday, the Giants now head to St. Louis for a huge four-game series that could have some pretty drastic short-term effects on the NL Wildcard picture. It'll be interesting to see if they can keep this up, or if the lack of offense will come back to bite them before they can trade for a big bat.

FB365's Morning Drive 6/29/09

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:19:25 +0000

Grady Sizemore is 6 for 20 since returning from the DL. There may still be time to buy low with owners still worried about a recurrence of his elbow inflammation. I am not incredibly worried about his previous injury. Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus put it this way:

...the medical staff believes that they're beyond the recurrence stage. Bursitis is a painful condition, but once corrected it tends not to recur. It's just the "getting ahead of it" that often takes something like a DL stint or even minor surgery to help.

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9075

Aaron Hill keeps on mashing. 19 homeruns now on the year.

Brad Lidge allowed 1 hit (bunt single) and one walk, but did not allow a run to score in his action since landing on the DL. He got the save, but his stuff and control, slider in particular, did not look so sharp.

Tommy Hanson ran the NL East two headed monster this week and came out 2-0. The strikeouts are not there yet, but his stuff looks very good. I don't think he's going to make quite the impact the pre-season hype built up, but he should be a solid option the rest of the way.

Brad Penny matched up fairly well against Hanson, but was struck by the long ball twice (Chipper Jones and Garret Anderson). I'm not a believer in Penny, but maybe Mark from Fantasy Baseball Hot Stove can convince me otherwise.

Zack Greinke gets it done again, though he is clearly not as dominant as when the season started. I would actually be fine with selling high on Greinke for a top-notch hitter right now. After all Greinke did rank number 11 on Razzball's 20 Risky Pitchers for 2009. Also, strikeouts trending down.

Since I said buy low on Wieters he has gone just about o'fer everything. Killing me Matt, killing me.

B.J. Upton had a 5 star day. A homer, stolen base, 2 runs and an RBI. Can you say HUGE second half?

Alexei Ramirez added his 10th homerun of the season yesterday. He now has 10 homeruns and 11 steals. More importantly "The Cuban Missle" has raised his AVG to .267. Ramirez started out very slow last season as well. Does his game rise with the summer heat? I'd buy low to find out.

Brandon Inge hit a game winning homerun off of Jose Valverde. It was Inge's 18th of the season. I have to admit, I sort of liked the guy after his hot start to the season, but I never would have thought he'd be approaching the all-star break with close to 20 bombs. His K/BB rate is pretty much the same as it was last season, but his HR/FB rate is through the roof.

Matt Gamel batted leadoff yesterday. That's interesting if it sticks.

Was this the turning point for Francisco Liriano? Throwing 92-95 with a slider in the high 80's yesterday. I'm still not convinced, though he kept the ball down nicely yesterday. His last two starts have come against National League foes. His next start against the Tigers will be a big one.

Aaron Cook continues to pull a 2008 on us. Despite allowing 9.1 hits per 9 IP and a 1.61 K/BB rate, Cook continues to put the ball on the ground and get outs. Look, at this point you ride em till he bucks ya.

Jaun Rivera: 44.7% owned in ESPN leagues and 43% owned in Yahoo! Leagues. That's up from 5.3% in ESPN and 4% in Yahoo! On June 9th, but still, .305, 12 HR, 41 RBI...Those numbers are scary close to Carlos Lee right now.

I am going to mention Clay Zavada for 2 reasons. 1) He's awesome. 2) Shout out to Dave from Goose Joak for this sweet 1971 Topps retro card upon request.

Jose Lopez is now 8 for 12 in his last 3 games. He should be in for a nice second half.

As I passed along the other day, it looks more and more like Adrian Beltre will not play through the pain much longer.

Matt Kemp was actually able to fight off Juan Castro for the 7th spot in the Dodgers lineup yesterday. He hit his 10th homer of the year. I bet Mitch Kemp would bat higher than Matt Kemp if it were up to Joe Torre.

Francisco Rodriguez had an embarrassing outing last night. He walked three and allowed one hit, but the bases loaded walk to Mariano Rivera was the kicker. Come on Mets fans! I've watched Frankie pull this kind of stuff for years in Anaheim! Consider yourself lucky he hasn't done it more often in 2009.

Luis Castillo has reached base in all but one game since June 22nd. So why not move him (.279 AVG, .375 OBP) to the 8th spot and hand leadoff duties to Daniel Murphy (.248 AVG, .316 OBP)? Can a Mets fan please help me understand the wacky mind of Jerry Manuel?

How about that Chad Gaudin fella? One hit, 9 K in 8 1/3 innings against the slugging, albeit slumping, Rangers offense. His strikeout numbers are huge over his last 3 starts. His next few starts come against NL West foes. Go ahead and ride him out.

Scott Hairston hit his 9th homer of the season. The bottom line with Hairston is that he has the power for sure and his contact rate and plate discipline have shown improvements over last season. His AVG has been helped by a .347 BABIP and should end up closer to .270. The Padres have a bit of a situation on their hands trying to get playing time between Hairston, Gwynn Jr., Headley and Blanks in the outfield. Deeper leagues will find value in Hairston's power, but he may not get enough regular at bats for standard leagues.

Scott Beerer impressing as a hitter

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:46:41 +0000

Scott Beerer was drafted by the Rockies in the second round of the 2003 draft, after a junior season at Texas A&M in which he impressed as both a pitcher (6-1, 1.82 ERA, 58 strikeouts and 12 walks in 49.1 innings) and as a hitter (.335/.379/.547.) The Rockies initially tried him as a pitcher, but injuries led to a loss of command, and ultimately led to the Rockies releasing him.

Apparently somebody in the Rockies organization remembered that Beerer had been a pretty good hitter in college, and the Rockies brought him back into camp this spring as an outfielder. And, playing at third base, left field, and DH, Beerer has gotten off to a hot start in his first official week as a professional hitter: a .593 average, with five doubles, a triple, and 10 RBI. Obviously, the average is not sustainable, but a week that impressive has to have turned a few heads in the Rockies front office.

Now, it's just one week, but the question that has to be asked is: how aggressive do the Rockies want to be with Beerer? He's almost 27, which is normally too old to still be considered a prospect, but in this case we're talking about a guy who had barely faced live pitching in the last six years (he did get a couple of at bats for Modesto in '06, but that's it.) Considering his age, and the fact that he's made hitting look easy so far, the Rockies might want to consider a quick promotion to see just what they have on their hands. After all, given that he's been around a while, Beerer is Rule 5 draft-eligible, so if the Rockies don't figure out quickly what they've got on their hands, somebody might decide to try to snag him and see what he has. Yes, that seems like an unlikely scenario right now, but then it also seemed pretty unlikely that somebody would pick up Everth Cabrera, who hit .284/.361/.399 in A-ball last year.

The other obvious concern is finding a position for him; three of his six appearances this season have been as a DH. Unless the Rockies move to the American League sometime soon, he's not going to be playing there in the majors.

MLB Notebook Looking for Part Time Writers

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:40:00 -0800

This is an official announcement for MLB Notebook:

MLB Notebook is looking for Part Time writers. I can't put a number on how many we are hoping to add, because if we get 10 really great writers that apply, I will be tempted to add them all. Here are some details on what being a Part Time writer is all about:

2-3 Posts a week - Could be more if you have the drive to do it, but we only expect 2 each week.
Love of baseball - If you don't love the game, we don't love you.
Writing Experience - We would prefer to add writers who have a proven body of work.
Volunteer - Technically this is a volunteer gig, because we have no real money to pay anyone. However, this could change depending on site revenue. But, even though you aren't being paid, the exposure you get here is beneficial.

This gig is great for someone who writes about a single team for another site (like Ricky does), and wants a place to write about other teams and baseball in general.

If you are interested please contact Zach via email: sportsnotebook@gmail.com