Colorado Rockies

Power Rankings

Date	Ranking	Previous
01/26/2012	13	14
Good business: Marco Scutaro for a scrub pitcher with awful peripherals -- in late January, no less? Any time I'm offered that kind of no-brainer trade in Fantasy, I demand an independent background check and an enhanced urine screen for toxins. I trust the Rockies did the same. Bad business: They overpaid for "winning players" like Michael Cuddyer and exiled the cheap, useful Seth Smith for a pair of pitchers unlikely to find Coors Field especially welcoming. I'll take Smith and the $7 million-$8 million difference in salaries over Cuddyer and the rest of the good-character gang, thanks. Prognosis as of 11:14 a.m. GMT on Jan. 26, 2012: The roster isn't yet entirely Tracy-proofed, but it's closer than it was at the end of last season. To wit, each new reliever comes with a user's manual.
10/31/2011	14	24
2011 eulogy: You ordered steak; the waiter brought you sand. Offseason to-do list: Find a taker for Huston Street, whose $7.5 million deal might not seem too off-putting to a team faced with investing $20 million and three years in one of the free-agent closers ... Hope against hope that Ian Stewart is fixable. Maybe it's just something random, like his eyesight? Get that fella to an ophthalmologist ... Locate their swagger, last seen taking in an afternoon matinee of I Don't Know How She Does It ... Odds of achieving Cardinals-like glory in 2012: Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez are really, really, really good.
09/28/2011	24	20
What went right: Troy Tulowitzki, always and forever ... Todd Helton had as much practical value as symbolic and emotional value. Nobody saw that coming ... Hey, that guy over there accepting walks and breaking quick and right on liners into center field -- he looks a lot like Dexter Fowler. Is that his identical twin or something? What went wrong: Jim Tracy received a late-season vote of confidence. He promptly attempted to use it in the ninth inning of a tie game on the road, rather than waste Rafael Betancourt in a non-save situation ... Under the right set of conditions -- deep fog, low light, wide angle -- Ian Stewart vaguely resembles a ballplayer, occasionally ... Chris Iannetta, a .370 OBP guy, batted 8th for most of the season (oddly, only five of his walks were of the intentional ilk). If your team is catcher-needy, he should be the first item on your offseason shopping list. The Rockies clearly have no clue what to do with him. Regular-season epilogue: Just go check out the clip of Ian Desmond's line drive connecting with Juan Nicasio's skull. That about sums it up. Get well soon, by the way.
09/20/2011	20	18
Eliezer Alfonzo's career .377 slugging percentage suggests that he was either using the wrong performance-enhancing substances or somehow got the pill jar mixed up with the one containing Flintstones chewables. Or perhaps these things don't work quite as well as we've been led to believe. Either way, it amazes me how we ignore news like this when the bad actor isn't a household name.
09/13/2011	18	19
Wait, what? They've shut Ryan Spilborghs down for the season with a heel injury? No! He's the passionate, thumping heart of this franchise! Why, God, why? ... Freaky injuries have, actually, been an unfortunate part of the Rockies' plunge this season. When Jorge de la Rosa blows out an elbow, you're bummed out but at the same time you think, "OK, it happens." But Juan Nicasio's broken neck and Ubaldo Jimenez's mechanics-altering cuticle issue are all kinds of random. What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that maybe we should keep Troy Tulowitzki away from open windows.
09/06/2011	19	17
They're just kind of there. They show up, play well as often as they play badly, and leave as much of an impression as a stray leaf. Nobody will recognize them at the 20th reunion.
08/30/2011	17	19
Dude, the NL West is hotter than yesterday's liquid nitrogen. Right now, you've got four teams vying for the title of "second least mediocre." The Giants staked themselves to an early lead, but the middling Rockies staff won't take no -- or yes -- for an answer ... Tulo and CarGo have returned to their berserker offensive ways, which convinces me once anew that the Rockies are the division's most talented team. But again: Who cares? Until Jim Tracy is shown the exit -- whether through the clubhouse gate or through a strategically concealed trap door -- this team will underperform to its ability. Revolution NOW.
08/23/2011	19	24
Now that they've finally won a Sunday game -- for the first time since mid-April, not since 1998 or anything -- it hardly seems like an accomplishment. I mean, heck to Betsy, they play something like 25 Sunday games a season. Let's stop celebrating the mundane and focus instead on the stats and trends that matter, like Eliezer Alfonzo's truly telling .333 batting average in nine plate appearances against Doug Davis. ... Jason Giambi has enjoyed a truly unique career arc: From scruffbag superstar to steroid semi-apologist to late-game game-changer. I'll just come out and say it: I love that dude. I'd frequent any casino that has the presence to hire him as a greeter. ... I can't speak for you and yours, but the cloud of menace has lifted from my well-kept suburban community now that Mike Jacobs has been busted for HGH. The children sing and hop-scotch in the street; old people walk the malls without fear of ambush by HGH-wielding punks. Thank you, baseball, for once again strengthening the fabric of society.
08/16/2011	24	25
Here's one to mark on your calendar. If the Rockies extend their Sunday losing streak to the season's final week, only one thing will stand between them and an unfathomably bizarre 24th straight Sunday loss: The Astros, who might be trying to avoid the modern-era record of 120 regular-season losses. Seriously. Could a nothing game between two nothing teams play out just that dramatically? I love baseball.
08/09/2011	25	21
One of the organization's most promising young pitchers is in traction and the front office and manager are borderline obsessed with marginalizing one of the game's four or five best offensive catchers. What else is there to say? There will be no Rocktober in 2011, nor a Rocktember or a Rockugust.