Hurdles remain in Mets-Rockies deal for Tulowitzki, Gonzalez

The Rockies and Mets would seem to be perfect trade partners.

Colorado has star players at the very two positions the Mets need in shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and left fielder Carlos Gonzalez, and it needs to think about retooling things after another year fighting and losing the altitude/injury battle.

The Mets have a stash of young pitching prospects, just the sort Colorado so badly needs.

And, in fact, Rockies people have identified the Mets as one of the teams—perhaps the perfect team—that could potentially make a trade of at least one or of their two cornerstone players work. Colorado likes the Mets’ young pitchers, according to people familiar with their thinking, in fact much more than they like some other teams that have shown interest in Tulo and CarGo.

No surprise, the Mets have checked in again with Colorado, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported, and as expected the teams will talk again about Tulo and CarGo.

The two teams should have some interesting conversations since they do seem to be such a positional match. However, the chances of a deadline deal involving Tulo and Cargo still seem remote, at best.

You don’t say?

2015 Competitive Balance Lottery Results

The Competitive Balance Lottery for the 2015 MLB Draft took place this afternoon. Twelve competitive balance picks are awarded, with the first six taking place after the first round’s conclusion and the next six taking place following conclusion of the second round. Here are the results, per MLB.com (Twitter links)...

Competitive Balance Round A

  Marlins
  Rockies
  Cardinals
  Brewers
  Padres
  Indians

Competitive Balance Round B

  Reds
  Athletics
  Mariners
  Twins
  Orioles
  Diamondbacks

As MLB.com’s Jim Callis explained earlier in the week, teams that have one of the 10 smallest markets or one of the 10 smallest revenue pools are eligible to receive a compensatory pick between the first and second rounds (Round A) or between the second and third rounds (Round B).

Its about time the Cardinals got some help to become more competitive.

Dave Cameron: 2014 Trade Value: The Top 10

7. Salvador Perez

If there’s one piece of feedback I got more clearly than any other last year, it was that I was too low on Salvador Perez. I had one friend in the game tell me should have been in the top five, and I had him at 36. My bad, Kansas City. Consider this a mea culpa.

Perez might not yet be the best catcher in baseball, but there are a lot of people convinced that he’s going to be in the near future. He’s basically a power spike away from being Jonathan Lucroy, only he’s four years younger than Milwaukee’s backstop, and at a point where many catchers are still honing their craft in the minors. And while framing metrics don’t love him the same way they do Lucroy, his defensive reputation is still stellar, as he shuts down the running game as well as anyone.

And then there’s the contract. Because the Royals locked up Perez after just 39 big league games, he’s set to make $2 million each of the next two years, and then they have team options for three additional years at $4 million, $5 million, and $6 million respectively. It’s $19 million over five seasons, or an average of $4 million per year. The best catcher in the American league is signed to the kind of deal you give a decent middle reliever.

Perez doesn’t even have to get any better to be one of the biggest steals in baseball. If he does improve, though, he might eventually challenge for the top spot on this list.

BUT WHO IS #6????

Rockies Owner: ‘Maybe Denver Doesn’t Deserve A Franchise’

This guy needs to mellow out.  Anyone know a good way to do that in Colorado?

[A] season ticket holder… sent an email to the Rockies fan feedback line July 5t, writing, “The Monforts have no business owning a baseball team and their missteps in hiring ‘the good old boys’ for front office and management positions is solid evidence of their ineptitude. They have ruined pro baseball in this region while generating millions of dollars in profit.’ ”

... the next day, July 6 at 6:47 p.m., [owner Dick] Monfort personally emailed the fan the following: “By the way you talk maybe Denver doesn’t deserve a franchise, maybe time for it to find a new home. Thanks.”

The message was sent from Monfort’s iPad and in a phone call with CBS4 Thursday night, Monfort confirmed sending the email.

“I sort of remember,” said Monfort. “I do remember that. I was rapid firing it.”...

He went on to explain that, “What I meant to say was maybe we, the owners, don’t deserve a franchise.”

Monfort was adamant that despite what he wrote, he was not threatening to move the team and did not mean to write, “Denver doesn’t deserve a franchise.”....

This marks the second time in a week a controversial email has emerged from Monfort in response to an unhappy fan. A Grand Junction man, Michael Ferguson, emailed the team following a loss July 4 expressing his displeasure with the product on the field, to which Monfort responded, “If product and experience that bad don’t come!.”

Rockies owner Dick Monfort to angry Rockies fan: “don’t come!”

  “I pretty much just filled out the survey and kinda wrote a little bit about how it’s frustrating to spend the money and go see [Rockies] teams that are constantly struggling all the time,” said Ferguson.

  Two days later, he found out his comments did not go unnoticed. Ferguson received a reply in his inbox simply stating, “If product and experience that bad don’t come!”… signed owner, chairman and CEO of the Colorado Rockies Dick Monfort.

The customer is always…

Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez growing tired of losing in Colorado

...said Tulowitzki, reviewing the 17 years Helton spent as the face of a franchise that never won a division title. “He played in a couple postseason games and went to one World Series. But that’s not me. I want to be somewhere where there’s a chance to be in the playoffs every single year.”

With the expanded playoffs, that’s everywhere.

Clayton Kershaw ups scoreless innings run to 36 in Dodgers’ win

The hard-throwing lefty nearly had no-hit stuff against Colorado again, allowing only two singles over eight innings as the Dodgers beat the Rockies 9-0 on Friday night.
What’s more, Kershaw (10-2) extended his scoreless streak to 36 innings before being replaced by a pinch hitter in the ninth. Kershaw bottled up the top-hitting team in the majors in nearly matching the no-hitter he threw against the Rockies on June 18 at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw struck out eight and walked one.

“You don’t ever want to give up a run,” Kershaw casually said. “I guess that’s the goal.”

And that was a start that lowered his K:BB ratio. Enough said. And oh yeah, this was in the ballpark of terror known as Coors Field.

Brewers clear bases after wild pitch

The Milwaukee Brewers scored plenty with the bases loaded in Saturday’s 9-4 victory against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, but they didn’t need a hit do so.

Three runs came in after a wild pitch.

Heads up play by Segura.  Only thing that could have made it better is if Carlos Gomez had been the final run and broke into an eight part celebration dance that cleared the benches.  Please reserve a spot for me on the Brewers bandwagon.

Tempers flare as Rockies beat Braves

The Rockies led 8-3 in the eighth when Dickerson fouled away a pitch and knocked off Laird’s facemask.

...

With his next pitch, Atlanta reliever David Carpenter hit Dickerson in the thigh and was ejected.

“I guess Carpenter thought it was on purpose,” Dickerson said.

Ah, those loveable scamps are at it again.

Rockies OF Gonzalez has tumor removed from finger

‘‘It helps explain some of the things that CarGo’s been dealing with and why that finger kept blowing up on him,’’ Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. ‘‘It helps answer some of the questions we had about him.

I can only imagine how Michael Douglas thinks you get this type of cancer.

Nolan Arenado breaks finger on slide

ATLANTA— Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado left Friday night’s game against the Braves after fracturing his left middle finger on a head-first slide into second base.

Arenado led off the second inning with a double to left field. Arenado’s slide beat shortstop Andrelton Simmons’ tag. The play stood following a review that lasted 3 minutes, 48 seconds.

The first organization to outlaw head first slides by their players wins a gold star from me.  And that review time is obscene.

Sullivan:  Strikeouts are up across MLB, but Rockies aren’t down with that

Is Blake Doyle (Denny and Brian’s brother) the Leo Mazzone of hitting coaches?

Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs has noticed that Rockies have cut their strikeout rates despite the league rate going up:

Blackmon’s chopped his strikeouts by more than half. Rosario’s chopped them by almost half. Gonzalez has shed a third, and Cuddyer has shed more than that, and so on and so forth. Young players and veterans alike have whiffed less often, and strikeout rate is one of those numbers that stabilizes fairly quickly. Or, if you prefer different terminology: strikeout rate tends not to be that noisy. You can generally read into it sooner than you can read into, say, batting average, or a pitcher’s ERA. The Rockies haven’t stopped striking out, but they’ve been better about it without sacrificing walks, and we’re at the point in the year where that’s starting to look fascinating.

Perry: Nolan Arenado of the Rockies: Emerging star in 20-something set

Given the notable early-20s positional talent around the league—Mike Trout, Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, others—it’s easy to overlook Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado. However, given Arenado’s skills and skills growth, it’s time we start thinking of him as one of the top young performers in the game today. Indeed, he’s emerging as a star, and he’s proving himself to be a core contributor with the bat and glove.

First, the defense. Arenado won the Gold Glove last season, so it’s not as though his fielding chops are any kind of secret. Still, calling him a “mere” Gold Glover may actually undersell how special he is defensively. Per Ultimate Zone Rating, Arenado in fewer that 1,400 defensive innings has saved 21.9 runs relative to the average MLB third baseman.

Arenado particularly excels at making the impossible and near-impossible play. Over at FanGraphs, the Inside Edge scouting service grades players on their ability to make plays of varying difficulty. When it comes to plays that between 10 percent and 40 percent of major-leaguers would make, Arenado leads all third baseman since 2013 (minimum 1,000 defensive innings) with a success rate of 63.2 percent. In terms of those plays that 10 percent or less of MLBers would make—i.e., the “impossible” snare—Arenado, with his percentage of 14.3, ranks behind only Manny Machado since the start of last season.

...Offensively, Arenado is still developing, but developing he is. This season vs. last, he’s increased his OPS+ from 82 to 104 while also lowering his strikeout percentage, showing stronger fly-ball tendencies and, per Jeff Zimmerman’s data, increasing the angle on those fly balls. As well, his gains in BABIP and home runs as a percentage of fly balls aren’t so extreme as to suggest that luck is the driver.

Let’s also keep in mind that Arenado showed lots of offensive upside in the minors despite being younger than his peer group at every stop. He turned 23 just a couple of weeks ago, and he’s showing signs of what’s a more typical offensive aging curve. That is, the best with the bat is almost certainly yet to come.

Taken together, Arenado’s offensive ceiling and his present defensive exellence make him one of the more intriguing young players in the game. As for the hype he deserves, the column inches will come soon enough.

Thanks to Butch.

High and outside

You go to a Colorado Rockies game now, you see a lot of people sucking on mints, gum drops and lollipops. They’re not kids with a sweet tooth. They’re adults with a hash habit. It’s edible marijuana.
...
There’s a story going around town about a “representative” from a visiting MLB team (read: equipment guy) walking into a shop with a “grocery list” and walking out with an “armful” of stuff. There’s no limit for out-of-state residents on edibles, only smokables.

For those wondering, cannabinoids are in fact disallowed by the current CBA, but there is no random testing for them.

Dick Monfort says changes at Coors Field “will pizazz it up” - The Denver Post

I bet they are not making it look more like Marlins Field.

Can Brett Anderson stay off the disabled list this year? | SportsonEarth.com

Will he be healthy this year?

Renck: In plunking Troy Tulowitzki, Diamondbacks way off base

Makes about as much sense as Plunkblog.

Mediocrity has made the Diamondbacks angry.

Their rattle is louder. After consecutive .500 records, they overhauled their roster and have conducted Camp Tougher Meaner. Their new edge, while understandable, took a forked tongue in the road Wednesday night at Salt River Fields when Diamondbacks pitcher Wade Miley hit Rockies shortstop Troy Tulo- witzki with a fastball in the left calf near his fibula.

...The Rockies’ season could have been over before it started. And for what? Machismo gone wild?

Tulowitzki was hit after Tommy Kahnle smacked Arizona slugger Mark Trumbo in the back. Asked whether he thought Miley meant to hit him, Tulowitzki declined comment. Rockies manager Walt Weiss couldn’t mask his disappointment, saying “you never want to see one of your guys hit.”

The idea of retaliation is unfathomable in a Cactus League game. And yet the Rockies were privately convinced that Miley’s pitch was on purpose. Why?

Arizona general manager Kevin Towers said before spring training that he wants his pitchers to hit more batters this season. “I think come spring training, it will be duly noted that it’s going to be an eye for an eye and we’re going to protect one another,” Towers told MLB.com. “If not, if you have options, there’s ways to get you out of here, and if you don’t follow suit or you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you probably don’t belong in a Diamondbacks uniform.”

Frontier justice has a place in baseball. But it requires context. A cleats-up slide. Admiration of a home run like it’s a first born. Bad blood. None of these factors existed Wednesday.

Why would Hernandez, a guy with no chance of making the team, throw at Trumbo with a runner at first base? A big inning only accelerates his exit to the minors.

Trumbo wears it, then Tulo takes one. The Diamondbacks, because of their public stance on this issue, lose benefit of the doubt. Every time they hit a guy, opponents will believe there is intent. Speaking with Arizona reporters Thursday, Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson denied it.

“It’s part of the game. It can happen in spring or during the regular season,” Gibson said. “I think one of the things we’ve focused on is using all quadrants of the plate. We’re not out there intentionally trying to hurt anybody. Nobody wants their guy to get hit and neither do we, but it’s part of the game.”

Renck: Larry Walker believes chances for Hall of Fame take pair of hits

Dead body counting stats not included.

Walker’s candidacy nosedived this year, his fourth on a crowded Hall of Fame ballot. He received 10.2 percent of the vote, a reflection of the controversy surrounding several former players who used — or are suspected of using — performance-enhancing drugs. Walker said his goal is to remain on the ballot for 15 years. He needs 5 percent to prevent falling off. Playing at Coors Field, where he hit .381 with 154 home runs in 597 games, isn’t helping his cause.

“I played 17 years, and almost 10 of them were in a Rockies uniform,” Walker said. “I feel like I am getting penalized for that. If I stay on the ballot, that’s a success. Obviously, I would rather be in.”

He finished with a lifetime batting average of .313 and a .400 on-base percentage. However, he fought injuries throughout his career, costing him valuable statistics.

“Yeah, pretty much. It (stinks) I am tied into (steroids era). It’s unfortunate, because there are some of us that didn’t do anything and got dragged right into it. Part of me wants everybody back then to get caught, because it would make me look that much better. Then people would get it, because not all of us did it,” said Walker, who’s working as a guest instructor in Rockies’ camp.

“It’s tough to get that through anyone’s skull. My size never changed, my physique never changed, my weight never changed. I was the same every year. A lot of guys could physically see the difference. I could say some names right now, because some were no-brainers. It (stinks).”

...Walker’s candidacy nosedived this year, his fourth on a crowded Hall of Fame ballot. He received 10.2 percent of the vote, a reflection of the controversy surrounding several former players who used — or are suspected of using — performance-enhancing drugs. Walker said his goal is to remain on the ballot for 15 years. He needs 5 percent to prevent falling off. Playing at Coors Field, where he hit .381 with 154 home runs in 597 games, isn’t helping his cause.

“I played 17 years, and almost 10 of them were in a Rockies uniform,” Walker said. “I feel like I am getting penalized for that. If I stay on the ballot, that’s a success. Obviously, I would rather be in.”

He finished with a lifetime batting average of .313 and a .400 on-base percentage. However, he fought injuries throughout his career, costing him valuable statistics.

Brown: How Michael Cuddyer’s chase of the NL batting title made him a better player

My 1969 Macmillan shocker: Debs Garms.

He batted .370 the rest of the way. Turned out, he batted .385 in September. He finished at .331, 10 points ahead of Johnson, 60 points higher than his career average, 47 points better than he’d ever hit. On the final day of the season, he could let it go again, free of the drama, the thrill, the achievement, the bouts of weirdness in the batter’s box. And it could just be glorious.

“Oh, it’s extremely special,” he said. “To have your name in the history books as a batting champion, it’s just extremely special.”

He loved the other names on the list. His boyhood hero, Don Mattingly, is on there. And his former teammate, Joe Mauer. Lots of Rockies, of course.

“And there’s names that aren’t on the list,” Cuddyer said, “that give you chills.”

That the batting title came from nowhere, and in the months after he turned 34, when it seemed we all had a pretty good notion of the ballplayer Michael Cuddyer was, seemed particularly satisfying to Cuddyer. He’d worked hard for this, and grew a little more into the game when he changed to a more aggressive two-strike approach, and started last season hot. Yes, it’s almost strange when a Rockie doesn’t win the batting title. And it was interesting that when one did, it wasn’t Carlos Gonzalez or Troy Tulowitzki. While the natural assumption may be that Cuddyer’s season was created by Coors Field, he did hit .311 on the road. Of the eight batting titles won by Rockies (Andres Galarraga at Mile High Stadium, Todd Helton, Matt Holliday, Gonzalez, Cuddyer and three by Larry Walker at Coors Field), Cuddyer’s home batting average (.356) is the lowest by 20 points.

Hey, it’s better to hit there. Just is. But it’s not everything.

“I didn’t hit .500 at home,” Cuddyer said with a smile.

Denver Post: Spilborghs Retires, Returns to Rockies as a Broadcaster.

The decision wasn’t easy for Spilborghs. He considered resuming his career with the Rockies on a minor-league contract, but he couldn’t pass up this opportunity. He played last year for Japan’s Seibu Lions, chronicling his experience for The Denver Post in a series of popular blogs.

Spilborghs, 34, has a variety of media experience, including appearing in car commercials and hosting “Spillin’ The Beans,” a comedy short for the Rockies’ website.

Spilborghs played seven seasons with the Rockies, last in 2011, hitting .272 with a .345 on-base percentage, 42 home runs and 218 RBIs.

Ryan Spilborghs was a pretty good part-timer for a while there. I had kind of forgotten.

Deal revived, Rockies acquire 2B Marco Scutaro from Red Sox

Il Milione Man March heads west…

The Rockies have agreed in principle on a deal to acquire Boston infielder Marco Scutaro for pitcher Clayton Mortensen, according to a source with direct knowledge of the talks.

The Rockies’ earmarked Scutaro as a target when the offseason began, seeing him as a starting second baseman and potential No. 2 hitter in the lineup. The deal went on life support Friday, but was revived today when the Rockies were able to work through some financial issues to take on Scutaro’s $6 million contract.

It will become official shortly as the players involved are notified.

...Mortensen is an extreme groundball pitcher, relying heavily on a sinker. He went 2-4 with a 3.86 ERA, splitting between between the bullpen and rotation.

With Scutaro in the fold, the Rockies will enter spring training with one of their deepest lineups in franchise history. He will join outfielder Michael Cuddyer and catcher Ramon Hernandez as key acquisitions, completely reshaping the lineup around Carlos Gonzalez and all-star cleanup hitter Troy Tulowitzki.

Plain Dealer | Cleveland Indians acquire Kevin Slowey

The Indians acquired Slowey and a reported $1.25 million from the Rockies for right-hander Zach Putnam.

SI.com: Economic considerations at heart of Carmona’s decision

An interesting analysis of signing ages, signing bonuses, and success rates in the Dominican Republic, by Melissa Segura of Sports Illustrated ...

Teams pay premiums for 16-year-olds for two primary reasons: One, because teams often want to be the first to sign a promising player and, thus, avoid bidding wars with other teams; and two, clubs prefer to develop their players’ skills under the watchful eyes of their own club personnel rather than under those of unqualified and unaffiliated coaches or trainers.

But are 18-year-old Latin American players really worth 70 percent less than their 16-year-old counterparts? Here’s another data analysis that calls into question the industry practice of placing a premium on youth. Let’s assume the most basic marker of a successful signing is making it to the majors. We’ll make it simple and look at the 79 players who have made their major league debuts from 2008-2011 from Carmona’s Dominican Republic. Of those 79, only six were signed as 16-year-olds. The debuts suggest older players were more likely to advance to the majors. ...

[...]

What’s more, SI tracked down the bonus data for 60 of the 79 players. Fernando Martinez, signed by the Mets in 2005 for $1.3 million, was the only one to receive a seven-figure bonus. Only nine others signed for six figures and one — the Rockies’ Juan Nicasio — received nada to sign, according to the data obtained by SI. The median signing bonus among them tallied a paltry $35,000.

Q&A: Larry Walker on his Hall of Fame snub

“Mr. Walker is not a suspect…We don’t know if the person was killed at the site or if his body was dumped there.”

CBCSports.ca: Who’s more upset about your low vote total in the second year of your 15 years of eligibility: you or your family, friends and former teammates with Colorado and Montreal?

LW: I don’t think it bothers me a lot. Why am I going to get my feathers all ruffled over something that’s out of my control? Obviously, it would be an amazing honour.

Some people have pointed some things out to me that made me wonder. [Designated hitter] Edgar Martinez [only played 592 of his 2,055 career games in the field] and he’s getting twice as many votes as me [36.5 per cent to Walker’s 22.9 per cent]. Is Edgar Martinez twice the better player than me?

Not to pat myself on the back but I think I was as good as Edgar Martinez.

But I’m not going to rack my brain. I’m sure there’s people that are in the Hall of Fame that a lot people think shouldn’t be there or some that should be there and aren’t.

CBCSports.ca: The knock against you when people say Larry Walker shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame is that you played 10 of your 17 seasons at hitter-friendly Coors Field in Colorado. But a lot of times players can’t control where they play, right?

LW: I was in the big leagues, man. Are you she—-in me? You can’t always pick where you go or what happens. You just roll with the friggin’ punches. I was in the dugout trying to beat the other 25 guys in the dugout beside us. That’s all I tried to do. I can’t control where I’m at and the numbers that go up. Every ballpark has its quirks.

If you read something in the paper or a magazine or hear something on TV, whether it’s negative or positive, people tend to want to go that way with it. If what was being printed all this time was ‘Walker deserves the [Hall of Fame nod], he’s going to make it,’ I bet my percentage would be a lot higher. But all you hear about is Coors Field. That’s all I’ve heard since my first game in Denver [in 1995].

Rox sign Jaime Moyer to Minor League deal

Fun fact: When the Rockies came into existence, Jaime Moyer was in his eighth Major League season.

The Rockies’ search for a veteran for the starting rotation could take them to the ultimate veteran, 49-year-old left-hander Jamie Moyer.

Colorado and Moyer have agreed to a Minor League deal that includes an invitation to Spring Training, the club announced on Wednesday. The agreement is pending a physical.

Moyer underwent Tommy John surgery on his throwing elbow in 2010 and didn’t pitch last season. The lefty worked as an analyst for ESPN in 2011 but stated that he intended to try to pitch again in ‘12.

Moyer went 9-9 with a 4.84 ERA for the Phillies in 2010.