The Rockies are seeking to upgrade their bullpen, starting rotation, and corner infield situation, sources tell Troy E. Renck of The Denver Post.
Colorado seems to be fond of Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla, but as we learned earlier today, the Marlins don't seem inclined to deal the two-time All-Star. Further putting the kibosh on the possibility of him ending up in Colorado, Tracy Ringolsby of Inside The Rockies says (via Twitter) that the club hasn't been in pursuit of Uggla since last winter.
The club likes Uggla's teammate, Jorge Cantu, and they're keeping an eye on Baltimore's Ty Wigginton. The Rockies could make a move for a rental prior to the trade deadline and make a bigger splash heading into the August 31st waiver deadline.
Meanwhile, the Rockies are looking for relief help. The club has interest in Toronto's Kevin Gregg and Pittsburgh's Octavio Dotel. However, it will be difficult for Colorado to land either player. Gregg's friendly contract option this offseason gives his club the option of picking him up for $4.5MM in 2011 or keeping him through 2012 for $8.75MM. Renck feels that Dotel could be hard to pry away from the Pirates as he is their only closer, but keep in mind that Evan Meek has been one of the game's best relievers (1.05 ERA, 8.5 K/9, 2.5 BB/9) in a set-up capacity and could probably fill the role despite his lack of experience. Still, Renck feels Colorado will look for a rebound candidate instead.
The Rockies would like to upgrade their rotation, but they're not going to overspend for a "fourth-starter type". Houston ace Roy Oswalt won't waive his no trade clause to come to Colorado, but Arizona's Dan Haren could be a possibility. However, Haren's price could be too high for the club.
I really don’t think Dotel would be that hard to get away from the Pirates if the Rockies can give them some decent prospects. Evan Meek is the closer of the future there and they aren’t playing for anything now – they would hand over the role to him sooner than later w/out issue.
Agreed that Dotel is available for a decent prospect. However, I think the Pirates would prefer to keep Meek’s role fluid, so he can put out fires anywhere from the 7th-9th innings, and give the closers job to Hanrahan. That said, Dotel’s option for next year is reasonable, so I don’t expect them to just give Dotel away.
They should spin a Blockbuster with the Jays in which they recieve Shaun Marcum, Jose Bautista, and Kevin Gregg. That probably seems too far-fetched and would require a package similar to that of the A’s when they traded Haren. In terms of quantity and quality and possibly more. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Rogers, Collins, and Ianetta could be a goof core…
It would take A LOT to acquire Marcum, Bautista and Gregg.
I’m not too familiar with the Rockies farm so I wouldn’t know where to start.
Chris Ianetta, Spilborghs, Eric young, Morales, and Greg Smith would probably do it
The Rockies do have a really good system. Can’t imagine them grabbing all three, because they tend to like to keep their players, but they would be a good trade partner for one of those players.
Gregg and Marcum for Ianetta and Morales?
No. Jays don’t have much need for Ianetta. Arencibia is tearing it up in AAA and he’ll be called up once Buck is moved. They also got a few other catchers in minors doing well like D’Arnaud, Perez, Jiminez.
then young and morales and miller. Trade ianetta and spilborghs to boston for Nava. Cantu for Rogers and Nelson. Marcum, Greg, Nava, and Cantu is an upgrade if you ask me. And for the Jays they get a versatile speed demon in young and a good young gun in Morales plus a good hitting bigs ready outfielder
Marcum’s a solid #3 starter with 2 1/2 years of team control left. Even with a TJ comeback discount, he’s not going to be available for a utility player, a lefty bulpen arm rendered useless due to horrific control, and a 27 year old corner OF ‘prospect’ that hasn’t been in a major league game, and can’t slug .500 in Colorado Springs.
Marcum is a #3 starter.ROckies won’t give up a future no. 1 for him. Young is a good prospect, not a utility guy, his speed is unbelievable and miller is not in the bigs because of the logjam we have in the outfield. He is no Star but an average 4th outfielder. Morales is struggling but is a good pitcher who can be lights out and was better when he was a starter, and he won the last game of the NLCS at 21. He is not pitching well but is even now a 4-5th starter at 24. The rockies won’t give up much else of value for Marcum. “they’re not going to overspend for a “fourth-starter type”
I just don’t see them getting Marcum for a bunch of spare parts (to me, Young is a roll player, or maaaaybe a second-division starter, and Morales is going to be out of options next year, hasn’t made any progress with his control and wouldn’t even be a top-10 option for next year’s Blue Jays rotation because of it). I wouldn’t expect a Matzek or Friedrich, but I would say Fowler would have to be on the table. I can’t see anyone else that would interest Toronto that Colorado could afford to give up.
Oh, and for clarity, Marcum has a 3.87 career ERA in the AL East… That’s not a #4-type. That’s a good #3, and those require a significantly higher return.
daniel nava for ryan spilborghs? i think id rather keep spilborghs
The Pirates actually have two potential closers on their roster. Joel Hanrahan has pitched lights out for them and he used to close in Washington. And All-Star Evan Meek has been deemed closer of the future. Plus, never forget the Pirates are happy to lower payroll, especially when you’re due as much as Dotel is next year.If you know of any failed #1 draft picks or flame-throwing starters with terrible control in the Rockies system, I’m sure the Bucs would happily take them for Dotel.
Actually, Pirates have almost zero flame throwing starters, so I’m not sure where you’re coming from there.
Um, Charlie Morton?
Plus, it’d help if you read my comment. I didn’t say the Pirates had flame-throwing starters. If you’ve been following Huntington, you’d know pretty much every pitcher he trades for is a hard-thrower with control issues (Hanrahan when he was with Wash, Hansen in the Bay deal, Morton, etc)
I actually follow Huntington pretty closely, and I’ve noticed him acquire Hunter Strickland, Dana Eveland, Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens, Ross Ohlendorf, Tim Alderson, Pedro Ascanio, Jeff Lorin, Nathan Adcock, Aaron Pribanic, Jeff Locke. Which of these guys are you thinking is a flamethrower? Apparantly “pretty much every pitcher” on this list is up there throwing high nineties eh?
I think what Huntington wants is quality pitching, and so far he’s been happy acquiring quantity and hoping that a few of them turn out to be decent. It’s clearly false to assume that he’s only targeting “flame-throwing pitcher” when the vast majority of his acquired players do not throw hard.
For the record, Morton’s problem is a mental one. He’s got stuff and control to go with it when he’s on. It’s not control issues that keep him at a mediocre level.
Not only did you get multiple players names wrong, you also contradicted yourself in your own argument. Ohlendorf and Jose Ascanio both throw just as hard if not harder than Morton. Also, does Jameson Taillon and Stetson Allie ring any bells to you? They both are the very definition of flame-throwers.
Fail. Ohlendorf works pretty steadily in the low 90s. Not what I would call a flame thrower, although he did throw much harder earlier in his career with the Yankees from what I’ve heard. I’ve never seen Ascanio pitch, so I have no idea if you are correct or not. Which names are you referring to?
Also, Taillon and Allie are clearly not in any way pertinent to this argument. As somebody who is quick to throw out the word “contradicted”, can you guess why Taillon and Allie aren’t involved in this argument?
You were referring to Jose Ascanio and Brett Lorin. Those were the errors. My bad, now correct yours.
First, it was my mistake to mention Taillon and Allie, I overlooked that fact that this discussion was about traded players as opposed to acquired players.
Still, when Huntington traded for Ross Ohlendorf, he averaged 93.2 on his fastball which is faster than the 92.8 that currently Morton works at and much faster than the 90.7 he worked at when he was with the Braves. So if you want to include Morton in the flamethrowers category, you have to include Ohlendorf.
The original discussion was whether Huntington likes to trade for hard throwers or not and with Ohlendorf, Morton, Hart, Ascanio, Hanrahan, and Meek (if you call the Rule 5 agreement with the Rays a trade) all part of relatively recent trades, it is difficult to say no.
I never said Morton was a flamethrower, I said that his problem wasn’t control issues. You assumed I accepted Morton being a flamethrower as a premise for the argument.
If you are considering them flamethrowers, then you can make that case. But at the same time, the list of pitchers he’s acquired that don’t throw as hard as those guys is much longer than the list you provided of “flamethrowers”. Doesn’t that statistically mean that he targets “non-flamethrowers”?
Well technically the answer is yes, but I think that is more the product of there being less flamethrowers out there than non-flamethrowers.
Realistically I think it’s pretty safe to assume that neither of us will go back on our original positions. I think Huntington targets hard-throwers, you think he doesn’t. I think the only one who knows the answers is Neal Huntington.
Meek would be very interesting for the Rockies, how much would it take to get him?
Likely would take a boatload. He’s one of the harder throwing/talented relievers out there, and this is really his first full season at the mlb level. I know little about the Rockies system, but you can be sure that the Pirates would be targeting starting pitching as the return.
What the Denver Post article had that this didn’t was that Dotel was maybe not necessary.The Rockies have Daley and Bucholz coming back and if they pitch like they can there is no chance of Dotel. Cantu is our no. 1 target likely acquired with a package around Rogers. Haren would be intriguing the Rockies like him, they called Oakland about him but backed out when they asked for Jimenez, and Stewart. Young, and Rogers would help with Haren but the D-Backs don’t need a catcher so Ianetta wouldn’t be of value unless we involved a third team (boston?)
Epstein does like his mutliple team trades, good enquiry. I think if Haren was to come to CO then we would have to unload salary in a Hawpe or maybe even a Cook, who is making 9 mil this yr plus a few big name prospects and Iannetta and to be honest if we could get Haren and keep him long term it would out us over the top. Like you said if Daley and Buchholz can do what they have done in the past, the bullpen is not the top priority in my opinion. Cantu or Wigginton needs to be our top priority and Cantu being no. 1. Uggla is probably above all but the rockies are not a team that rent players for the most part and definitely not allstar players where we will be giving up 2/3 quality prospects/mlb ready players. If it was to happen the Rox and Uggla would have to work something out long term and i dont see the Rox willing to pay him 10 mil a yr while Cantu/Ty can come at a far cheaper price and still produce right where we need them to.
I’d prefer to keep Hawpe but if we’re getting a starter Cook is worthless. What I’m not sure of is if we could get Cantu and Haren without giving up Rosario, Matzek, or Friedrich. I am reluctant to trade those pitchers. Also what does the future hold for Morales and Barmes. With Herrera shining and Morales struggling could these guys be of greater value to another team? If so what could we get in return?
You would think that Barmes and Morales would appeal to other teams but think about it a little more…Barmes is under contract this one yr and a team contract for next and that would be dropped if he was traded and morales will be out of options this next season so i dont see us getting a lot in return for either by the deadline. I could only see these guys being packaged with something more appealing then being shipped out.
Unless its for Haren and he is signed longterm before the deal is done then I completely agree that Rosario, Matzek, or Friedrich is untouchable…. and id still be quite hesitent because something else is going to have to go to just balence out $$