Day 6: Colorado Rockies

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: Colorado Rockies

2007 Regular Season Record: 90-73

2007 Postseason Record: 7-4; lost in World Series

Cost per Win: $54,424,000 / 97 = $561,072 per win

2007 Season Recap: The Rockies season had some serious up and downs. It definitely finished on a high note. They ended the season by winning the NL Wild card but they had to beat the Padres in a tie-breaker game to do that, that game took 11 innings to decide the winner. The Rockies then went on to sweep both the Phillies and the Diamondbacks out of the playoffs to get to the World Series. They then had 9 days off to get ready for the World Series and their matchup with the Red Sox. The layoff proved to be too long and the Rockies came out rusty in the beginning and their amazing season ended on a sour note with a 4 game sweep by the Red Sox. However when you consider that this team wasn’t even much of a contender to even reach the playoffs a World Series loss is a great success.

On the field the Rockies had some great performances from several key guys. First of all was Troy Tulowitzki. The rookie shortstop batted .291 on the season and put on a very impressive defensive showing at one of the hardest positions in baseball. In the end he came up just short in Rookie of the Year voting, it was the closest vote in history though.

The veterans weren’t going to let the young Diamondbacks get all the attention though. Matt Holliday put together a season that saw him place second in NL MVP voting after batting .340 with 36 home runs in the regular season. Also putting in a good season was Todd Helton who has played his entire career for the Rockies and he definitely deserved to be on this great run with his team, he ended the season with a .320 batting average so he earned his spot on the team and his $16 million salary. The Rockies had several other good performances and it showed with the winning streak they ended the season with and the strong playoff run they made, they had won 21 of 22 games before the World Series sweep.

Key Free Agents: 2B Kazuo Matsui, C Yorvit Torrealba, SP Josh Fogg, 6 RP’s; Matsui is probably the biggest free agent this offseason for the Rockies mostly due to the fact of how well he performed in the playoffs, his backup Jamey Carrol has shown a lot of potential though so he may not be missed that much. Torrealba will also be missed if the Rockies don’t resign him but there are several quality free agent catchers out there for the Rockies to pick up. Other than those 2 players it becomes a simple depth issue. The loss of 6 relievers will definitely be a problem if they can’t find quality guys to fill their spots. Fogg is something of a loss since he did have 10 wins this season. With the thin number of quality starting pitchers on the market the Rockies could go to regret letting him get away.

Offseason Needs: Catcher is probably the biggest concern for the Rockies right now. This is simply because they lack anyone with experience to fill the position. Chris Iannetta played some this season at catcher but only hit .218 so it would be a stretch to consider him a good option for the position. Beyond that the Rockies simply need to find some quality relievers to support a starting pitching staff that isn’t historically good at going deep into games.

Prediction for the 2008 season: The Rockies definitely have the momentum going into next season. I think I could safely say that they have more momentum than even the Red Sox. With most of their key parts returning, especially Holliday, Tulowitzki, and Helton, things look good for them. They also have a low salary so they will have space to bring in another key performer. I predict that they will win the NL West next season after a close battle with the Padres and Diamondbacks. Once they reach the playoffs they should be able to get through their first round opponent but I don’t see the good vibes of last season carrying them all the way to the World Series so a NLCS exit is what I’m predicting.