A couple of seasons ago, I was cautiously optimistic that the Rockies could keep up with Arizona's highly thought of youth movement. I analyzed every move the Rockies made by highlighting how it might or might not allow us to compete with the D-backs. 2008 saw a shift in my focus, however, as the D-backs no longer appear to me to be the most dangerous threat in the division for the next three seasons. They will be a major nuisance, and competitive, but I'm no longer viewing them as the primary objective. I wonder if I'm right in seeing Los Angeles as the bearer of the title of most respected rival now, or if LA's 2008 success is just pushing my long term vision temporarily out of focus. So up for discussion is the youth of the division, who has the best, who needs to play some catch-up.

For each team I've listed the players 27 and under that I consider "core" players, players each team is counting on to play a part in their contention over the next two to three seasons and would be hesitant to part with unless offered an equally valuable young player at a position of need. I'm going to differentiate between an outer and inner core, the players in bold are the most important, and seem to be almost completely off limits for trades. For offensive players, where applicable, I've listed their Marcel projected wOBA for 2009, and for the pitchers their Marcel projected ERA. Some prospects won't have projections, simply because I don't do them myself and can't find them online. Young players that are successful in very small samples of experience tend to get overrated (or conversely, underrated if the opposite is true) by this simple projection tool, so before you think the Giants' Conor Gillaspie (.349 wOBA for 2009) is on his way to the Hall of Fame, just temper your expectations a bit.  For players like Blake DeWitt, Dexter Fowler and a few of the Giants like Gillaspie, I would trust other projection systems more.

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I'm working on a longer piece looking at the development of the young cores for the NL West teams, but it's taking longer than I thought it would, so I'll post this for now.

The Rockies have received permission from the Yankees to talk to Butch Wynegar for their vacant hitting coach position. Wynegar joins Don Baylor and Greg Colbrunn as interviewees for the position.

The Snakes have offered Ramon Vazquez a contract. Vazquez will be a clear downgrade from Orlando Hudson, both offensively and defensively, and might not be much of an upgrade from Chris Burke or Augie Ojeda. Clearly Arizona is hoping Vazquez is able to repeat his production with Texas from last season, but an anomalous BABIP to his career leaves considerable doubt this will be the case. While the Rockies now currently project to have the division's best second baseman (so long as they don't choose to give the job to Clint Barmes), they are not out of the woods yet with both the Dodgers and Giants pursuing Hudson to some degree.

2009 Marcel Projected wOBA for NL West second basemen:

1. Jeff Baker .335
2. Blake DeWitt .331
3. Matt Antonelli .328
   
4. Ramon Vazquez .320
5. Kevin Frandsen .316

• Orlando Hudson .346
• Clint Barmes .307

We started discussing this in a thread last evening, but the Rockies have made their moves to protect players from the Rule 5 draft coming up in December. Players added to the roster include RHP's Shane Lindsay, Ryan Mattheus and Samuel Deduno, as well as infielders Chris Nelson, Hector Gomez and Eric Young Jr. (who can also be used in the OF). The Rockies had space on their roster for all but one of these six, which necessitated outrighting catcher Edwin Bellorin to Colorado Springs to open the final spot.

I had speculated in August that Bellorin's stock had fallen when the team chose to call up Adam Melhuse instead of him to back-up Chris Iannetta after Yorvit Torrealba got injured. Yesterday's move was the confirmation that I was right. With Michael McKenry ascending the depth chart rapidly, it seems that Bellorin, Rick Guarno and Neil Wilson are having to get out of the way.

As for the six who were protected, there really weren't any surprises given strong fall performances from at least four of them (with the exceptions of Deduno and Gomez), and solid MLB level tools for all six.

Have the Rockies left any critical players exposed to the Rule 5? The team has excelled at identifying who is really of interest to teams around the league, safely letting EY2 and Lindsay go exposed last year at this time without seeing them drafted. This season, there are three players, right-hander Aneury Rodriguez, left-hander Xavier Cedeno (update, these two are ineligible, see comments), and infielder Daniel Mayora, that I could see as possibly desirable, and none of them are of the caliber or have the advanced skills of the six we did protect, so I think the Rockies will probably be safe with that trio. Right-hander Andrew Johnston might be an interesting wildcard, however. He's got some hallmarks of a typical Rule 5 pick (bullpen friendly, one MLB caliber pitch) that could entice a team, much like Steven Register did last season with the Mets. Similarly to Register, I wouldn't be surprised to see Johnston drafted, let's hope it's to another contender that can't afford to keep him all year.

• ---

  

  Chris Iannetta

  #20 / Catcher / Colorado Rockies

  Height: 6-0

  Weight: 225

  Bats: R

  Throws: R

  Born: Apr 08, 1983

  ---

• April: 20.2%
• May: 18.9%
• June: 19.9%
  
• July: 19.2%
  
• August: 12.1%
  
• September: 10.9%
  

This is the percentage of pitches that Chris Iannetta took a swing at that were outside the strike zone over the course of the 2008 season. Twenty percent isn't bad, it would be among the 35 most disciplined hitters in the NL in 2008. Still, Iannetta wasn't satisified with that. By the end of the season, his 10.9% mark was the third best in the majors in September, trailing only Marlins Hanley Ramirez and Josh Willingham. Let's look at another player who went the opposite direction:

• June: 30.7%
  
• July: 31.1%
  
• August: 35.0%
  
• September: 43.5%

I don't imagine there's a more effective method of torture for Billy Beane than a player starting a season with poor plate discipline and then getting worse as the season goes along. Carlos Gonzalez did exactly that. Let's not beat around the bush, if he continues to perform like this at the major league level, his career will be very, very short. Perhaps this is why strike zone judgment seems to be the major focus of Gonzalez's winter league campaign thus far, with Carlos racking up a .440 OBP with an 8/6 BB/K ratio in 48 PA's.

According to Fangraphs, Gonazalez led the majors last season in the percentage of curveballs seen with just under 20% of the total pitches he saw being benders. It's clear that pitchers don't worry about him laying off the junk, so that's all they throw to him. Pitch recognition will do the kid wonders. It would do the Rockies wonders, but the fact of the matter is they already have pieces in place in case it doesn't materialize. I was mercilessly mocked the other day for my assertion that the Rockies offense is just fine without Matt Holliday. I'm not backing down. After doing a review of the rest of the division, in fact, I'm going further out on a limb. The Rockies will have the best offense in the NL West this season by a good margin, and should have one of the best offenses in the NL, period.

OBP, on base percentage, is the engine that drives the rest of a club's offense. If players don't get on base, there's no way they can score except via hitting a homer when it's their turn to bat. The opposite of OBP is the amount of outs created. You get enough outs, and it's game over, season over. There's a finite amount each team is allotted each year and you want to score as much as possible before you hit your limit. The Red Sox and Cubs were the major league's leaders in team OBP in 2008, the Rangers, who scored the most runs, were third. In 2007, the Rockies team OBP was .354, and we happened to go to the World Series. In 2008, it was .336 and we did not go to the World Series. It's more than a coincidence. The way this team is going to be successful is by having everybody get on base as much as possible, the parts are just about in place to make this happen.

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Aaron Heilman

#48 / Pitcher / New York Mets

Height: 6-5

Weight: 225

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Nov 12, 1978

The Rockies are the one specified team out of six purportedly still interested in Aaron Heilman in this Daily News piece about him expressing a desire to start or get traded. The tricky part would seem to be that the Rockies don't really have any more vacancy in their starting rotation than the Mets do. If we're assuming that Jimenez, Cook and Francis have three spots locked up, and last half JDLR comes back to take a fourth, is Heilman any better than Greg Smith for the fifth slot? That's even before considering the possibility of rebounds by Hirsh, Reynolds or Morales. At best he'd be competitive for one of those last two slots, but the far more likely scenario has the Rox using him in middle relief just like the Mets are.

Neal at Purple Rox Squad has informed me of his blog, which has been up and running for some time now, but I just never stumbled onto it. He takes a pretty thoughtful and thorough look at the team.

Alex Eisenberg at Baseball-Intellect has made his Rockies Top 15 prospect list. A lot of good information is here even though there may be a couple of minor points of disagreement, be sure to poke around the site to scout the enemy camps of LA and Arizona while you're there (1-5, 6-15).

Prior to the humidor, I would look at any Rockie hitter who finished out of the top five in the NL in OPS at his position as a liability that needed replaced. Now it's closer to a more natural top eight that I use as a threshold. Last season, the Rockies had three positions qualify, but perhaps more galling was how bad two of those three were. Had we had even moderate increases in production from Helton/Atkins at first and Taveras in center, had we removed Jayson Nix from duty sooner, the season could have turned out much differently. To make this point clear, notice that the World Series champions had just as many failed slots in their lineup, the difference (well besides them also having Cole Hamels) was the degree of failure by the Rockies trio of misery.

2008 by position with NL OPS rank in parentheses:

1B: .254/.348/.403 (#15; Phillies #4)

2B: .252/.305/.404 (#11; Phillies #1)

3B: .293/.343/.468 (#5; Phillies #15)

SS: .272/.326/.423 (#7; Phillies #6)

C:  .250/.347/.441 (#3; Phillies #10)

LF: .323/.403/.531 (#1; Phillies #5)

CF: .258/.316/.333 (#15; Phillies #4)

RF: .288/.382/.500 (#3; Phillies #12)

So, how much confidence should we have that there will be a different story in 2009?

Carlos Gonzalez (.242/.273/.361) on the basis of his 2008 non-adjusted numbers wouldn't seem to be much of an upgrade offensively over Willy Taveras in center, but there are a host of reasons why we should expect him to be a considerable improvement in 2009, ranging from Gonzalez switching to a more favorable park and league, to his age and scouting profile and the general consensus that Taveras' skills don't have much, if any, room for improvement at the plate. The question for Rockies fans will be how much of an improvement will Gonzalez be, and will it be enough to offset the step down from Holliday to Ryan Spilborghs that we take in left. That should be the other question for Rockies fans, how much offense, exactly, are we going to lose in left field?

Spilborghs' career line of .302/.374/.466 isn't far removed from Holliday's .321/.409/.538 line from last season. What's more, in terms of getting on base, Spilborghs has shown improvement in each of his three MLB seasons culminating in last season's .407 OBP, which is almost an exact match for Holliday's .409. Where Spilly clearly falls short is in his power production, which just happens to be the arena that Gonzalez has a decisive advantage over Taveras in. Let me put it another way, over the course of a full season, the Rockies project to lose about 15 extra base hits in the switch from Holliday to Spilborghs, but gain over 20 in the switch from Taveras to Gonzalez with a small, predictable step forward from CarGo, not even a real breakthrough. The key to improving on 2008's hitting performance in the outfield will be in optimizing the lineup to take advantage of the net gain in XBH, but not expose Gonzalez' weak on base skills as much as Taveras' were. An optimal lineup with this team would have Spilborghs leading off and Gonzalez batting relatively deep.

While concerns about how our hitting will fare without Holliday seem relatively overblown, where the Rockies will take a big hit with this trade is in the baserunning department. Taveras and Holliday were the team's best, stealing successfully an immensely valuable 96/105 times in 2008, and otherwise providing added runs throughout the season by taking advatage of advancement opportunities. For all their virtues, Gonzalez and Spilborghs simply are incapable of duplicating that performance. How are the Rockies going to make this up? Again, this goes back to lineup construction. The hope for me is that this gain comes through better efficiency than we saw last season. Clint Hurdle wasted an inordinate amount of outs last season by insistently putting Taveras at the top of his lineup cards, completely nullifying Willy's positive effects on the basepaths by denying better hitters more plate opportunities. Without Taveras or a similarly speed oriented player available, it's my hope that Hurdle will be more inclined to build a lineup around who truly sets the table for the team. Do I have any confidence that the man will actually make the right decision and do this? That's a different question, but I like the chances of it happening better without Taveras around.

In sum, last week's trade actually keeps some overall offensive stability in the outfield, and leaves the onus of improving 2008's offensive lag onto the infield, where it would have been even had we kept Holliday. The right side in particular will be the key to the Rockies competing next season. Todd Helton and Jeff Baker/Clint Barmes have to rebound if the Rockies expect to get back into the playoff hunt.

The cutoff for being a top eight first baseman in the NL in OPS last season was .845, about .100 points higher than what we had last season, which is what the Cubs and Mets got from Lee and Delgado mostly. Helton can actually put up a line similar to his 2006 .302/.404/.476 numbers and still be helping the team be competitive. Of course, we'd like him to be more like 2007, but let's not get too greedy for the the 35 year old with back issues. As for second base, that's more problematic. The Rockies seem to be ignoring what everybody else sees as a problem, but the upgrade that's needed here to be competitive in the NL is relatively small, only about .050 points of OPS, which possibly could be made up simply by having fewer Jayson Nix starts. Still, I see a little too much confidence from the team for Baker/Barmes, two players who have had a wild history of highs and lows. The lows, and the strong possibility of a replay of them, are what worry me.

The baseline for a competitive NL centerfielder is fairly high, something along the lines of Mike Cameron's .244/.332/.479 for Milwaukee last season. As the Phillies at third showed in 2008, it is possible for an NL contender to have one major hole in the lineup and be successful, but without a Hamels like ace fronting our rotation, I don't know if we have that luxury, so the closer Gonzalez gets to that .800 OPS line the better.  We can earn some wiggle room at these other positions with a strong season from the left side of our infield, Tulo and Stewart are already well positioned competitively despite being very young and not having what we would consider peak seasons last year. Overall, it looks like the prognosis for recovery for our offense in 2009 is decent, but I would really like to have a more reliable bet at second.

I'll look at the state of the rest of the NL West's (sans San Diego) offenses on Thursday.

Jack Etkin at the Rocky Mountain News had a couple of blog entries the last two days that deserve some notice. First up is an update on Franklin Morales from Venezuela. To recap what we had seen in season two of this telenovela:

1. Franklin's mechanics went way out of whack over the winter
   
2. Franklin couldn't throw strikes
3. Franklin's velocity was down

The blog post has encouraging news on points one and two for the third season, but no word on the velo. Perhaps as encouraging, however is the fact that the Rockies are keeping tabs on Morales at all, taking a much more proactive approach to his offseason with Marty DeMerritt keeping a careful watch. If we're looking at a real upgrade to the rotation next season, spending money on a quality free agent is the best option, but since that seems to be off the table, Morales should still be our second best bet. The post makes it clear that the Rockies aren't counting on this, but would certainly welcome Morales coming into his own this season.

*****************

For EY2, his absence from the AFL this past week was due to a strained hamstring but wasn't serious. Young's defense in center field gets a better review than I've seen elsewhere, I expect he'll be able to improve more going forward. Young's potential spot on the 25 man roster in the event he makes the team out of Spring Training would be the one occupied Scott Podsednik last season, only he'd be more of an offensive substitute than a defensive one. I think going offense out of that slot is probably a wiser use of resources and should give the Rockies more bang for the limited playing time this player is typically given.

Let me start by pointing out the top relievers for each NL playoff team in 2008 by WXRL, a stat used by Baseball Prospectus which is a more effective way of measuring relievers than saves or ERA. The numbers represent a value of how many wins over a replacement level reliever each pitcher was:

Chicago

1. Carlos Marmol 5.152
2. Kerry Wood 2.232
3. Sean Marshall 0.617

Philadelphia

1. Brad Lidge 7.591
2. J.C. Romero 2.227
3. Ryan Madson 2.002
4. Chad Durbin 1.751
   

Los Angeles

1. Corey Wade 2.841
2. Hong-Chi Kuo 2.714
3. Jonathan Broxton 2.216
4. Takashi Saito 1.947
   

Milwaukee

1. Salomon Torres 3.016
2. Carlos Villanueva 1.469
3. Brian Shouse 1.053

Los Angeles and Philadelphia both had deep pens, with their fifth best reliever rating better than the third best from either NL Central team. Let's look at the Rockies:

Colorado

1. Brian Fuentes 3.619
2. Taylor Buchholz  2.528
3. Ryan Speier 0.720

The Rockies bullen in 2008 was more like a run of the mill squad than an NL elite one, and if they didn't make up the difference in the rotation like the Cubs and Brewers did, than the end result of the season shouldn't be surprising. Still, believe it or not, 2007 was much the same, just substitute Manny Corpas and Matt Herges' names for Fuentes and Buchholz. Here are  Huston Street's numbers over the last four seasons:

• 2005: 4.356
  
• 2006: 3.260
  
• 2007: 2.234
• 2008: 1.943

Okay, so there's an obvious bad direction here, which is fodder for the naysayers, but even 2008 showed him to be a valuable reliever. Whether he remains so depends on his ability to reverse that trend. What reason do we have to expect that he might? Better health will be a start, switching to a weaker league with teams more unfamiliar with him will also help. Street's still a pretty young pitcher at 25, so there isn't a lot of reason not to expect some sort of bounce-back in 2009 to his career norm (he averages a 2.948 WXRL over those four seasons). If we don't trade him before the start of the season, we should expect to see him once more be at least a two win reliever in Denver.

If the trend continues downward, we'll know we've gotten ourselves a dud on our hands, but there should be enough time to figure that out before the July trading deadline where he would still be considered of value for many GM's. Street's beauty is a reputation that hasn't been too sullied by moments of underperformance. For a quality bullpen next season, the Rockies are hoping that Street and Buchholz maintain or improve their 2008 levels of performance and that either or both of Luis Vizcaino (2.081 WXRL in 2007) or Manny Corpas can return to their 2007 level. How is this an upgrade over 2008? Before last season the main hope for three 2+ win relievers was in Corpas, Viz and a bounceback from Fuentes, with the idea that maybe Casey Weathers would be contributing as well by the end of the season. So this isn't an appreciably more comfortable position to be in, but compared to where we were with the pen three weeks ago, banking solely on returns of Corpas and Viz, it's a little easier to see how we could pull it off.

Arizona's bullpen does not have the lights out leader that Lidge or Marmol were last season. Neither do they have the quality depth that Los Angeles has so they are in a similar boat to the Rockies, albeit with fewer pitchers who have been 2+ win relievers in the past. They are hoping that losses of Juan Cruz and Brandon Lyon are made up for by a rebound by Jon Rauch and a step forward by Leo Rosales or Jailen Peguero among others. Juan Morillo is a better horse to bet on than either, so the Rockies still have the edge in prospect depth despite losing Casey Weathers for next season and Pedro Strop altogether. There is a high quality wild card for the D-backs in 2008 first rounder Daniel Schlereth, and his addition combined with Strop's loss for the Rockies has helped Arizona make up considerable ground in this department.

San Francisco's bad relievers ate too much into the work of their relatively few good arms in 2008. I don't think they have enough quality arms to change that in 2009. The Dodgers look to once again be in the best position as far as relief work goes, the Rockies will need to have several things go right for this to change and make up ground.

************

The Rockies chances of trading Garrett Atkins will take a hit if Minnesota lands Casey Blake as a free agent, the good news is that this would leave the Dodgers relatively weak at third base. Last season, Blake had an EQA of .281, with Blake DeWitt lagging in the Garrett Atkins/Mark Reynolds neighborhood at .261. Ian Stewart was on the tier in between at .269. Going forward, Stewart can probably figure to be closer to Blake's contribution next season, DeWitt may make some gains as well, I can't say I have the same kind of confidence in Reynolds given his disinclination to change his approach at the plate. If you look at the cast of characters for next year, you'll see that third base is one position that we need a stronger contribution than LA or Arizona from if we want to win the division in 2009 or even in subsequent years.

At catcher we hope Iannetta is close to Martin, but expecting him to be much better is probably foolish. Arizona hopes Snyder isn't too far behind those two, but he's clearly the third rung. At first base, Helton vs. Tracy works okay, but Loney's moving ahead. At second, who knows where LA or AZ are going, but the Rockies will only get average production there unless they open the piggy bank. Shortstop should be another push, but that's only if Tulo rebounds to catch up with Drew. If LA re-signs Furcal, the Dodgers will have an edge when he plays. In right, Ethier was very good, Hawpe a tier below him, and Upton a tier below that. Long term though, this isn't a great position for us, similarly to catcher for the D-backs, and that's one of the reasons why Carlos Gonzalez was seen as a key pick-up. If his bat develops into his raw talent, the Rockies will stay competitive with the other two teams. In left field for 2009, we're competitive as long as the Dodgers don't sign Manny, and that will also have a dramatic effect on center as next season's basic formula is:

• Matt Kemp>Chris Young>Carlos Gonzalez>Andruw Jones or Juan Pierre

Long term, our relative position improves with Fowler.

What I'm trying to point out here is that at the end of the day, the one  position where the Rockies should be able to expect a clear advantage in coming seasons over their divisional peers is third base. No pressure, Stewie.

With Mike Hampton entering free agency, the Rockies eight year folly of a contract is officially over. Well, over except for a deferred $19 million signing bonus that starts kicking Mike a little extra Christmas cash over the next ten seasons. The Rockies already pre-funded this, so it's not taking from the team's current operating budget (nor is the $6 million buyout for a 2009 option that you might see mentioned some places, since that was paid and converted to a signing bonus when he was traded to the Braves via the Marlins.) At the time Mike signed his contract, I remember reading how foolish people thought these deferred payments were for the players, that even conservative stock portfolios would easily beat the 3% interest. Ha! Who's the fool now? Hampton's bonus is just north of $24 million today, while $19 million invested in a basket of stocks the Dow Jones Industrial Index on the date of his signing would be worth a little over $15 million as of this afternoon's close.

Yeah, I think I'm going to go cry now.

With today being the opening of free agent season, I thought it would be good to point out that every team in our division should be looking to the market to shore up their rotation. It's becoming clear, however, that just one team (Los Angeles) is intending to do that. The Padres have laid claim to team irrelevant, so similarly to the Giants before last season, I'm just going to ignore them completely to save myself some work. At any rate, here's a current look at what the other four teams are sporting as far as starters:

Arizona:

• Brandon Webb
• Dan Haren
• Max Scherzer
  
• Doug Davis
• some junkballer that makes the Rockies look bad probably, right now Yusmeiro Petit
  

Really, that's a scary enough front end that it should make up for the back end woes, but 2008 proved that it's not scary enough to make up for the D-backs anemic offense. Arizona also continues to have a depth issue which leaves them vulnerable to injury. Will AZ's offense see more improvement in 2009 to give Haren and Webb more support?

Los Angeles:

• Chad Billingsley
• Clayton Kershaw
• Hiroki Kuroda
• Larry
  
• Moe/Curly/Shep

Okay, so it's not quite that bad for Los Angeles, James McDonald is a decent prospect, but he's an unknown at the MLB level. Kershaw may take a step forward next season, but add him to McDonald and it seems to be a re-enactment of Rockies 2008 that the Dodgers are trying to pull. I do have confidence that the Dodgers will sign somebody better than Kip Wells to help the unstable youth situation (apparently they're looking at Randy Johnson), but for all intents and purposes, this rotation looks to be building for 2010 as much as we are.

San Francisco:

• Tim Lincecum
• Matt Cain
• Jonathan Sanchez
• Barry Zito
• Noah Lowry? Kevin Pucetas?
  

The Giants are more relevant than the Padres now with the latter gutting their rotation, but San Fran probably still needs some offensive help to compete in the NL West. Their rotation shows the same ills at the bottom as everybody else, but they have more pitching depth than either the Dodgers or D-backs

Colorado:

• Aaron Cook
• Ubaldo Jimenez
• Jeff Francis
• Jorge De La Rosa
• Greg Smith

Comparing the Rockies three LHP's at the bottom to the Giants three LHP's is somewhat encouraging. Last season our three combined for a VORP of about 50, but about thirty of that came from Smith's fluky good year. Still if you're going to knock him off that pedestal, you probably at the same time have to raise Francis, and if we're lucky, De La Rosa. The good thing about the Rockies is that their depth here is superior to anybody else's in the division. Breakthroughs by Franklin Morales, Jason Hirsh or Greg Reynolds are more likely than the AAA pitchers of the other three teams.

So how much are we going to miss that #1 guy, and is our strength at the bottom of the rotation enough to make up for it? Eh, probably not.

Let's look at Arizona first, consider that Webb and Haren were at least three wins ahead of Cook and Jimenez last season. Although I somewhat doubt this, U-ball might be able to make up some of that ground with improvement, but getting three more wins than Scherzer/Davis/Petit from Francis/De La Rosa/Smith isn't going to be easy. I'm particularly wary of Scherzer; as long as he's healthy, he's going to be very effective, and I can see that Arizona trio matching our 3-5 next season if they pitch all year. Where we'll be able to make up the most on the D-backs is with sixth starters, and because you're talking about unknowns there, it's hard to predict. The only two ways I see us cutting that three game deficit completely from the top of the rotation is with significant time lost by Webb, Haren and Scherzer or with a combined JDLR/Morales breakout. If Arizona loses a combined 20 starts from their top three, or if we get complete quality seasons from both of our most likely two down rotation candidates, the Rockies will have a better rotation in 2009, otherwise we have to make up the ground via the lineup or bullpen. I suppose there is a chance, however slight, that Greg Smith repeats his 2008 performance and inherits the Tom Glavine mantel for being the craftiest lefty on the planet, but of these three unlikely scenarios, this one seems the most remote.

How about with Los Angeles? Right now, the Dodgers rotation is too much in flux to know for sure, but Billingsley plus Kershaw plus Kuroda is not nearly far enough ahead of Cook plus Jimenez plus Francis to make up for projected replacement level performances at the bottom two slots. If the Dodgers sign RJ, they still figure to have a significant gap in the rotation when he needs to rest his back. Unfortunately, I know this isn't how they're going to enter next season. I just don't know who it will be that we have to worry about. My hope is that they get shut out of the starters completely, but barring that, I hope they overpay for somebody on a five year contract and that it's not Sabathia. Anybody else and I think we've still got a decent chance of staying with them in 2009.

While the Giants top two starters had a 4.5 game edge on the Rockies top two starters last season, the next three slots in the rotation were so bad for the Giants that we made up that entire deficit and the two teams were more or less a wash with their starters. Okay, that's a lie, but the Rockies could have made that ground up if it wasn't for Mark Redman/Livan Hernandez/Greg Reynolds. At any rate, thus far the Giants don't seem to be trying to patch the leaks in the rotation, actually looking to deal Sanchez if it helps their offense. Lacking depth at the moment, I think they'll have to continue to rob Peter to pay Paul unless they're willing to part with some of their highly thought of prospects. Otherwise it's going to be a few years of waiting before they're good again, but in this division they certainly could get lucky.