In any case, the Rockies seem to working their way through the offseason without losing anybody major, making potentially helpful little additions here and there while not laying out any ridiculous salary commitments. There are worse strategies. Byung-Hyun Kim has been offered arbitration, so we're still at least in the running there. I haven't heard his name in connection with anybody else...yet.

Nobody seems to know for sure, but A.J. Burnett seems to be headed for Toronto. The last I heard was 5 years, $55 million for everyone's favorite career .500 starter. The Cardinals are the other team in the running but I've yet to hear anyone claim that St. Louis is willing to go that high in either years or dollars. Of course, you never know -- I could have sworn that Rafael Furcal was going to the Cubs, and then he reversed course and went to Los Angeles. It's good news for the Rockies, anyway, as the Dysfunctional Dodgers (I think it says that on their uniforms now) will pay cleanup hitter money to a guy with a .757 career OPS.

Oakland has allegedly sent a pair of spare pitchers, Kirk Saarloos and Mario Ramos, to Los Angeles for Milton Bradley. If the A's also add Frank Thomas as is rumored, they're going to be pretty good next year. If they get those two bats without trading Barry Zito, they could keep him, or they could turn the Cy Young lefty into Alfonso Soriano or Hank Blalock. They already have Esteban Loaiza in the fold, who by the way was better than A.J. Burnett last year. In any event the A's are dealing from a position of power while their division rivals in Seattle (who missed out on Burnett), Anaheim (runners-up for Paul Konerko), and Arlington (losers of bidding wars for both free agent Kyle Farnsworth and Florida fire sale chip Josh Beckett) are not.

Another good tidbit from the must-bookmark MLB Trade Rumors: Cincinnati's Austin Kearns (who they should have traded about three years ago) for Cubs Jerome Williams and Ricky Nolasco. After losing out on Furcal Chicago GM Jim Hendry is desperate to make some kind of splash and he certainly doesn't lack for young talent (which Dusty Baker won't play, anyway). Kearns would be an upgrade from Jeromy Burnitz in any event. Although Johnny Damon remains the sleeping giant on the free agent scene thanks to demented agent Scott Boras (who apparently wants 7 years and $84 million for the 32-year-old Damon), I think he'd be a good fit for the Cubs if his price comes down any. Better than Julio Lugo or Joey Gathright, anyway.

And it never ends: Kevin Millwood to Seattle, Paul Byrd to replace him in Cleveland. Trevor Hoffman's name has also been mentioned in connection with the Indians. The Marlins sent Luis Castillo to the Twins and Paul Lo Duca to the Mets and are weighing offers for Juan Pierre. The Florida fire sale is, no way around it, embarrassing for baseball, but the Fish have done a better job than the last time around in securing promising prospects in their salary dumps: Yusmeiro Petit, Travis Bowyer, Gaby Hernandez. The very fact that there was a last time around, though, is pretty awful.

One kind of weird thing that's new on me: FOXSports.com in its AL offseason report cards indicates the Mariners are after Jason Jennings and/or Aaron Cook. Jennings, fine. He makes a lot of money for a Colorado pitcher and he's not getting any better. But the Rockies would be completely insane to deal Aaron Cook, the closest thing to an ace they've ever had and a relative bargain as an early arbitration-years player. Also, Seattle doesn't have anybody the Rockies want besides Yorvit Torrealba, who's not worth Cook or Jennings, and Felix Hernandez who I assure you is not for sale. Anyway Dayn Perry turns right around and in his NL report cards claims that Colorado has no interest in trading either of their starters, which begs the question of why exactly he brought it up in the first place.

One team to keep an eye on at the winter meetings is the Devil Rays, who are under new management and have a lot of chips to deal. Hopefully the evil spectre of Chuck LaMar won't haunt them into overplaying their hand and walking away with nothing from one of the hottest sellers' markets in recent memory. Another small-market story is developing in Milwaukee, where the smokescreens are already up regarding the status of Lyle Overbay. He's going somewhere, folks. The weirdest rumor involving Overbay that I've heard has him going to Boston for Matt Clement, which seems odd since Clement's contract is ludicrous and the Red Sox already have Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis to staff the infield corners. If Boston doesn't want to start Youkilis they should really trade him, because he's been ready to be an everyday player in the big leagues for two years now. Milwaukee fans still recovering from the three-headed Russell Branyan-Wes Helms-Jeff Cirillo monster at third would certainly welcome the Greek God of Walks appearing in those sassy retro uniforms, and it would free up TGTBATB fave Bill Hall to go back to his natural super-utility role.

This is but the first day of the meetings! Tomorrow will probably be crazier still. Yikes.

Meanwhile, the latest news on the Rockies is both good and bad. They're definitely talking to Byung-Hyun Kim, which is good. But they still want Shawn Estes, which is bad. Esteban Loaiza's contract has effectively removed mentions of Colorado in connection with Matt Morris. Oh well, that was a pipe dream. Cubs reliever Todd Wellemeyer is mentioned as a trade target, which is interesting. Wellemeyer is affordable and changes speeds well.

Hooray for Colorado losing 70-3 in the Big 12 Championship Game!

As for Dan O'Dowd's operations down in the bottom-feeder market, Felix Rodriguez and Jose Mesa are slightly more appealing options than the previously discussed Elmer Dessens and Shawn Estes, at the right price anyway. The Rockies are going to get some new catchers to look at, but whether they will be any better than the current crop is subject to some debate. I will duly note that the names floating at the moment are Josh Bard and Yorvit Torrealba; I don't have anything further to say on the subject. The Post also throws out the name of Phillies outfielder Jason Michaels, which is sort of funny because I traded for him in my Rockies MLB 2K5 season. He's another fourth outfielder/tweener kind of guy, which Colorado seriously has coming out of their ears at this point, but I guess he's cheaper and not much of a downgrade from Larry Bigbie, who seems as good as gone at this point. Frankly I think that Clint Hurdle would be best off sticking with Brad Hawpe and Matt Holliday at the corners, giving Cory Sullivan the centerfield job to lose, and maybe throwing Ryan Shealy into the mix as an outfielder in smaller road parks, a backup first baseman, and a DH in interleague games. The Rockies wasted a lot of playing time and money on Dustan Mohr last year, and it's really not necessary to go down that road again with a similar "established" veteran outfielder type.

I'm going to get back to doing my 40-man roster review soon. I'm glad Paul Konerko stayed with the White Sox. The Orioles are rapidly becoming the new joke team of the AL East with Tampa Bay's new dawn and the Blue Jays' sudden spendthriftiness. The Cubs are going to spend a lot of money and not get a whole lot better, I believe. Oakland's signing of Esteban Loaiza is a bit of a head-scratcher, but if they can get an absurd haul for Barry Zito like they got for Mark Mulder last year, they will win the AL West. Remember, Danny Haren was as good or better than Mulder last year, and the A's got useful reliever Kiko Calero and hotshot prospect Daric Barton in the trade as well. The Tim Hudson deal with Atlanta was nowhere near as good (Charles Thomas, Dan Meyer, Juan Cruz), but as Gwen Knapp notes, Billy Beane had far less leverage in that instance than he seemingly does with Zito. And there's still the possibility that Oakland could pull off a lower-wattage deal involving Kirk Saarloos and field a rotation of Zito, Joe Blanton, Haren, Loaiza, and Rich Harden. That's pretty good. You know the A's are going to get a bat somewhere, and the Loaiza signing won't make complete sense until we find out who that bat is going to be. (Not Mike Piazza, I hope.)

Who in the NL West has gotten better so far this offseason? Not the Padres (who are making a last-ditch effort to retain Brian Giles), not the Diamondbacks (who have to trade Javier Vasquez), not the Giants (who are beginning to resemble an old-timers' fantasy camp), and not the Dodgers (I don't even know where to start). Can the Rockies bash their way into the postseason by beating up on their weak division siblings at Coors? Is it worth spending a little more money to be a 78-win "division champion?" Man, I love the hot stove season. Particularly since my two first picks for my fantasy basketball league (Andrei Kirilenko and Michael Redd) are injured and my football team had their winning streak snapped last weekend. Curse you, Peyton Manning.

Since the early '90s, every major league team except for the Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees without one has been agitating for a new stadium. Bud Selig, for all you might want to say about his other qualities, has managed to turn major league baseball's antitrust exemption and relative scarcity into a hard and fast policy: if a city wants to attract (or keep) a team, public funds have to buy it a stadium. At the same time, new ownership groups have been selected not on on the basis of access to capital but on closeness to the existing cartel and willingness to work the established system. And so taxpayers have sprung for an ugly domed thing in Milwaukee that claimed several workmen's lives and yet still has a leaky roof. The public has tripled the value of the Pittsburgh franchise for its eventual sale while seeing no improvement whatsoever on the field. They've built a barn in Detroit nobody likes while leaving old, charming Tiger Stadium to rot, still standing less than a mile away. And although it's hardly a phenomenon unique to baseball, we've been subjected to stadium names that change more often than Reggie Sanders changes uniforms, all in an effort to prevent baseball's owners from having to pay any money whatsoever towards improving their own business's infrastructure. Comiskey to U.S. Cellular. Enron to Minute Maid. Bank One Ballpark to Chase Field. Joe Robbie Stadium to Pro Player Park. When does it all end?

The only team to finance its own park in the last 20 years is the Giants. It may be a coincidence, but Pac Bell Park -- or whatever it's called now, I guess nobody's perfect -- is by far the nicest of the new generation of quirky, asysmmetrical ballyards, as well as one of the most consistently filled. For their trouble San Francisco has received a black mark in the book of most other baseball owners, especially those still trying to find their free meal ticket in Minnesota, South Florida, Oakland, and elsewhere. Don't let the fans know it's possible to pay for your own ballpark and field a competitive team! That's like taking away our license to print money!

As for the Marlins, I wrote when the Rockies travelled there early on the season that they were only some $30 million away from getting their own flip-top baseball-only facility right next to the Orange Bowl. Now they're going to move over $30 million? Apparently so. And why wouldn't they, when some city -- likely Portland or Las Vegas -- will be more than willing to promise them that money and so much more? MLB hasn't quite reached the depths of the NBA, where certain owners move teams into situations where they know they have no hope of long-term success just to secure a few seasons of free rent and guaranteed minimum ticket sales. But look at the quagmire in Washington, D.C., where MLB is some four years behind schedule on finding a new ownership group for the former Expos. Are there groups with the capital to get a stadium built at least in part with private funds? Of course there are. Would baseball rather steer the team into the arms of a more cash-poor group who will guarantee not to rock the free money boat the current owners have sailing? You bet.

The Miami Herald's Dan Le Batard is playing the owners' tune when he blames the Marlins' failure on "the worst major-league city in North America." Hey, I can't blame Miami fans for staying the heck away from Pro Player, home of the only outfield fence ad in baseball that can be seen from outer space. I can't blame them for not coming back after the embarrassing '98 post-championship fire sale either. They're not one of the worst major-league cities on the continent, they're one of the first to get smart. If Las Vegas or Portland wants to pay for their own version of the Tigers or Pirates and watch 20 years of .500 ball in half-full (but extremely profitable) tax shelters, that's their business.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' new ownership is slashing ticket prices, loosening restrictions on outside food, and giving away parking spaces in an understanding that building a successful baseball franchise is not necessarily about ending up in the black every year. The Devil Rays, never close to the Marlins' (or even the Rockies') equal on the field, have it all over them when it comes to a business model.

If anyone still cares, Wayne Hagin, the broadcaster who went out of his way to disparage Todd Helton last spring, has lost his job with the Cardinals. The Cubs' comical overpaying of Scott Eyre should prove again the wisdom of Colorado's plans to extend Brian Fuentes' contract. Less wise would be giving anything other than a minor-league contract to 40-year-old Jose Mesa. Given the ridiculous prices that even relief specialists are receiving in the current free agent market and that save for Fuentes the Rockies assembled their entire bullpen from waiver claims last year, Dan O'Dowd would be wise to tread cautiously.

CBS SportsLine has offseason checklists for all of the NL West teams. Unfortunately Scott Miller resorts to the usual cruise control reporting that the national baseball media uses with the Rockies; it's "trade Todd Helton" this and "pitching at altitude" that. Plus he badmouths our Kims. Byung-Hyun and Sunny were our second and third best starters last year, thank you very much. Miller does stress continuity, which I approve of, but minus several points for the gratuitous Barmes/vension gag. A companion piece has nice things to say about Fuentes.

The Rockies seem to at least nominally still be in the running to acquire the services of Matt Morris, a useful starter whose price tag probably won't be out of control thanks to his injury history. They're competing (according to ESPN Insider) against the Royals and Mariners, both of whom should be significantly less competitive than Colorado next year, and Texas, the other place (besides here) where pitching goes to die. Morris is adjusting to life without a blazing fastball by concentrating on sinking stuff, and his double play and groundball/flyball numbers from last year look interesting. He'll give up homers but he hasn't walked too many recently. He's worth a look at the right price, in short. If the Rangers remain somewhat gunshy from the Chan Ho Park blooper signing, Colorado could sneak in there. If the Rockies were able to sign Morris and bring back Byung-Hyun Kim, that would mark the first and second times in franchise history that Colorado acquired an above-average starting pitcher as a free agent for a reasonable dollar figure. And you know we're all about moral victories around here.

I suppose I could give some links now about the Rockies' ongoing pursuit of Elmer Dessens, but who cares? Elmer Dessens? Wake me up if they decide to talk real money with Matt Morris.

No major Rockies news to report yet. They've talked informally to Paul DePodesta about taking on an advisory role, but DePo is wisely waiting to see how the market shakes out. The rumor sites duly list Colorado's interest in Matt Morris, but I'll believe that when I see it. If Morris's choices are really Seattle, Kansas City, and the Rockies as ESPN Insider claims, he might as well come here. (Speaking of the Mariners, is this Ichiro trade business for real, or as the Daily Quickie speculates, is it just the evil New York Media stirring up trouble again?) Paul Konerko will get his money somewhere, although the White Sox ought to be able to afford him. And our division rivals in Phoenix are going to lose one of their best pitchers.

More when we get those MVP announcements.

Huston Street is the man; it only took him half a season to build up a reputation as the second- or third-best closer in the American League. And that should be something teams looking to sign B.J. Ryan or Billy Wagner should pay attention to.

The Rockies' free-agent shopping list is out there and it's not pretty. There are more guys on here I am praying they don't sign than guys I would be happy to see them add. Neifi Perez? Shawn Estes? Terry Mulholland? Elmer Dessens? No, no, no, no. As a corollary to our already-established "better than Mike Esposito" rule, I'd like to introduce the related "better than Omar Quintanilla" rule. Dan O'Dowd, Neifi Perez is not better than Omar Quintanilla. Actually, after a quick glance at Esposito's hitting stats, I'm not sure he wouldn't be a more efficacious option as a backup shortstop. Aren't we trying to remake the image of the Colorado franchise here? How does bringing back guys who have already been bad for us to be bad some more help in this?

The one guy on the Post list whom we should have interest in is Byung-Hyun Kim, whose national reputation is still colored primarily by his remarkable 2001 postseason but was the Rockies' second most reliable starter in 2005. If Dan O'Dowd elects to sign Shawn Estes over BK, this page will be a Royals blog next year.

Now Epstein is leaving his job with the Red Sox, and the reason according to McAdam might have something to do with Lucchino going one too many times to the well on the Shoppach story. After once deflecting blame towards Byrnes to help Epstein, Lucchino's purposes were now served in his negotiations with Epstein over a new contract to make the young GM look bad. So Lucchino spread a story about his stepping in to save face for Epstein, Theo got wind of it, and basically said, "That's it." He'd had enough. The younger generation of baseball minds -- the Epsteins and Paul DePodestas -- have very little use for the P.R. games the wily old guys like to play. They're in it to win baseball games, or at least they thought they were.

Apparently Theo Epstein will take a year off to do social work with his brother, and good for him if that's the case. There are things more important than winning all the time, things more important than always seeming to have the upper hand. You have to wonder if Larry Lucchino appreciates that.

Well, according to the early returns on Ramirez...yes. The righthander started the season as a starter with AAA Columbus, where he gave up 32 hits and nine walks in 27 innings. That "earned" him a demotion to AA Trenton, where he continued to start and was 6-5 with a 3.84 ERA and an improved 1.28 WHIP. He reported to Colorado's Tulsa affiliate 7/28 and worked as a swingman. His ERA jumped back up to 5.33 (coincidentally the same number it had been in Columbus) and his WHIP trended back upwards. He's in the Arizona Fall League playing for Peoria, again as a swingman, and he's been no better, posting a 7.53 ERA in seven games (one start). The AFL is a notorious hitters' league but his WHIP is back near 2.00 and that's not good anywhere.

The good news about Ramirez is he's not super old (24) and wherever he goes, he strikes guys out when he's not getting pounded by them (a composite 8.27 K/9 on the year). Sporadically effective righthanded middle relievers, however, are just about the least valuable commodity in baseball. I haven't looked at Sierra's numbers yet (the dice haven't told me to), but unless he's pitching like Felix Hernandez the Rockies got out and out rooked by NYY.

Update: Tracy Ringolsby says that Colorado could be a possible landing place for ousted Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta. One word: yes. Do this! I promise, adding DePodesta's player evaluation acumen to O'Dowd's respected old-school scouting skills would do more to make the Rockies better than any possible free agent player signing you might care to name. Pull the trigger on this one, Dan! We Rockies fans accept that we don't sign superstar players any more, so give us a superstar front office guy.

Paul DePodesta only ran the Dodgers for two years. One of those years, they won a division title. This year, they managed to stay in contention (sort of) with an injury-ridden team that had only Jeff Kent, Oscar Robles, and eighteen guys named "Jason." OK, it shouldn't come as any surprise that J.D. Drew, DePodesta's big offseason signing, got hurt. But can you really criticize the man for declining to pay Adrian Beltre $64 million to be less valuable than So Taguchi? Or for trading notorious first-half player Paul Lo Duca for much-needed starting pitching? Whatever you want to make of DePodesta's big league moves, you can't judge a GM's overall impact in just two years. You can't make a judgement on any of the guys DePo drafted in that short a time. For what it's worth, the farm system's overall ranking from Baseball America went up from 14th in Dan Evans' last year (2003) to 2nd last preseason.

But if the Dodgers want to fire their young, dynamic guys and bring in retreads (Lasorda wants Pat Gillick and Bobby Valentine), that's their business. The Angels, who have been better run for a while and now also spend more money, will continue eroding their fanbase. Hey, it took Kenny Williams a few years to figure out what he wanted to do and get the guys he needed to do it. How long will the Dodgers get before Gillick "retires" again, then tries to run the franchise from the shadows as he attempted in Seattle? This all comes as great news for the Rockies, as a divisional rival with a glorious history, superior resources, and better-looking uniforms has basically defused itself for the rest of the decade. Right on.

Okay then. Sun-Woo "Sunny" Kim was picked up off waivers from Washington in August and was pressed into starting duty immediately for the makeup doubleheader against Florida August 8th. Kim had been pretty bad for the Nationals predominantly in a middle relief role but as soon as he got to Colorado his ERA began to trend downwards. How about that? Pretty much all of his stats improved upon joining the Rockies, including K/9 (6.41 from 5.22) and opponents' OPS (.728 from .853). I don't think this indicates that Kim possesses Reverse Coors ability so much as he just prefers starting to relieving. Thanks to injuries and Jamey Wright's sublime Jamey Wright-ness, Kim got to start for most of the balance of the season. He stayed good, peaking with a complete-game shutout win over the Giants at Coors on 9/24.

Kim, now 28, was signed out of South Korea by Boston in 1997. The Red Sox traded him to Montreal for Cliff Floyd in 2002, and he moved with the Expos when they became the Nationals. There's no accounting for why Sunny found pitcher-friendly RFK Stadium not to his liking (although public questionings from the cantankerous Frank Robinson likely did not help matters along) and acclimated so well to Coors, but now that he's here let's enjoy it. He's still in his arbitration period and should be a cheap, and therefore very appealing, rotation option for the Rockies. He's better than Mike Esposito, in any case.

The prospect guides aren't real excited about Kim' raw stuff, although he does mix a bunch of pitches (fastball, curve, slider, change) and must be doing something right as his strikeout rate is consistently decent. If there's one red flag in Kim's career, it's the inconsistent usage pattern, which could be either the problem or a symptom. He's likely to get a crack at a fourth starter spot with the 2006 Rockies, assuming he doesn't utterly crater in spring training. There are worse options, and for a team working on a budget such as Colorado's you have to be both creative and lucky to win. It didn't cost them anything to pick up Kim beyond the price of a waiver claim, and he'll make so little that they won't hesitate to let him go as easily as they brought him on. Kim isn't going to work super-deep into games regularly, but he's not afraid of Coors and he has a clean injury history. His dicey record as a middle reliever decreases his flexbility, but let's hope that's a bridge we won't have to cross.

Before we crunch the numbers on this very good pitcher, though, a news item about a very bad one: the Rockies confirm interest in signing Shawn Estes, most recently of Arizona. There's not much point in spending a lot of time on this. Shawn Estes is lousy. He's not worth the veterans' minimum, let alone whatever seven-figure salary some stupid team will lavish upon him. Let's not be that team, OK? Here's a rule of thumb for Colorado with regard to free agent starters. Is he better than Mike Esposito? Esposito will work for cheap and is not terrible. Shawn Estes is not better than Mike Esposito.

Hopefully, that unpleasantness is now behind us for good. On to Aaron Cook. Cook's line from last year: 7-2, 101 hits, 16 walks, 34 earned runs, 8 home runs, and 24 strikeouts in 83 1/3 innings pitched. Other than his first major league start of the year 7/30 against the Phillies, Cook was consistently the ace of the Colorado staff. The Rockies were 9-4 in his starts. Cook was never a big strikeout pitcher, but the key to his success in 2005 was control amazing for a player who missed nearly a full season.

Many experts say the secret to pitching at Coors Field is having stuff that sinks, and Cook has a sinker that's good at any altitude. When everything is working, his groundball to flyball ratio is more than 3 to 1. Aaron allows more than his fair share of hits (.301 opponents' BA in '05) but the combination of not giving up free passes, keeping the ball in the park, and coaxing double plays out of hitters led to a very respectable 3.67 ERA. Cook was actually slightly better at home (.750 OPS allowed) than on the road (.801). He must feel more confident at Coors, as he walked more than twice as many batters on the road as he did at home.

Never before in the history of the Colorado Rockies has there been a starting pitcher you could in good confidence recommend to a fantasy baseball owner. Well, next year, that all changes. Aaron Cook isn't going to win a strikeout crown, but his ERA will be strong and he could easily win 16 games. His injury was both freak and not arm-related (Cook had a rib removed to improve his circulation). The only thing to worry about is for a guy who gets so many ground balls, the Colorado infield defense could stand to be a whole lot better.

Here's a link you should all bookmark: the complete list of potential 2006 free agents. There are 206 of them, although at least a few (Roger Clemens, for example) are "free agents" in name only. This list includes Mike DeJean, who has already resigned with Colorado. There are very few exciting names here, and we've talked already about how paying millions for players with skill sets easily matched by minor league free agents is a poor use of resources indeed. There are a ton of ex-Rockies on the list if you examine it closely, which just goes to show how many lousy journeymen have briefly moved through Denver in their careers.

So how about our rookies? A FOXSports.com piece written from a fantasy baseball perspective is universally negative on the sophomore years of Garrett Atkins, Barmes, J.D. Closser, Jeff Francis, Hawpe, and Cory Sullivan. Probably fair. Barmes didn't get to prove whether he could sustain worthy starting shortstop stats all season because he got hurt, and he was pretty bad after his return. Francis really lost steam in the last third of the season, although as a Rockies pitcher he's pretty much automatically disqualified from fantasy consideration anyway. The rest of these guys, nationally at least, are perceived as placeholders or platoon players. I think Brad Hawpe if healthy has a good chance to be at least a league average starter, and you know I believe in Barmes, but Atkins and Sullivan are going to have to make big leaps. Closser's Rockies career is pretty much over, which is too bad -- I still think he could have learned to play a little defense if they'd just let him play.

Since we have plenty of offseason to work with, we're going to start going down the whole Rockies 40-man roster as it stands right now and look at each guy's contract status, future prospects, and ultimate role. I haven't decided where to start yet so if you have a favorite Gen-R baller, speak up for him. Many of the other Rockies blogs are doing similar work right about now, so I encourage you to peruse the "regular hits" roll over there to the left. Apparently Danny Ardoin has his supporters. Who knew? Personally if I had my pick of the World Series catchers I would take bad-fielding, good-hitting lefty A.J. Pierzynski over great-fielding, non-hitting Brad Ausmus any day of the week. But if there is anything this postseason has proved it's that there is no one formula to success. (Also, the Chicago defense at short, center, left, and third was fantastic. Perhaps the Rockies should play three OBP/speed centerfielders and try to get home runs from their infielders?)

Update: With the playoffs over, the Denver papers are writing about the Rockies for the first time in weeks. The Post breaks down Colorado's plans on the free agent market. Apparently the budget for signings in $9 million, which is considerably less than the money the team is saving not paying Shawn Chacon, Joe Kennedy, Preston Wilson, Denny Neagle, and Charles Johnson. Colorado will concentrate on signing relief pitchers, which seems somewhat reasonable considering how tight the markets for position players and starters are going to be. Oh, but here's some names to get excited about: Elmer Dessens, Jay Witasick (again), Scott Eyre, and Nate Field.

O'Dowd also would like to trade for a lefty specialist -- J.C. Romero and Damaso Marte are mentioned. Marte is intriguing, a talent who's fallen out of favor with Ozzie Guillen in Chicago. Marte was the last man out of the pen in Game 3 of the World Series, and Guillen had so little faith in him that he had starter Mark Buehrle warm up even with a two-run lead. (As it turned out, Guillen was right not to trust Marte, who put the tying run aboard, but Ozzie just had one of those postseasons where everything goes right.) How about a fifth starter? Shawn Estes, Brian Anderson, and Terry Mulholland (how is he not yet retired?) are the names there. Ewww. No mention of bringing back Byung-Hyun Kim, which would be the smart move. Shawn Estes? What, was Jamey Wright just too good?

Finally, Red Sox assistant GM Josh Byrnes, who antagonized O'Dowd with his mishandling of the Kelly Shoppach/Larry Bigbie trade, is to be named general manager of the Rockies' divisional rivals in Phoenix. Traditionally GMs don't deal with teams in their own division unless they absolutely have to, so this move hopefully makes it possible for Colorado to deal with Boston again while not really eliminating another possible trade partner. Could Theo Epstein sign an extension then as his first move under his new contract resurrect the Shoppach swap? The Rockies could sure use a two-way catcher.