Here’s why it never pays to ignore any team in baseball, even one as lowly as the Rockies: it’s a small, closed community. Reputations matter, and folks have very long memories indeed. What am I talking about? Well, remember the three-way Orioles-Red Sox-Rockies deal that fell apart on Boston’s end way back in July? At the time, it was reported that it was Boston assistant GM Josh Byrnes (now GM in Arizona) who was at fault for promising Colorado Kelly Shoppach and Adam Stern for Larry Bigbie. Now according to ESPN.com’s Sean McAdam, Sox CEO Larry Lucchino was simply using Byrnes as a scapegoat. It was the higher-ups who made Byrnes and GM Theo Epstein pull out of the deal, and at the time Byrnes was the one who had the least to lose by taking the blame. In conversations with Colorado’s management and the local media, Lucchino threw Byrnes under the bus so that Epstein’s reputation might remain clean enough for him to continue dealing with Colorado and the numerous organizations who hold Dan O’Dowd’s word in high esteem.

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, that was a fun month seeing how the other half lives (or to be more accurate, the other four-fifteenths). Now that the World Series is completed and a new champion has been crowned, it’s time to get back to the business of contemplating Colorado Rockies baseball. Will we be better in 2006? Well, regression to the mean suggests that it’s so. The simple fact that Colorado has a ton of young players helps too, as in general players tend to improve somewhat each of their first several years in the league. There’s always the health issue — the Rockies weren’t just untalented in ’05, they were also rather unlucky on the injury front. Name a good player that Colorado had the rights to at some point during last season, and there’s a good chance he spent considerable time on the disabled list. Here I am talking about Todd Helton, Shawn Chacon, Matt Holliday, Brad Hawpe, Jason Jennings, Preston Wilson, and of course, Clint Barmes.

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.

No, I’m not flip-flopping. I just wanted to make two points: first, the World Series is moving to Houston, which could mean either  the Astros’ salvation or Chicago’s final triumph; and second, I have a lot of cool Astros hats. As Paul Lukas writes, both of these teams have an illustrious history of uniform designs. Houston had the second-best home record in the majors. But guess who had the best overall road record? That’s right, the White Sox. An amusing controversy has broken out over whether Minute Maid Park’s roof will be open or closed for the Astros’ home games. It’s better than constant complaining about the umpires. Apparently some paramecium at Game 2 slapped Craig Biggio’s wife. Gee, I wonder why the White Sox have such a miserable national reputation?

Apparently the TV ratings from this series are on track to be the lowest ever; why exactly this is stumps me. If the White Sox sweep, it could be catastrophic indeed for Fox, not that they are much helping matters with their animated talking baseballs and brain-dead announcers. (I can’t believe I’m actually longing for the return of Lou Piniella, who’s at least entertainingly bad.) How come the whole country was excited for Boston’s first title since 1918 but no one seems to care about the possibility of Chicago’s first since 1917? All I can do is repeat the complaints that many smarter, more media-savvy observers have already made. Baseball is doing a crummy job marketing the best game in the universe. Their emphasis on hyping stars has really hurt the appeal of two balanced, hustling, team-oriented franchises in the World Series. And for the millionth time, baseball is meant to be played during the day. Why did the skies open in anger when the Cubs tried to play their first night game at Wrigley Field? Nature abhors night games. What’s more, how are parents around the U.S. supposed to introduce their kids to baseball if the games start half an hour before bedtime? By letting television dictate their scheduling, MLB is severely compromising the long-term growth of their sport. It’s the first thing that the real commissioner will address if we ever get one.

Roger Clemens will be available to start Game 5…unless he isn’t. There’s been some talk about how National League rules will favor Houston. But some disagree. Our favorite simulation at Baseball Prospectus lists Chicago’s chances of winning the Series at 81.5826%. Of course, they still have to play the games.

Dave Krieger has kind of a bizarre column up on the Rocky Mountain News site. I think he’s trying to ridicule the Colorado organization for not spending money hand over fist (since that’s worked so well for them in the past), but by going through the list of available free agents and dismissing them all as too expensive, he proves a point opposite to the one he’s trying to make. There’s really nobody on the free agent scene this year worth the dough they’re going to get. And since the big money teams are all going to be fighting over what second-rate talent is available, the cost for guys like A.J. Burnett or Johnny Damon is going to be outrageous.

Krieger’s claim that Hunter would "hit 30 points higher in front of Todd Helton" is totally unsubstantiated. Hunter would hit for a higher average with the Rockies…because of Coors. But he’s injury prone and was never that great offensively. The Yankees are going to trade for him and give him an outlandish extension, making the same mistake they made with Bernie Williams. Oh, those wacky Yankees.

And listen to some of these other names! Neifi Perez? Brad Ausmus? Eric Young? Jeff Cirillo? These are the exact kind of guys budget-conscious teams like the Rockies have no business getting involved with. Why pay two or three million dollars for Neifi Perez when Omar Quintanilla will do the same thing for the minimum? How is Jeff Cirillo better than Garrett Atkins? Does Brad Ausmus have magical powers of hypnotism that have convinced the entire world he’s not a mediocre player who owes his career longevity basically to inertia? The Rockies wasted money on Dustan Mohr and Desi Relaford last year, guys who took playing time away from the young players we need to evaluate and played so badly in the first half we couldn’t even flip them for interesting prospects at the deadline.

Oddly, Krieger fails to mention the one guy who does make a certain amount of sense for Colorado — erstwhile Padres backstop Ramon Hernandez. Hernandez won’t come cheap, but we’re not talking Ivan Rodriguez money here, despite the fact that Hernandez is now better both offensively and defensively than Pudge. A Danny Ardoin/Hernandez platoon would not be bad at all, assuming Dan O’Dowd can’t pry white whale Kelly Shoppach away from Boston. Ardoin could catch the younger pitchers and flaunt his vaunted game-calling and defensive skills. Hernandez could bring his bat into the games started by the vets. And J.D. Closser? Well, the dude never really got a chance. It’s a cold world.

If the Rockies could somehow get a superstar — a Vlad Guerrero or a Manny Ramirez or a Miguel Cabrera — and demurred because the cost was too great, now that would be cheap. Paying $3 or $4 million for a .250-hiting infielder when there’s half a dozen guys in the farm system who can do the same thing for essentially free is a good way to run an organization into the ground. Neifi Perez! That’ll be the day.