Breaking up the Rox

Edit2Eat · **Posted:** Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:12 am

When was the last time the commissioner nixed a trade on the basis of league competitiveness?
First, the Rockies trade a serviceable starter for a couple of minor league prospects who, although on the Yanks' 40-man roster, don't exactly elicit optimism from fans.
Now, they've traded Eric Byrnes, severely miscast in hitting third and cleanup for the punchless purple yet a bona fide major league outfielder, for Larry Bigbie. The Sun is reporting the Rox are going to turn around and trade Bigbie to the Red Sox for a minor league catcher.
So, in sum, the deal is: opening day starter and eighth-inning set-up man (Joe Kennedy and Jay Witasick) for a minor league catcher, with Eric Byrnes and Larry Bigbie as movable parts in this four-team deal.
Just wait. Todd Helton for Jay Gibbons can't be too far behind.

wordygurdy · **Posted:** Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:41 am

You know, I don't pay that close attention to the National League.

But I have to say, I don't see how the Rockies will ever be a contending baseball team with the high altitude and pitchers unable to control their offerings with any kind of consistency. I think the one year they made the playoffs was an anomaly.

Balls go further there when hit. Outfielders get worn out over the course of 81 games from having to exert themselves by chasing down balls at altitude. Pitchers have to throw more and more pitches to get three outs, and the cumulative effects of those factors combine to wear down pitchers over the course of the season. Look at all the pitchers who have gone there in recent years and floundered--Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle (who, granted, wasn't that great even at sea level) and the aforementioned Jay Witasick among them. After Hampton's experience in particular, I don't know why any pitcher would sign with the Rockies.

Because of the altitude, you have to seriously discount the stats of hitters who play in Colorado full time, which makes them almost irrelevant in discussions of all-time great players. Todd Helton, for example, is a .257 hitter on the road, .331 at home. Other Rockies hitters have similar away/home splits.

I think putting a major league team in Colorado was a mistake, just as it was to put two teams in Florida.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:47 pm

Another problem of pitching at high altitude, as in Denver, is that breaking pitches supposedly don't break as sharply.

I don't think commissioners should veto trades made out of stupidity. Those made purely to make money or to help the other team more than your own, perhaps.

argyle · **Joined:** Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:27 pm **Posts:** 40

I saw the title of this thread and thought it was about the team in Brockton, Mass.

Maybe the Rockies could use Oil Can Boyd?

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:04 am

wordygurdy wrote:

I think putting a major league team in Colorado was a mistake, just as it was to put two teams in Florida.

It's a shame that altitude makes it so hard to play baseball in Denver, because I've gotten the impression that there is strong baseball interest in the area that would support a team if only that team were decent. I've met some very avid Rockies fans over the years. If they could find a way to make the game more playable there (perhaps a very large, deep, cavernous pitcher's park with lots of foul territory might help), I think that team could thrive.

I feel quite differently about Florida, a state I lived in for nine years without ever meeting a true blue Marlins or Devil Rays fan. Sure, I met people who went to games here and there (and I saw a fair number of games at Tropicana Field myself), but passion for either franchise is distinctly lacking.

The "Florida native" is an elusive subspecies of humanity, and most Florida natives are too obsessed with football to pay attention to baseball. Most baseball fans in Florida are transplants who still root for their old teams (as I was when I lived there), and you can't expect the Devil Rays to succeed just by drawing Yankees and Red Sox fans when their teams come to town. Even if they could, it's an insult to the game to have a franchise subsist as a straw man for visitors to beat on.

As for the Marlins, a team that can't build a fan base despite winning two World Series in its first decade of existence clearly has no future at all, and says a lot about the state's total lack of an appetite for regular-season baseball.

So I think a fix for Colorado is possible, but I think it was a mistake to put one major league team in Florida, let alone two. Bud Selig is living in denial if he still truly believes that MLB has a future down there outside of spring training.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:25 pm

Denver had a great history of supporting a AAA team in the Pacific Coast League, playing in Mile High Stadium.

The PCL always had a history of players racking up incredible power numbers because several teams (Dodgers in Albuquerque?) played at high altitude.

Florida is full of baseball fans, but that's not enough to make many care about these teams.

The Marlins won their World Series by shrewdly collecting players for the short run, then selling them off. Their stadium was built for football. The theory was that the Latin population would support the team, but the way the team is run--with few players staying and success being intermittent--no loyalty has developed. And it would take several consecutive seasons to eat into the area's heavy preference for football.

Tampa/St. Pete was used for decades by owners who demanded favors from their cities. "Build us a stadium or we'll move to Florida," they'd threaten.
Well, the area got a team, but it's never been good. Playing inside the dome might help against the heat, humidity and showers, but the team has always stunk and apparently always well under its current leadership, so few turn out. Maybe people went to the Astrodome and even SkyDome when they were new just to see the place, but I'm guessing the Devil Rays' stadium is no treat.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:06 pm

I actually like Tropicana Field, as far as domed stadiums go (and a stadium in Tampa Bay must be domed, given that baseball season substantially overlaps with hurricane season and the area is the most prone to thunderstorms of any populous area on Earth). The Trop gets a bad rap mainly from people who've seen it on television and never been there. It has comfortable, clean seats, wide aisles, a nice roof that creates an illusion of sunshine, and the best concessions options of any stadium I've visited in any sport.

The team and the market are the problem. The venue is fine.

As for the Marlins, they didn't have a fire sale after their 2003 World Series title, and the fans still deserted. Even when they're good, the fans don't show for anything but the World Series itself. I have absolutely no reason to believe that a new stadium and better ownership will improve anything. Miami simply doesn't want to support a team and doesn't deserve one. Move them.

And turning again to the Rockies, I think part of the PCL success is probably that people EXPECT bad pitching in the minors. There's a general consensus that the biggest difference between the minors and the majors is the quality of pitching, and so the Rockies will not be able to build a fan base around great hitting and lousy pitching the way a Triple-A team can.

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