The Jennings Deal
I know it’s old news - but I figured something’s got to stir some life into this puppy, because we’ve been focusing all of our energy on the Broncos over at the FanHouse. Sam’s too stuck in this idea that we aren’t qualified to cover baseball, which may very well be true, but this blog did start with the Rockies - so I’m not ashamed to touch on the Jennings trade and some other Rockies news.
We all know how the trade went down: Jennings and the little-known Miguel Ascencio for CF Willy Taveras, and two pitching prospects in Jason Hirsch and Taylor Buchholz.
Rox Girl has a pretty good manifesto of the reactions of the rest of the blogosphere, which are very mixed. Personally, I’m not quite sure yet. Jennings was our best pitcher last year in a rotation that faded down the stretch, so losing him could leave the starting lineup too weak to win with. On top of that, Willy Taveras is good - but he’s not the answer in center field. However. everyone is saying Jason Hirsch is a top-quality prospect, and has the potential to be as good if not better than Jennings in a year or so, which makes me feel better about the whole thing.
What I’m mainly confused about is why we specifically targeted Taveras. As I understand it, Willy is a great defensive talent, but fair to midland at best offensively. I didn’t think we had a ton of problems defensively in center last year with Sully and Choo - the problem was that both of them were terrible at the plate. Taveras is young, so we could see some offensive improvement, but chances are he’ll only be a slight plus over Sullivan and Freeman with his career .278 average and okay .333 OBP. Still - it’s better than no improvement at a position that desperately needed help, so combined with Hirsch and Buchholz (who’s apparently completely unpredictable in terms of the future), I guess it’s a winning deal for the Rockies.
So now I think it’s fair to say that we’ve filled a lot of key holes without opening a bunch of new ones at the same time. The rotation might be a bit weaker than last year unless Uball or someone else from the farm system can step up at some point during the season, and the Rockies may still be missing one more pure power guy somewhere in the lineup. But the Rox did re-sign Kaz Matsui, which potentially solidifies both the leadoff (or #2 guy, with Taveras leading off?) and the second base spot. Meanwhile, Taveras sharing time with whoever proves to be better out of Choo and Sully certainly improves the center field position, and if Tulowitzki and Ianetta (though word on the street is that the Rockies are still pursuing other catching options) play well in the spring, those positions might be sealed as well.
All in all, in my opinion it’s so far been one of the better off seasons that I can remember, and certainly the most exciting since the Hampton/Neagle deals. If everything pans out well, this Rockies team could at least be competitive in next year’s NL West, something they only really did in the first half of 2006.
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