Here's the problem with these trade "rumors." Jon Heyman, who is one my favorite baseball "insiders" (and I mean that seriously, he's good) posted this article about the Boston Red Sox aggressively pursuing Ubaldo. He opens by saying that "it now seems more likely" that the Rockies will move him just because the Red Sox are now also in the sweepstakes.
Huh? Isn't it just as likely that all that means is there's one more team not willing to meet the Rockies' high demands? Somehow it has become acceptable to make this kind of jump and call it reporting. And like I said, Jon Heyman is much more reliable than others.
Tom Verducci's Flawed Argument
Verducci argues that the Colorado front office should note the failures of their previous inning-eating pitchers and move Ubaldo before he follows that trend. He presents a chart with the ten Rockies pitchers who have thrown 500+ innings and the injuries that have been their decline. His argument says that the exhausting toll it takes on a pitcher to be a work horse in Coors Field all but guarantees a premature regression.
The problem is none of these pitchers are anywhere near Ubaldo's talent level or relevance to a successful franchise. Look at these names, Rockies fans: Shawn Chacon, Armando Reynoso, Kevin Ritz, Jamey Wright, Pedro Astacio. In the case of Chacon and John Thomson, the so-called "toll" it took was the minor leagues and retirement, respectively. Also, less than half of the pitchers on the list pitched with the humidor.
The toll on a pitcher like Kevin Ritz or Armando Reynoso was different because of Coors Field. In a game that was 9-5 in the 3rd inning, the Rockies needed those guys to take the bullet and eat 6 innings to save the bullpen. And they were asked to do that on multiple occasions on a homestand, let alone a season.
That was then, and this is now. The burden on Ubaldo as the team's ace was completely different. He was on a team of underachievers and he was asked to do too much to carry them. If anything, part of this burden was their underachieving offense. It has little or nothing to do with his home ballpark, and yet a national writer like Verducci cannot help but still try to make it about Coors Field.
Troy Renck gets cranky and then gets confusing
Look, I absolutely love Troy Renck's coverage of the Rockies. He's honest, he makes it understandable for fans, and he's consistent. But I think the trade deadline has thrown him off his game a bit.
First of all, he has a nasty habit of snapping at his Twitter followers for asking a question he already answered. Like last night, when he tweeted: "Not looking to get into 1000th hypotheticals here or twitter war...So please read my timeline before shooting off tweets." Those who follow him know he does this often. He might as well put a lot of !!!! at the end of them or type in all caps.
You could just ignore them, right Troy? Remember the distinction - there's a reason we're fans and a reason you're a baseball writer. So if some guy on his lunch break does not read every one of your last 50 tweets (horrors!) and then asks a repeat question (GASP!!!)...just let it go, man. No need to call us out for being bad twitterers (yep, I went there).
And then there's this. Two articles from Renck went up on 7/28/11. One was titled: "Only way to shake up Rockies is trading Ubaldo Jimenez." The second: "Rockies don't have to deal Jimenez."
I get it. There's reasons for each article, they're about separate issues, there's a lot of nuance and fluiditiy in this situation. But he has to understand that looks silly, right?
The Full Links
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/baseball/mlb/07/29/ubaldo.jimenez.heyman/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a4&eref=sihp
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/07/29/ubaldo.jimenez/index.html?sct=mlb_t11_a3
http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_18573085
http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_18564281
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