What does this have to with the Rockies? Nothing really, but the Pujols situation is baseball’s biggest story and I thought it merited a little discussion.

Tony La Russa thinks the Players’ Union is messing up the process.

Okay, on to the very stable Rockies…

The other day, I wrote about the risk the Rockies are taking with Iannetta. Jim Armstrong gives us a little insight on how Iannetta is handling the pressure.

Ubaldo spent some time in Europe this off-season and enjoyed the anonymity he experienced overseas. Sounds like it was a pretty cool trip. At the end of the article, Ubaldo guaranteed 20 wins this year. Hells yeah!

Hammel Time!

Jason Hammel discovered acupuncture this winter. With everyone focusing on the team’s other starters, Hammel has been a bit of a side note this off-season, but it sounds like he is primed for a big year.

Matt Daley gives us a video tour of the Rockies’ new spring clubhouse.

Here is another video of the pitchers and catchers going through hurdles and cones. Interestingly, Armstrong thinks a two second clip of Wilin Rosario jogging through some cones gives us a good picture of how the young catcher’s recovery from knee surgery is going.

The Rox have new spring training jerseys this year. I’ll be ordering mine this week.

Right now, Jim Tracy and company are limiting the Rockies’ bullpen sessions to thirty pitches. I hate pitch counts; I’m just putting that out there.

Finally, Thomas Harding wrote a great piece about Rockies’ player development assistant, Walter Sylvester. Sylvester might be my hero.

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A month later, when the Rockies first became interested in Young, I basically wrote the same thing that Mitch said. Turns out that, for the first time in Mitch’s life, he had formed an objective opinion about sports. Apparently, it is a popular belief because the Rangers are ready to dump Young, even if it means paying a significant portion of his salary while he plays for another team.

If he weren’t guaranteed $50M over the next three seasons, I might feel sorry for Young. As a career Ranger, Mike has endured years of losing and has been forced to move from second to short to third and now to the bench. Despite constantly changing positions, Young has made six All-Star teams and is a career .300 hitter. For several seasons in the last decade, he was basically Texas’s only bright spot. Now that the franchise has emerged from the depths of baseball hell, they want nothing more to do with Mike Young. It reminds me of when Roger Sterling dumped Mona for Jane. It is a really crappy way to treat someone that carried the franchise for so many years.

Adrian Beltre and Nolan Ryan discuss the upcoming season, Photo Courtesy of Lionsgate Publicity

Texas’s desire to replace Young with Adrian Beltre is understandable. At least during contract years, Beltre is an elite third baseman. However, it’s interesting that the Rangers don’t want Mike as their DH. For whatever reason, they think Mike Napoli will be a better option. That is quite a stretch.

Young, always one to take the high road, has had little to say about the Rangers’ off-season activity, but he has to be pissed. According to reports, he didn’t attend the Rangers’ yearly banquet because of the flu. It would be unfair of me to allege that his illness wasn’t legitimate, but Young’s absence from the AL Champ’s banquet does raise an eye-brow. His unhappiness is probably why the Rangers are suddenly dead set on getting rid of him.
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