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Stepping Back from the Edge of Panic
2008-05-22 22:20
by Mark T.R. Donohue

A bit back I used the title "This Team Is Not Interesting," and I regret doing so now. All baseball teams are interesting in some way or another, and it will take close observation to figure what it is about this year's Rockies.

It might be Greg Reynolds, something I ought to have pointed out when I attended his start against the Twins. He didn't allow a run in that game, and was pulled after a reasonable number of pitches and innings. Should Reynolds be in the big leagues at all? I've been wondering that since he came up and his performance in each start makes the question less and less relevant. I never should have waited to have brought it up until now.

The big issue for Reynolds won't be just that his pitch counts are monitored closely but also that he doesn't end up jumping up in innings pitched a large amount. How many innings did Greg throw in the minors the last two years? Well... 48 and 50. Jumping more than 40 innings one year to the next is considered a red flag, and Reynolds will fly past that if he stays in the Rockies' rotation all year.

Could Clint Hurdle move Reynolds into the bullpen as other Rockies starting candidates return from injury, to protect the rookie's future after 2007? Colorado could use the help there too, and it's not as if it's worth risking their highest-slotted draft pick ever for the sake of a few extra wins in a lost season. Might be hard to take the second-best starter in the rotation out of it, though.

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