Two quick things: First of all there's a story on the Post site regarding the Rockies' master plan for next season. Depending on how you are inclined you could choose to read it as an early excuse for another noncompetitive team or a reasonable read on the state of the market. I for one don't see any particular reason for the Rockies to raise their payroll dramatically, but seeing the number of bad veteran contracts that come off the books after this year, it would be pretty disingenuous of them to let it flat-out plummet. If they spend their discretionary money on longer deals for the likes of Brian Fuentes, Mike DeJean, and Byung-Hyun Kim, that would be acceptable. It's not likely that the NL West will be this poor again in 2006, but Colorado should spend at least a little money on pitching just in case.

Also: although I'm not a fan of his music Billy Corgan's guest column on the Cubs over at the Chicago Tribune site is very readable and interesting. Corgan has a lot more insight than some of the regular Chicago press does on the subject of the Northsiders, who have had another exhausting season. I don't see how it would kill Billy to use capital letters, though.