Let's be honest: The rotation for the Colorado Rockies in 2008 was not very good. Or not even good. Jeff Francis didn't build on his strong 2007 campaign; Ubaldo Jimenez struggled for the first half of the season; Jorge De La Rosa was maddeningly inconsistent until the last few weeks of the season; Franklin Morales didn't carry over any of his late-season success from 2007; 2006 1st-round pick Greg Reynolds failed to show he was ready for the bigs; and the experiment known as Mark Redman, predictably, didn't work.

But there was some good. Ubaldo Jimenez turned into a reliable and consistent pitcher during the second half of the season; Jorge De La Rosa transformed himself into almost a given in the rotation for 2008; and we saw Purple Row's 2008 Pitcher of the Year in Aaron Cook finally have that breakthrough season. There aren't many reasons to open this up to voting. No starter was more consistent or better than Cook.

In his third full season as a starter for the Rockies, Aaron Cook posted a sub-4 ERA (2005's 3.67 was better, but he did that in 13 starts after coming back from the life-threatening injury he suffered in 2004). The NL's ERA was 4.64. 

Cook's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 3.80, which was expected at 4.23. FIP, basically, measures what a pitcher is specifically responsible for, regardless of what his fielders did behind him. 2008 is only the second time Cook's FIP has been lower than his ERA. The other time was in 2006 when Cook had that 9-15 season.  Another stat to look at: Cook's home runs as a percent of outfield fly balls, or HR/F, was 8.1%. The average percentage is between 11% and 12%. Being able to keep that percentage that low will be a tough thing to do.

While the Colorado Rockies aren't playing October baseball, six Rockies prospects are currently playing baseball for the Honolulu Sharks in Hawaii. Those six are pitchers Connor and Andy Graham and David Patton and position players Lars Davis (C), Darin Holcomb (3B), and Mike Mitchell (OF).

Here's how the pitchers have done so far (play began on September 28):

And now the position players:

The Arizona Fall League begins tomorrow. Rockies prospects are pitchers Shane Lindsay, Ryan Mattheus, Chaz Roe, and Casey Weathers and position players Mike McKenry (C), Chris Nelson (SS), and Eric Young, Jr. (listed as OF). They'll play for the Phoenix Desert Dogs.

Casey Weathers should use this time as a tuneup for competing for a roster on the major league team come February and March. I'd also like to see Ryan Mattheus have a strong campaign in order to compete for a spot in the bullpen this spring. I'm not saying he'll make it at the start of the season, but Mattheus has to be better than some of the guys who were thrown out there this past season. Also, let's see what Chris Nelson can do after a disappointing year. The AFL is usually a good place to pick things up with the bat, so take that however you want to.

Free7694 has graciously offered his help in remembering Rocktober. He should check in soon with an entry on Game 3 of the NLDS.

Two of our opponents from the 2007 postseason are playing today. Well, one plays tonight and the other is already playing. Yovani Gallardo faces Cole Hamels, who starts a Phillies postseason for the second year in a row, in the first game between the Brewers and the Phillies.

We have a hub for all the MLB postseason happenings:

And be prepared to be bombarded with ads for Frank TV while watching the games on TBS. Joy.

Welcome to the most important day in Colorado Rockies' history since the first pitch was thrown to a Rockies batter! With a little help from the Tony Gwynn, Jr. and the Milwaukee Brewers against the San Diego Padres over the weekend and the Rockies' will to win the final two games against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rockies and Padres had to settle things in Denver to determine the Wild Card winner.

Here's last year's Rockpile. I don't recall why I was doing the Rockpile that day, since I only started doing Mondays in the middle of this July. The first of my three comments in that entry makes some more sense if you've read the first entry in this series.

Anyway, the anticipation was enormous. Winner takes the wild card and a trip to the postseason. Lose, in the Rockies' case, and see those last weeks of September be for naught. Oh, and it would be the first time in 2007 that the Rockies were on a national broadcast. Nothing like losing to millions of eyes glued to a TV screen for your first national TV appearance all season.

I thought I was going to miss the first hour of the game because I had class from 6:30-8:10 (ET, of course), but when I arrived at the room my class was held in there was a cancelled note on the door. That surely had to be a sign of something good happening later that night.

We waited.

Use this entry to discuss everything leading up to the game. Later in the day I'll have an entry for the game itself and quote some comments from the game thread. After that we'll have the video of the most important play in Rockies' history up.

No way this one lives up to or surpasses last year's play-in game.

It's time to give out Purple Row's end of the year awards  for the Colorado Rockies, and we'll start with the relievers this year. There are only three choices here:

Who expected Taylor Buchholz to be this good for us this year? After an uncertain (and barely seen) role with the Rockies in 2007, Buchholz became the key reliever for the Rockies in bridging the gap to the closer. With Fuentes likely to depart, Bucky may have a chance to show his wares for the closer role.

Brian Fuentes entered the 2008 season as the 8th-inning guy, but after Manny Corpas's struggles, Fuentes returned to his old role. He posted career bests in ERA and WHIP and tied for his second-most number of Ks in a season.

This vote really comes down to the first two players, but Jason Grilli was pretty good for the Rockies this season. A few too many walks for my taste, but a solid season all around.

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The 2009 season will start today for the Rockies with a face-to-face meeting between Dan O'Dowd and Clint Hurdle. We have the entire offseason to discuss what should be or should have been done for the Rockies to get back on track (like maybe trading Torrealba?). Today, I just want to thank everyone who's stopped by and visited Purple Row throughout the season. We've broken almost all of our previous statisitical records for visits each month. The only exceptions being this September and the coming October. We had 50,799 visitors during the October run and it will be hard to match that again. With the way the September has gone, it's easy to understand why we won't crack 20,000 visitors. But during the season we went over 500,000 visitors and 2,000,000 page views.

So, keep on coming back before the 2009 season starts. We're reliving Rocktober, following the 2008 postseason, examining the players in-depth, and looking at what should be done in the coming weeks and months. Before we know it, baseball will be back.