Power Pros Forum

November 3rd, 2007

Gilbert Harris parked his car outside of his Denver apartment which he called home after a long day at work. The organization had been buzzing ever since the Rockies had won the NL Pennant last season, only to be swept by the Red Sox in the World Series. Everyone was excited for the promising 2008 campaign, which would give the team another shot at a championship. So, naturally, there was a lot of work to be done, even though it was the off-season... for the players.

As Gil fiddled with the lock and eventually opened the door, he stopped to admire the Denver Zephyrs team photo from 1992, his last year with the team, and also the last year the team played in Denver. When the team moved to New Orleans, Gil decided it was time to move on from playing baseball. At the time, he was 28 years old, which made him... 43 years old now.

"Gosh..." he muttered to himself, as he slipped out of his work clothes and into something more comfortable.

Since being hired by the Rockies before the team's first season, he had held a number of jobs. It started as an assistant scout, which entailed traveling the Western U.S. watching minor league games, and scouting for possible future big league players. After a few years, the travelling began to wear on Gil, so he requested to be moved to a new position. He ended up bouncing around a couple of jobs, all with Colorado, before settling in as an assistant in the Baseball Operations department. It was a job he enjoyed, and hoped to keep moving up the ladder in that area.

After starting his dinner of left-over lasagna, Gil's cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He mumbled a few choice words as he struggled to get the phone out of his pocket without having to stand up. He finished chewing, and answered the phone.

"Hello?" he said, in a slightly frustrated tone.
"Gil, you're home now, right?" asked the man on the other end, who Gil recognized as his co-worker and fellow former minor leaguer, Domingo Ortiz.
"Uh yeah. I just started eating, why?""
"Dude, you have to turn on ESPN right now."
"Why?" asked Gil, as he was very confused.
"I... I can't man, just turn it on..."
"Wha-" Gil started, but before he could continue, Domingo ended the call.

"What the hell, Ortiz..." Gil said to himself as he picked up his plate of lasagna and carried it into the living room, where he turned on the TV and flipped it to ESPN just in time to catch the beginning of the 7:00 airing of SportsCenter.

The show lead off with an earth-shattering story, as the anchor started;

"Breaking news at this hour on SportsCenter. We have just learned that Colorado Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd has passed away at the very young age of 48 due to what is thought to have been a heart attack. After staying in bed all day due to what he and his wife thought was an illness, O'Dowd's wife drove him to the nearby University of Colorado Hospital after O'Dowd began experiencing severe chest pain and nearly passed out. After arriving at the doctor, he was pronounced dead after little over an hour. Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and to everyone in the Colorado Rockies organization and the world of baseball. We will have more details coming up after the break."

"Oh my God..." was all Gil could mutter.

I mean, uhh, gold star

Lel, okay then...

You jackin my team, brah?

This forum ain't big enough for two Rockies logs.

I'll make another

YES!!!! A NEW POWER PROS LOG!!!!

That's a lot of excitement

After a rather rushed GM search, and a crazy couple of weeks for Gilbert, he had been hired as the new GM of the Colorado Rockies. It was a surprise move for many, but Gilbert had rubbed a lot of people the right way(not sexually), and ended up with a lot of supporters who ranked highly in the franchise. After a couple of interviews, apparently Gil had convinced them that he was the right man for the job, and he hesitantly took it. After all, Gil did not want to have the pressure put upon him of being the GM, but he knew the team needed a good GM and he knew he could do the job well.

------------

March 26th, 2008
Gil was incredibly nervous. He had barely slept all night, instead watching the minutes drag by on the alarm clock next to his bed. As he watched the clock finally hit 6:30 a.m., the alarm sounded, and Gil shot up to quickly shut it off. He let out a sigh, and began to get ready.

"Well," he thought. "Today is the big day."

The big day for Gil, of course, was him being officially introduced as the new Rockies GM at a press conference. It didn't take him long to get ready, and he was in the press conference room by 8:00, 45 minutes before the ceremony(of sorts) was set to start. Gil sat and twiddled his thumbs, anxiously watching the room fill up with Rockies personnel and reporters alike. Finally, 8:45 struck and the cameras began rolling. Co-owner Charlie Monfort stepped up to the podium to begin the introduction.

"Good morning, everyone. I would just like to start off saying that we were and still are deeply saddened by the passing of Dan, our previous GM. Our prayers still go out to his family. Here in the front office, we have had a hard time adjusting to business and life without him, but as the quote goes; "Only the good die young."

Here, Charlie paused for a few seconds to gather himself.

"However, today is not about Dan. Today is about the start of a new era for us here at the Rockies. It is about our new GM, Mr. Gilbert Harris. Gil, come on up." he said with a smile.

Gil sheepishly walked up and shook the hand of Charlie. Charlie sat down, leaving Gil to face the press.

"Uh..." Gil stammered. "I would just like to thank Mr. Monfort and everyone else here with the Rockies for giving me the chance to prove myself as GM... I wasn't sure I wanted to do this, but they convinced me that it was for the best of the team, and thus I was forced to agree." Gil said with a smirk. "However, before we get too far into this, I would also like to pay my respects towards Mr. O'Dowd. I obviously wasn't around him as much as others, but I was around him enough to learn this; He was a great man, and always seemed to be in a good mood. He had one of those infectious personalities. It was always hard to seem angry or upset around him, no matter how bad your day was going. He will be sorely missed and I would like to extend my deepest sympathy towards his family."

After this, Gil also had to stop and collect himself, as he had started to tear up. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat and said;

"So, uh, let the questioning begin."

A short lady sitting at the front of the crowd lead off with, "How do you plan to build this team towards winning a championship?"

Gil thought for a couple of seconds, then answered. "Well, obviously most of the pieces are in place for this team, after reaching the World Series last year. We are loaded with tons of offensive talent, young, middle-aged, and old. I think that hitting will be a key to build around for us, with the core of the team that is here and also factoring in the park that we play half of our games in. The conditions at Coors greatly favors hitters, and so I think that we should use that to our advantage and build our team around hitters. I would imagine that these conditions will also help us recruit hitters from free agency, because what hitter doesn't want to play 81 games a year at Coors? Imagine how that can help their numbers, which in turn, helps the team's numbers."

An older looking bald man asked the next question. "Does that mean that pitching isn't important to you"

With a chuckle, Gil began, "Now, I didn't say that. I think that it will be hard for pitchers to put up good numbers playing for us, so in a way, yes I suppose. I don't plan to acquire the best rotation in the league. I think we should focus our money on hitting, while filling our rotation and bullpen with bargains, who produce, but will not break our bank. However, I do know how important pitching is, especially when you are talking about playing into October."

Another reporter asked, "What are your goals coming into this job?"

Gil replied, "Win a few championships."

This garnered a few light chuckles from the crowd, along with a smile from Gil. He then elaborated,

"I want to turn the Rockies into the next dynasty. Sort of like the Yankees, but minus the haters."

This also got a few chuckles.

"I think we have the building blocks that allow us to accomplish this. We have a plethora of relatively young, good hitters who have the potential to produce runs for a championship caliber team. If the pitching comes around, I think we can do it. However, it won't be easy."

------------

After answering a few more questions, Gil escaped and went back to his apartment. Even though his paycheck had drastically increased, he couldn't bring himself to move out of his nice little apartment. He ordered some Domino's pizza, and turned on ESPN while he waited for it to be delivered. They were dissecting every word of his introductory press conference on Baseball Tonight. The panel agreed that Gil's comments were over-confident for a team that had gotten into the playoffs by winning game 163 the previous year, and had no real track record of success.

"We'll just have to prove them wrong." Gil said with a confident smile.

You just stick to the Gunmen. Because that's a really good log.


At least someone is pumped.

After a decent Spring Training, Gil got together with Clint Hurdle and the rest of the Rockies coaches to decide on the 25 man roster, and to gather a basic idea on starting lineups and the rotation/bullpen roles. After a few hours, they were done.

2008 Colorado Rockies Lineup
1. CF Willy Taveras (BBT9500)
2. SS Troy Tulowitzki (GoTwins)
3. LF Matt Holliday (BBT9500)
4. 1B Todd Helton (GoTwins)
5. 3B Garrett Atkins (PP27)
6. RF Brad Hawpe (PP27)
7. C Yorvit Torrealba
8. 2B Clint Barmes (Zero)
9. PITCHER

Bench-
C Chris Iannetta
CF Scott Posednik
OF Ryan Spilborghs(will be used as DH and bat 7th)
OF Great Buck

2008 Colorado Rockies Rotation
1. Aaron Cook
2. Jeff Francis
3. Ubaldo Jimenez
4. Kip Wells
5. Franklin Morales

Swing Man- Mark Redman
Middle Reliever- Great Clark (Zero)
Jason Grilli
Luis Vizcaino
Ryan Speier
Manny Corpas
Set-Up- Taylor Buchholz
Closer- Brian Fuentes

Aaron Cook is your number one starter? What is this, 2008?

March 31st, 2008

Before Gil knew it, it was March 31st, or Opening Day in the baseball world. The Rockies were in St. Louis to take on the Cardinals, so Gil had planned a small party in his office to watch the game on TV. Before the team left for St. Louis, Gil had a team meeting in the locker room to wish them all luck this year. They were thankful, and extremely pleased by all of the confidence Gil had in them.

Gilbert spent the rest of the day impatiently waiting for the game to start at 6:05 p.m., local time.

How dare you, how daaaaaarrrreeee you say such a thing

Why isn't Spilly your second baseman?

Colorado Rockies(0-1) @ St. Louis Cardinals(1-0)
March 31st, 2008- The Rockies lost a heart-breaker in an extra-innings thriller on Opening Day 2008. Aaron Cook got the nod for the Rockies, going 10 strong innings before being pulled. However, he did not register a single strikeout among those 30 outs. Braden Looper was equally as dominant for the Cardinals, going 9 innings. Aaron Cook got down early by giving up a 2 run dinger to Troy Glaus in the bottom of the 2nd. Rick Ankiel tacked on another for the Cardinals in the 4th with an RBI single to give them a 3-0 lead. Troy Tulowitzki started the 5th with a single for Colorado, followed by a 2 run bomb by Matt Holliday to dead center, making the score 2-3, Cardinals in front. Garrett Atkins pulled a low change-up over the left field wall in the 7th for a solo homer to tie the game at 3-3. In the top of the 9th, Matt Holliday nearly hit his second home run of the day, but it was caught at the wall by Skip Schumaker. Aaron Cook was excellent after the 4th, not allowing another run, but had to be pulled after the 10th inning. Manny Corpas was brought on in relief, and gave up a single to Albert Pujols. After getting Chris Duncan to line out, Troy Glaus hit his second homer of the day, a 2 run walk-off, to hand the Rockies a 3-5 loss, in 11 innings.

3
5

W: Springer(1-0) | L: Corpas(0-1) | S: None | HR: Glaus(1,2), Holliday(1), Atkins(1)

Taveras- 1-6, 2B, .167
Tulowitzki- 1-5, R, .200
Holliday- 3-5, 2B, HR, 2 RBI, R, .600
Helton- 2-5, .400
Atkins- 2-5, HR, RBI, R, K, .400
Hawpe- 1-5, K .200
Torrealba- 2-5, 2B, K, DP, .400
Barmes- 2-5, .400
Cook- 0-3, SH, .000
* Spilborghs- 0-1, .000

Cook- 10 IP, 8 H, 0 K's, 3 ER, 2.70 ERA
Corpas- 1/3 IP, 2 H, 0 K's, 2 ER, 54.00 ERA


C. Duncan- 2-5, 2 R
Glaus- 3-5, 2 HR's, 2 RBI, 2 R
Looper- 9 IP, 13 H, 1 K, 3 ER, 3.00 ERA