The Colorado Rockies may be on to something with their recent transacions.
I'm going to suggest a radical theory; maybe the Colorado Rockies organization is being run by geniuses.
Here is another one; maybe they've been reading RhosIslandRoxFan's Drag Factor charts.
I would argue that they need a better Public Relations approach, and that most of what has been said by the team regarding the recent maneuvering has been somewhere on the spectrum from insulting to inaccurate. I'm on the record about the Dexter Fowler "character"comment being unbecoming of the team - no matter how true they may or may not be - but more specifically, I think lines like"not a salary dump" and "addition by subtraction" are both undercutting the moves the Rockies are making as club.
While some truth rings in both statements, I think this is exactly the opposite way the Rockies should be selling these moves to their fans. The Dexter Fowler trade very much was a salary dump. Embrace it! Talk about all the great, wonderful things you plan to do with the money you saved and why making multiple smaller investments makes more sense for this team than making one or two larger investments.
This is the part of the Rockies current strategy I really like. I love Dexter Fowler more than most who were angry he was traded (I was not) but if moving him meant the ability to top off the deals for Brett Anderson, Justin Morneau, and Boone Logan then I think moving him made the team better.
We can argue til the cows come home about what they got in return, but a big part of it was dumping the salary of one player in order to be able to get multiple warm bodies to Coors Field that dramatically improve upon the Rockies worst area as a team; drag.
This is where, again, a phrase like "addition by subtraction" holds truth but is also misleading. The idea is not that the Rockies simply got better by removing a bad egg (Dexter Fowler) but by rearranging resources, the Rockies have taken a player you could argue was baseball redundant (with Cargo on the team) and turned that one guy into a stockpile of low risk/low floor/high ceiling players.
I wrote in the comments section the other day regarding the Justin Morneau signing, "some people hate this move because it confines Charlie Blackmon and Corey Dickerson to the bench. I love it because it allows us to use Charlie Blackmon and Corey Dickerson as weapons off the bench."
Some teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels) can make big huge splashes in the offseason with megastar signings and blockbuster trades because if they don't work out they can absorb it and it will cost them maybe a season or two. For the Rockies, one or two bad contracts (too much centralizing of the resources) could mean derailing the organizations for a decade (hello MIke Hampton and Denny Neagle!) so I think the current strategy is at least the right one.
What remains to be seen is whether or not these particular players - Brett Anderson, Justin Morneau, Boone Logan, Jordan Lyles, Brandond Barnes and the rest of the Rockies young crop of cheap players - will manifest as the best execution of this strategy.