One countdown is over, another is on the way.  A few more, actually.

First spring training game (Rockies vs. White Sox): 9 days
Tom’s spring training vacation: 11 days
Opening Day: 42 days

Six weeks until Opening Day.  For all the hype about pitchers and catchers reporting, ultimately it’s pretty uneventful.  We get a few blurbs about the team here and there from the official site, but mostly it’s just more waiting until we actually have some games and box scores to pore over.  Like this one.  It’s surprising to me to know that Josh Fogg and BK Kim are not assured spots at the back end of the rotation, considering how much the Rockies will be paying both this season.  Fogg is owed $3.625 million; Kim is owed $2.5 million.  That’s a lot of money for a couple of guys who will be, at best, back-end starters, or possibly bullpen guys or trade bait.  Trust me, the Rockies aren’t going to be paying them that much money to pitch for the Sky Sox this season, so expect them to be traded if Hirsh, Lawrence, Buchholz, Jimenez, or somebody else works their way into the rotation with a good spring.

That’s essentially the excitement of spring training.  There are relatively few players who are set in stone, absolutely guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster regardless of their performance in spring training (barring injury, of course.)  Aaron Cook and Jeff Francis are set in stone in the rotation and, depending on who you want to believe, so is Rodrigo Lopez… but that’s only if you assume that Rodrigo’s struggles in 2006 were merely the result of bad luck/not meshing well with Leo Mazzone and not some other, bigger problem.  You can count on Brian Fuentes being the closer and LaTroy Hawkins being the setup man.  Jeremy Affeldt probably has a spot in the bullpen as well.  I’d add Manny Corpas to that list, but he’s so young and the bullpen situation so crowded that I wouldn’t want to take my chances if I were him.  Ramon Ramirez was pretty solid for much of 2006, but his minor league numbers suggest that it may have been a fluke.  Tom Martin could still be a decent LOOGY, but with Affeldt down in the ‘pen he’s certainly expendable.  And then you’ve got all the various wild cards who could work their way into the bullpen: Darren Clarke, a huge (6’8", 235) righty with a big fastball; Denny Bautista, who also possesses good stuff but hasn’t figured out how to use it; Ryan Speier, working his way back from injury; Eric DuBose and Mike Gallo, a couple of seasoned lefties signed to minor-league deals; Josh Newman, a young lefty who’s had great strikeout numbers in the minors; Danny Graves and Dave Veres, two older guys trying to make a comeback.  And then you’ve got the losers in the rotation derby, several of whom could be moved to the bullpen instead (most prominently Buchholz; it seems a foregone conclusion that he’s going to be moved down to the ‘pen.)  I didn’t even mention Oscar Rivera, a lefty who tore up the Mexican League last year and could find a spot either in the rotation or the bullpen.  Others, like Jimenez, Juan Morillo, Franklin Morales, and Greg Reynolds, are highly-regarded prospects who will get a look at spring training but aren’t likely to make the big club (except, perhaps, for Jimenez, but even he still has some things to work on.)

The lineup is somewhat more settled.  Assuming he’s not traded, Todd Helton is certain to man first, Garrett Atkins at third, Matt Holliday in left, and some combination of Brad Hawpe and Jeff Baker in right.  For all the grumbling about Hawpe… here’s a guy who hit .303 on the road, including 16 of his 22 homers, and we’re complaining about him?  The only really legit beefs I have with him are that he doesn’t hit lefties well — which is why we have Baker — and that he faded a bit down the stretch.  In the case of the latter, it was pretty unrealistic to expect him to keep up his .362/.439/.670 line from April for the entire season.  But he was pretty consistent otherwise, never hitting below .260 for a month, and he draws a fair number of walks (more than Holliday.)  Brad actually seems to be in line with his minor league numbers, moreso than Holliday, who seemed to come out of nowhere in 2004.

The issues, though, are up the middle.  I’ve been harping on Willy Taveras the entire offseason, and I just don’t think he’s a long-term solution in center (not that I think Sullivan is.)  Maybe Salazar or Spilborghs can take the job?  At second, we’ve got Matsui and Carroll, neither of whom are that appealing — Matsui was good down the stretch, but he was just plain awful in New York; Carroll was good last season, but it was completely out of line with his career to that point.  Troy Tulowitzki and Chris Iannetta seem primed to take the starting jobs at shortstop and catcher, respectively, but are they ready?

It should be an interesting spring.  I’m excited to make the road trip to Tucson (though the warm weather Nashville is expected to have this week is cooling my excitement a bit) and to get a good look at these guys.  There are a bunch of positional battles going on that nobody is talking about.  Let’s see how everything plays out.