So, folks, it’s one last week to clean up the house, mow the yard, spend time with the kids, take the wife out to dinner, and do whatever chores you know aren’t going to get done for the next six months.

That’s right, as I write this, it’s roughly 183 hours until the Rockies take on the Diamondbacks at Coors Field, putting an official end to the winter and bringing in the best season of the year… baseball season.  (I’ll have you know that in my life, there are two seasons: baseball season, and the offseason.)  Normally, I’m sort of ignoring spring training at this point, since there’s that basketball tournament going on, but in the 18 years I’ve been watching March Madness, this has to be the most boring one I’ve ever seen.  There were almost no surprises in this year’s tournament, although Vandy making the Sweet 16 was a nice way to cap off a surprisingly good season.

But there were some surprises in spring training.  I was surprised that Steve Finley, at 42 years of age and coming off the worst season of his career, was, in fact, not done, and is around to provide some insurance in case Willy Taveras turns out to be a Speedy Useless Guy.  Now, spring training stats can be misleading, since nobody’s played for a few months and the pitchers are just trying to get back in the groove, and also because it’s an awfully small sample size — the Rockies are basing Finley’s resurgence on 38 at bats — so take Finley’s .316/.333/.474 line with a grain of salt.  He may not come anywhere close to those numbers during the regular season, and the Rockies may eventually wind up regretting sending down, oh, Ryan Spilborghs to open a roster spot for a 42-year-old who hit .246/.320/.394 last season.  But it’s good to see him still around, and good to see that, after 12 years of playing for The Bad Guys (i.e., every other team in the division), he’s finally in a uniform I can appreciate.

Anyways, I’m assuming that Finley’s got a spot if only because of this article which says that the battle for the final roster spot is down to Spilborghs, John Mabry, and Alexis Gomez.  I’m assuming this because the Rockies currently have 13 hitters on the active roster, of which two are in the "final battle"… meaning somebody is going to come from off the active roster (i.e., Finley) and take a spot — unless, of course, the Rockies plan on doing something goofy like carrying 13 pitchers, a suggestion made by various statheads who claim to know everything they need to know to fix the Rockies.

The oddity of this battle is that, unlike the battle for the final rotation spot, everybody’s playing well here.  Recall that most of our pitchers evidently decided that if they all stunk in spring training, management would be stuck with a tough decision to go with Ubaldo Jimenez, who actually had a good spring, but clearly wasn’t a guy management wanted to have in Denver in April, or try to single out one of the candidates for being even worse than the others.  And BK Kim was still not happy with being moved to the bullpen.  In the position battle, on the other hand, Alexis Gomez’s .375 BA in the spring qualifies as the lowest of the three.  Gomez was okay in a backup role with the Tigers last season, and he can play center field; but with Finley being able to do basically the same things, only better, he’s out.  Mabry’s main problem in this battle is that with 39 players currently on the 40-man roster, and that last spot apparently going to Finley, the Rockies would have to release somebody else to make room for him.  And I’m sorry, but I’d rather not cut bait with a Jeff Salazar or a Ryan Spilborghs in order to make room for a 36-year-old pinch-hitter/first base-type who looked even more done than Finley did after last season (we’re talking .205, folks.)

The obvious answer here, to me, is Spilborghs, who, in addition to having had the best spring of the three, is also the youngest and hit better than the other two last season as well (in roughly the same amount of playing time in the majors.)  But hey, the Rockies could decide that having one lefty bat off the bench isn’t enough or that they need Mabry’s veteran presence.

As for the last spot in the bullpen, beats me.  The Rockies are probably either going to send down Ramirez or Corpas, or else trade Kim.  My guess is that Ramirez goes down, but again, I could be wrong.

In the "hey, things really ARE looking up" department, Peter Gammons (ESPN insider pass required) notes that the White Sox players said that the Rockies are the best team they’ve seen in the Cactus League.  Considering that four NL West teams (all except the Dodgers) play in the Cactus League, we can surmise that, at worst, we’re the second-best team in the division.  And why not?  After years of losing, it may finally be time for Denver to have a winning baseball team.  Maybe that will get some attention for the Rockies — and get those attendance numbers back up.

And, looking ahead, it would be nice if I had some money.  My last exam is on May 4, and the next five days would be a great time to catch the Rockies live — games in Cincinnati and St. Louis.

It’s going to be a great season — and, hopefully, a great season for the Rockies as well.