System to blame for Rockies' losing Holliday

Baseball players who inspire the imagination don't come along that often. The brawny slugger from Oklahoma did that in Colorado.That's why it's so hard to see Matt Holliday go. He became an indelible part of our collective memory late on the night of Oct. 1, 2007, bloodying his chin while sliding across home plate (or not) to put the Rockies into the postseason.He hit scores of tiny rockets into the night, the ball exploding off his bat. His muscles looked like Popeye's. You half expected him to pull out a can of spinach in the on-deck circle.You could see him anchoring that lineup for years, the way sluggers used to do. In another age, he would have. Of course, in that age, Colorado didn't have a big-league team, either.Whether Holliday would stick around or go seek his fortune was determined last spring, when the Rockies offered him $72 million over four years -- $18 million per. Holliday and his agent, Scott Boras, turned it down. And that was that.Both sides had sound reasons for their positions. Boras could see his client getting twice the money and more guaranteed years on the free-agent market, where big spenders such as the Yankees and Red Sox wage war over the available merchandise.The Rocks looked at the mega-deals they had done in the past -- Mike Hampton and Todd Helton -- and decided they weren't such a hot idea. Their age-regression studies showed guaranteeing big bucks after age 34 was a poor risk. And they knew from experience they were not in a position to absorb a mega-deal gone bad.Once Holliday turned down the Rocks' offer, the question for general manager Dan O'Dowd became what he could get for him, just as it was for his eventual trading partner, Oakland GM Billy Beane, when he traded three established starting pitchers for prospects over the past 12 months.Like it or not, those are the economics of baseball. As the only major sport without a salary cap, the big-market teams have an advantage they enjoy in no other game.The hard caps in football and hockey produce similar player payrolls across those leagues. Basketball's soft cap permits more variety, but as the Nuggets' recent buyout of Antonio McDyess proves, it still provides very strong disincentives to outsized payrolls. In baseball, the Yankees' 2008 payroll was nearly 10 times that of the Florida Marlins. So when big stars come on the market, the big-market teams set the price. Mid-market teams are left to lean on younger players not yet eligible for free agency. In fact, A's fans are already asking why they would give up a prospect as promising as Carlos Gonzalez for a one-year rental of Holliday. They, too, assume Holliday will be a free agent this time next year.The Rocks' biggest need is starting pitching. I hoped they would get a more established starter than young lefty Greg Smith in exchange for Holliday. If Smith is the extent of the upgrade to the starting staff by the time pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February, I will be disappointed.But because the Rocks also have Garrett Atkins and Willy Taveras on the trading block this winter, they could still come away with more help for the pitching staff. In any case, Gonzalez becomes the key to the Holliday deal.Smith was a rookie last season and the innings-eater of the A's staff, as Dan Haren, Rich Harden and Joe Blanton were traded. He projects as a third or fourth starter, which is OK, but what the Rocks really need is a front-of-the-rotation starter.Huston Street is an experienced reliever who will compete with Manny Corpas for the closer's job, helping to fill the hole left by the pending departure of Brian Fuentes.Gonzalez is the prospect with the highest ceiling. He was a highly touted, five-tool product of the Diamondbacks' system a year ago, when Beane obtained him in the Haren trade. He got his first 300 big-league at-bats for the A's last season, at age 22. He wasn't great, but he showed some promise. For the Rocks, he should be in the mix for an outfield job.With one year left on his contract, Holliday was not going to bring in trade what he would have brought were he signed long term. He will either help the A's contend next season or Beane will deal him by the trade deadline, probably for prospects to replace the ones he just traded to Colorado.This is how baseball's mid-market teams have to operate. Ever since he turned down that $72 million, Holliday and the Rocks have been headed in different directions. We won't know how good a deal O'Dowd made for him until we see how Gonzalez and Smith turn out.But we know already that there's something wrong with a system that made it almost inevitable that he leave. (Contact Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News at kriegerd(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)