A Small And Painful Point About Jamie Moyer and the Rockies

This doesn't give me any real joy to write, of course. It's basically the baseball equivalent of arguing for the euthanasia of a beloved pet.

But if a 49-year-old guy is your #2 starter, and he's a marginal at best candidate to keep the job for any real length of time between his own effectiveness and health concerns...

Well, that's not really a great thing to say about your organization, or the way you seek and find talent, is it?

Especially when it's April, when healthy pitchers should not be hard to find, and the games all matter a lot, because everyone is in the playoff hunt and setting the tone early is important.

Look, I get that Jamie Moyer is adorable on every level. I get that he gives hope to Middle Aged Men everywhere, that he's been getting guys out with smarts over stuff for decades, that he's overcome odds and realities that have ended the careers of tens of thousands of guys before him.

I even get that he might be one of Colorado's five best ideas to start a game right now, seeing how the organization is in a serious state of flux after the Ubaldo Jimenez trade last year, and that perhaps this April fling with the aged is just a way to delay the clock of a guy who will cost them a lot of money later.

I also get that reacting to one poor start against one poor team is unfair on every level, and that he's got a track record of following poor starts with good ones.

I get all of that. Really, I do.

But it all comes down to one thing: do you want a guy who has squeezed every last molecule of toothpaste in the tube on the mound for you...

Or would you rather have a guy who might actually have fresh product behind?

And if the Rockies released him right now, would he get another start from anyone else in the majors?