Just My Take: The dog days of Rockies baseball needs euthanizing

I had to put my dog down today.

She was 15 years old. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t see and was losing control of her bodily functions. I know it had to be done, yet it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.

These kinds of decisions are tough and yet they are what makes us adults. It is the ability to do what’s right, no matter how terrible it feels.

I don’t mean to bum you out but what I went through with my dog is the same thing the Rockies front office must be going through. Should they pull the plug on the current blind and crippled direction of the Colorado Rockies? Or let it keep pooping on the floor?

The Rockies need to trade away a large portion of its team, salt the earth and move on. But right now, Dick Monfort is convincing himself his lame dog doesn’t need to be put down. He probably believes everything will turn out great after a few more seasons. But things are not getting any better at 20th and Blake. In fact, this may go down in history as one of the worst Rockies seasons ever. Monfort needs to take a long look in the mirror and put the current version of this team to sleep.

With the MLB trade deadline just a week away, there’s no need to keep Troy Tulowitzki around any longer. Because by the time this current port-a-potty on fire gets turned around – and we’re talking at least three years or more – Tulo will be picking up speed on the downslope of his career. He can still be a good player for a few years to come, but he will be of no use to a floundering Rockies team. The Rockies need to trade him this week and get as much back as possible and rebuild. Tulowitzki has wasted his career with the Rockies and it would be a mercy to let him go to a contender.

The same goes for Jorge De La Rosa. He’s the Rockies best pitcher but will be far from that in another couple of years when they could actually use him. He’s wasting away in Colorado and should also be traded next week because his value will never be higher than it is right now.

The Rockies can always find people who can hit the ball a mile at a mile high, so trading someone like Carlos Gonzalez shouldn’t be out of the question either. What the Rockies lack, and have always lacked is pitching. Trade these three players and load up on an embarrassing stockpile of pitching prospects. If one or two pan out from that, hallelujah.

Fans will complain that by trading some of the Rockies best assets, they will be even worse. But there’s not much lower you can go than where they are now. If they are going to be awful, let them be historically awful. But start rebuilding with the pieces you get on the way up from the bottom of the barrel.

But the Rockies front office has always been attracted to shiny things. And if they can claim they have an All-star or three on the roster, that’s good enough for them. They believe that people come to Coors Field to see their favorite players. And while this is partially true, you can have the most popular players in the world, but if they still don’t win, it doesn’t matter. Rockies management is so fixated on the belief that popular players bring people to the yard and have completely missed the memo where a winner, no matter the names on the backs of the jerseys, will win over a fan base for generations.

Dick Monfort comes from cattle ranching family so he should be the first person to know when it’s time to put an animal down. But for some reason he keeps letting his team stumble and soil itself while refusing to acknowledge that it’s on its last legs. I believe Dick Monfort wants to win. After all, winning will make him more money. But his idea on how to win is so laughably antiquated, he’s run the team into a ditch it may never come out of.

I understand the desire to hang on for another day, hoping things will work themselves out. In my case, I was hoping my dog died sleeping on the floor next to me. But in the Rockies case, I’m not sure what they’re waiting for. The end of the season will end our misery, but the hobbled animal that is the Colorado Rockies will be right back where it started next year if it’s not put down now.