I can’t help but feel like I’m watching the farewell tour of my favorite Colorado Rockie. The saddest bit of this experience is that both halves of that sentiment seem to be crystalizing more or less simultaneously. I’ve come around to the presumption that Jorge De La Rosa’s days as a Rockie are numbered with about the same speed and conviction that I’ve come around to the realization that Jorge De La Rosa is the current Rockie I’d miss most.

The Part About the Leaving

De La Rosa is in the last year of his contact. Virtually every player of his age and status playing for a non-contender will be included in trade speculation this time of year. Are the Rockies out of contention? Eternal optimist/masochist that I am, I have not given up hope for 2014. The season is only half over and the players we’ll start getting back from the disabled list for free in the next month represent more collective firepower than whatever ends up being reaped from the team that makes The Big Deadline Deal ™, even if that deal includes David Price. We’re taking on serious water these days, but the bucket brigade is coming.

That being said, it’s also possible that too much damage has already been done. Moreover, anyone who followed this team in 2012 knows there’s always a lower circle of hell. If we reach that place in the next few weeks, it would make all the sense in the world for the Rockies to trade De La Rosa. Our man hasn’t exactly inflated his value of late, but he’s still worth his salary and starting pitchers always fetch some value at the trade deadline. As the odds for this team making the playoffs get longer and longer, so also do the odds for De La Rosa finishing this season in a Rockies uniform.

If and when the team’s fate as a non-contender is sealed, the best reason to keep De La Rosa would be if Dan O’Dowd and company intend to re-sign him and keep him on the roster beyond this season. I’ve thought for some time now that the Rockies are likely to retain one of De La Rosa or newcomer Brett Anderson (whose contract includes a team option in 2015 at a reasonable salary) beyond this season, but not both. I feel like they’ll need one of them – both for their left-handedness and their “veteraniness” – but won’t be able to fit both salaries into the budget.

Until recently I’ve believed the most likely pick was De La Rosa. He’s the known commodity, there seems to be mutual affection between he and the club, and he’s not likely to be in a position to demand a huge deal. But now I’m thinking it’ll more likely be Anderson they choose to keep. Anderson’s suffered yet another injury, but it’s of the definitively fluky sort this time, and Anderson is still on the right side of the age curve. De La Rosa, on the other hand, is showing signs – both in terms of performance and health (and of course the two are directly related) – that he’s begun the decline phase of his career.

Bottom line: whether it be a trade deadline deal – even one for minimal return – or simply by virtue of his contract expiring a couple months later, I believe De La Rosa’s starts in a Rockies uniform are numbered.

The Part about the Loving

The fact that I write for a website dedicated to a professional sports team may make this obvious, but I really do find so many things about these games adults play fascinating. Perhaps chief amongst those fascinations is the process by which we fans identify our favorite teams and players. Depending on where one grows up – or perhaps the origin and sports-passion of the family into which one is born – the first of those decisions is often pre-ordained. But almost all of us end up picking our favorite players – none of whom we’ve actually met – based on our own criteria, even if we don’t ever consciously recognize what those criteria are.

And my fandom of Jorge has certainly come unconsciously. He isn’t, after all, all that likeable on the surface. He’s often surly on camera, gives painfully bland interviews, and seems to have developed friction with one of the most charismatic players on the team, our “baby bull” Wilin Rosario. He’s pretty much the anti-Ryan Spilbourghs.

To be clear, I don’t go out of my way to be a contrarian. I don’t love Jorge the way pseudo-intellectuals love that indie band everyone else thinks really sucks. I’ll admit to have dabbled in some Garrett Atkins and Yorvit Torrealba over the years, but Jorge has assumed the coveted title of Ryan Hammon’s Favorite Rockie only because that title was voluntarily surrendered by Todd Helton. Believe me: I can mainstream.

But love Jorge I do. And here are the reasons – sentimental and otherwise – I think you should love Jorge as much as I do.

1. Jorge’s is a story of resilience. While he began his professional career as a legitimate prospect, Jorge’s path to baseball success wasn’t very smooth. Like many pitching prospects, he had control issues. He walked people. A lot of people. He wound his way through four organizations – not even counting a detour to the Mexican league – prior to joining the Rockies. In the last two transactions – both mid-season trades – he was exchanged straight-up for a 34-year old, mostly-back-up middle infielder, and then for a reliever who’d pitched to a 8.31 ERA thus far that year. The latter was the deal that brought him to Colorado in 2008. 27 years old and pitching in AAA, Jorge was a classic salvage/scrap-heap guy who’d just been booked on a one-way trip to the toughest pitching environment in the Bigs.

Most of the time, this sort of story ends exactly how you’d expect it to. Most of the time, Jonathan Sanchez happens. It didn’t with Jorge. Who knows why, exactly? Maybe the proverbial “clicking” occurred. Maybe, sensing his last chance may have arrived, he redoubled his efforts to improve. Maybe then-Rockies Pitching Coach Bob Apodaca “fixed” him. In any event, Jorge had to wait a while to experience success. He rebounded from being a spare part to vital cog. And he did it all here, at a mile high.

2. Jorge could have dumped us but didn’t; the dude actually likes pitching here! Jorge hit free agency for the first time after the 2010 season. And based on his performance the previous couple of seasons, he was a hot commodity – Keith Law had him ranked the third best free agent pitcher in that class. Other than Cliff Lee, the top guy that year, this was undoubtedly a weaker-than-average crop to pick from. Nevertheless, Jorge had options. He could have escaped Coors Field. In the club’s history, almost every Rockies free agent pitching target with any semblance of alternative options has either a) signed somewhere else, or b) forced the Rockies to pay an above-market rate. Jorge did neither.

Of course, injuries have diminished a lot of the value the Rockies would otherwise of extracted from that contact, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jorge had a golden opportunity to pitch in a friendlier environment – almost assuredly for just as much money – and instead decided to stick with us.

3. Jorge’s one of the best pitchers this team has ever had. His 4.31 ERA and 1.369 WHIP are all the third best marks in team history (minimum 500 innings with the Rockies); only Ubaldo Jimenez and Jhoulys Chacin have been better. Also, for whatever it’s worth, (which I admit isn’t much, but still…), his Win/Loss % of .612 as a Rockie is Number 1 with a bullet.

Not only that, but Jorge looks even better at Coors Field. His ERA drops to 4.17 and his WHIP down to 1.357, passing Chacin and second only to Ubaldo in Coors Field history (minimum 250 innings). And again, for whatever its worth, no pitcher has won more games in Denver

Jorge’s detractors seem to point most often to his demeanor on the mound, which often features a healthy amount of… let’s say “uneven emotion.” Some folks believe these sometimes very visible displays of frustration – or even downright disgust and anger – for getting beat by the batter de jour lead to bad innings becoming worse; that Jorge’s relative lack of composure makes it tougher for him to get out of difficult situations.

Other folks, however – including Jorge himself – believe it’s the intensity of his emotion that makes him good in the first place; that he channels that energy into his pitches. These sorts of competing narratives (which are summed up nicely, by the way, in this piece by MLB.com’s Thomas Harding back in May) are impossible to prove or disprove; most people will believe what they want to. But by at least one quantifiable metric, FanGraph’s attempt to measure a player’s performance in high leverage situations versus his performance overall, Jorge actually grades out slightly to the positive on the “clutch” scale.

Personally, the reason this particular criticism of Jorge rings so hollow to me – besides the fact that his performance speaks for itself – is that I’m nearly certain that if I had Jorge’s talent and stage, I’d act the same way. My actual talent relegates me to the somewhat less grandiose stage offered by Denver Parks and Recreation. I play third base. And when I boot a groundball, I pout about it. I’m not a jerk off the field, and I can and do laugh about it over beers in the bleachers after the game (or in-between innings). But on the field in that moment? I pull down hard on my cap; or sometimes push it askew in dramatic fashion. I put my hands on my hips, stare off into the distance, and swear at myself. Basically, I’m a petulant, whinny malcontent.

Maybe actual professionals should be better than that. Maybe we should expect a certain amount of decorum from guys being paid millions of dollars to do what is, for them, a job. Plus, you know: will-someone-please-think-of-the-children and all that. I guess.

But as for myself, I’ll never think less of a player simply because he comes with evidence that our baseball heroes have the same flaws us common folk do. Jorge, after all, hasn’t cheated the game, any of its players, or – as far as we know – his friends or family. Regardless of how his emotional stylings have or haven’t affected his actual performance – and there really isn’t any real evidence that they’ve hurt – Jorge can only be the person that he is.

And I love him for it. Jorge’s imperfect human nature is a plus in my book, not a minus. And if these are indeed the last few starts for Jorge in a Rockies uniform, I’m going to savor every last one of them, even and especially if they occasionally feature some classic Jorge hat theatrics.