The latest news on Garrett Atkins is that he has been non-tendered by the Colorado Rockies. What does that mean? We'll it simply means that the Rockies did not tender a contract offer to the arbitration-eligible Atkins before Saturday's deadline making Atkins a free agent, which under the circumstances was probably the right move.

You know there is one thing about statistics, they don't lie.... They can't. A player does what he does on the field and those acts get recorded. As long as none of the stats are omitted to skew the appearance of what the player has done, the stats paint a picture, the picture paints a story.

Garrett Atkins' fall from grace over the past few seasons has been stunning, especially considering the lofty levels he reached in 2006. At 26 years old, in his second Major League season, Atkins hit .329 with 29 homers, 120 RBI, and 117 runs. Atkins wasn't only a great fantasy asset but a tremendous young player for the Rockies with more walks than strikeouts, and a solid glove at third.

The next season, his numbers dropped a bit, as he hit only .301, with 25 homers and 111 RBIs. While his HRs only dropped by 4, the warning signs were there. He hit 13 fewer doubles. His K rate jumped and his BB rate went down a bit, but he was still producing, and at 27, I think most people expected him to produce somewhere between 2006 and 2007 going forward. His decline continued in 2008, as he hit only .286, and his K rate rose, while his BB rate went down. Although his performance had not been as good a previous years we were still looking at a solid fantasy player, who could hit for a decent average, give you 20+ homers and 100 RBIs.

In 2009 he completely fell apart. He did walk a bit more, and his K rate stayed constant, but he had a dramatic drop in power and his batting average hit .226, and he only hit 9 homers, driving in 48 runs.

Atkins clearly isn't the player he was in 2006. I'm sorry to say that in this environment that no one that had been so productive and has had such a dramatic fall off without injury is above being mentioned as possibly haven taken steroids; especially not a player of his age that should be in the prime of his career.  Take a look for yourself and make your own conclusions.

I don't know Garrett Atkins, I've never met him; he's probably a wonderful guy.  And I'm not accusing him of taking steroids either as I have absolutely no knowledge that Atkins has ever taken steroids. In fact, Garrett no offense to you but I never thought you were a steroid guy, you look kind of 'soft.'

All I know is that that I have followed Atkins' on the filed performance very closely the past few years because he's been on my rotisserie roster and I have depended heavily on him, only to be disappointed.

The facts in the case of Garret Atkins are that the severity of the drop in his statistics and the duration of the degradation in his performance has been too steep and too long to be considered a slump.

I know many people who think that he will be a steal in this year's fantasy drafts. While that may in fact be the case, in my eyes he would have to once again become an elite MLB player for me to take him off ‘my possible steroid user list.'

Perhaps it will come out that Atkins had some off the field family problems that were to blame for his performance. Maybe he was playing hurt and didn't tell anyone and that's something that can be pointed to. Whatever the reason, I won't have Garrett Atkins on my rotisserie roster this year for the first time in three years as I too have decided to let him become a free agent.

I sincerely hope that my thoughts, assumptions and conclusions are wrong and he has a fantastic year as I will be rooting for him. A bounce back year for Atkins would be great for Atkins and great for baseball. If that happens I will be the first one to applaud his hard work and praise him for having a great bounce back year after so many of us (including me) had written him off. And if that does happen, will certainly take him off ‘my possible steroid user list.' - Michael Gross

Michael, in conjunction with a prominent sports agency runs a strength, conditioning and agility program that many agents send their "to-be-drafted" athletes, prior to being drafted. Many pro athletes have also used the facilities for rehabilitation after injury. Over 90 professional athletes including current MLB ball players have attended his institution during the past 3 years.

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