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Rockies, Tracy Have "Handshake Agreement" On Extension
6:51pm: Tracy confirmed the extension in an appearance on MLB Roundtrip with Jeff Joyce and Cliff Floyd on MLB Network Radio. Tracy said the deal will be re-evaluated after every season and he has "an opportunity to manage this club, basically...as the way I understand it, until I don't want to manage it anymore." Tracy sees this as his final job, saying he has "every intention of finishing my career in a Colorado Rockies uniform."
6:17pm: The Rockies and Jim Tracy have agreed to extend the manager's contract past 2012, according to the club's Twitter feed. The two sides "have a handshake agreement for Tracy to continue to be a part of the organization's leadership team," and in a follow-up tweet, GM Dan O'Dowd says the team "expects this relationship to continue for a number of years."
Exact terms of the new agreement weren't announced but Troy Renck of the Denver Post describes it as "kind of like a roll-over deal in many ways." At the very least it means Tracy won't be a lame-duck manager heading into 2012, while still giving the Rockies room to inexpensively cut ties with Tracy should they want to make a change.
Tracy took over as Colorado's manager partway through the 2009 season and helped turn around a struggling club, eventually leading the Rockies to a playoff berth as the National League's wild card team. For his efforts, Tracy received the NL Manager Of The Year award and a three-year, $4.4MM contract extension. Over the last two seasons, however, the Rockies have failed to live up to expectations, posting just a 156-168 record and finishing fourth in the NL West in 2011.
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