The Athletics are hiring former Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt as a special assistant in their scouting department, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. The Rox parted ways with him at the end of the season, eventually tabbing Paul DePodesta and Josh Byrnes as their top two front office executives.
Schmidt had worked in the organization for more than 25 years. He’d been in scouting for a few clubs in the 1990s before Colorado hired him around the turn of the century. Schmidt worked his way to vice president of scouting by 2007. He had a two-decade run leading the team’s amateur drafts and was bumped to interim general manager when the Rockies dismissed Jeff Bridich in May ’21. Colorado removed the interim tag at the end of the year.
The 66-year-old Schmidt led baseball operations for four seasons. Colorado finished at the bottom of the NL West in each year. They went 68-94 in his first full season. That was followed by the first three 100-loss campaigns in franchise history, including a 43-119 showing last year that went down as one of the worst seasons of all time. They had an MLB-low 35.6% win percentage over the last four years.
Although Schmidt’s GM tenure was not a success, he brings a wealth of scouting experience to his new organization. Colorado hasn’t gotten much out of their farm system and most recent drafts. All-Star catcher Hunter Goodman was a nice find in the fourth round in 2021, but they’ve had a run of misses at the top of the draft since selecting Kyle Freeland eighth overall in 2014.
Their subsequent first-round selections — Brendan Rodgers, Mike Nikorak, Riley Pint, Ryan Rolison, Michael Toglia, Zac Veen and Benny Montgomery — were all misses. The jury is still out on 2022-25 draftees Gabriel Hughes, Chase Dollander, Charlie Condon and Ethan Holliday. It’s fair to say that all four of those players have trended down since draft day, though it’s too early to write them off entirely.
The Rockies had a stronger draft record earlier in Schmidt’s tenure leading scouting operations. Troy Tulowitzki, Charlie Blackmon and Nolan Arenado were franchise-altering players whom the Rox drafted between 2005-09. They got the latter two players in the second round in 2008 and ’09, respectively. Ryan McMahon was a nice second round find a few years later, and their run of first-round draftees from 2011-14 (Tyler Anderson, David Dahl, Jon Gray and Freeland) have each had at least some amount of big league success.
