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.
Haha. Laughingstock. Worst manager in the MLB now that Quade is gone.
I’ll still give those honors to Manny Acta for now, and Ozzie is a catch-22…
David, your crazy, Tracy defends, connects and teaches his players. Not to mention he manages the game really well in late innings. I think he’s a perfect fit for the Rockies and their team as they go forward into rocktober 2012
He is AWFUL with managing lineups and bullpens. Horrid. Constantly making mistakes. I don’t know what games you’re watching, but his decisions last seasons were comedian-level bad.
You’re crazy. Only sane people like Jim Tracy feel that Paul Phillips deserves to bat cleanup…
One of my favorite Keith Law tweets of all time:
Other things that confuse Jim Tracy: Bullpen usage, platoon differences, tides, the Thermos.
David, I’ve been a rockies fan all my life, i know my team and i know my manager, and i like them both. Trust me, this year the rockies are going to make a big splash and turn a few heads doing it. There’s a reason he won the 2009 Manager of the year award
You do realize Jerry Manuel won the manager of the year award right? Just say that, “Jerry Manuel was a manager of the year.” Scary right?
And Tracy will cost your team 5-8 wins this year just because of terrible lineup decisions, horrendous bullpen management, and stunning in-game strategy decisions.
He’s really, really bad.
I’m going to have to agree with David. Mitchell-D: you, like many other Rox fans, are stuck in this mindset where you think the ’09 Tracy was the real Jim Tracy, when everything he touched turned to gold. However when the honeymoon was over in 2010 and beyond, he has constantly been 2/3 moves behind the manager he’s opposing on a given night. His lineup decisions last year was enough for me to jump ship, it was unbelievable the inability to throw out a consistent lineup for a week, let alone for an enxtended period of time. And I’m not a Tracy hater, I drank the ’09 kool-aid, but he’s far too indecisive and constantly making a move an inning or at-bat too late.
Not to mention he doesn’t actually defend his players – he throws them under the bus constantly in post-game interviews.
Did they pound it or was it a dead fish handshake variety?
Ouch! As a Giants fan, I couldn’t be happier to hear Tracy is staying! Really one of the worst managers to keep his job at this level. He must be great at faking it off the field, cuz he stinks on the field. Ouch!
Im a rockies fan that couldnt agree more, ouch
Ouch!
Huh, not only was Tracy not canned for one of the most dismal years in rockies history, he gets the keys for the next MULTIPLE years, ugh
He was a bonehead in Pittsburgh. Blind squirrel finds a nut for half a season in Colorado and they fall all over him. Serves them right. It will take 2 years to undo all his damage even when they finally wise up and get rid of him.