The Rockies officially promoted Bill Schmidt from interim GM to full-time general manager today, and Schmidt, manager Bud Black, and team president/COO Greg Feasel spoke with reporters (including Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post) about both the hiring and some of the team’s offseason plans.
The chief priority will be adding relief pitching and power bats, according to both Schmidt and Black. Some of that power could come by retaining free agents such as Trevor Story and C.J. Cron, and Schmidt reiterated that the Rox have interest in re-signing both sluggers, as well as right-hander Jon Gray.
Though Colorado was out of the playoff race at midseason, the team controversially held onto Story, Cron, Gray, and most of its other impending free agents due in part to this desire to keep everyone in the fold. In the wake of the trade deadline, Story indicated he was “confused” at not being dealt, and reports from back in June suggested that Story was already planning to move on from the Rockies following the season. Today, Schmidt said simply that Story’s future in Denver is “up to him. He knows how we feel about him.”
As to how the Rockies could retain their free agents, some extra spending appears to be in the works. Roster Resource has Colorado’s current payroll at just over $116.8MM, down from the team’s spending in the $157MM range during the 2019 season. With revenue levels becoming more normalized post-pandemic, Feasel said the Rockies intend to return to that higher spending capacity within two years’ time — “We think we are going to gain ground in ’22, and we think we’ll be back to 2018-19 levels in 2023.”
If Story did leave, his $18.5MM salary from 2021 could certainly be put towards a new contract for Gray and/or Cron. 2022 is also one of the seasons where the money owed to the Cardinals as part of the Nolan Arenado trade dips down; the Rockies only owe around $5.57MM to St. Louis in 2022, before that number spikes to $21MM in 2023, and then $5MM each in both 2024 and 2025.
While the Rox have some cash available, it remains to be seen exactly how that money will be spent, or how Schmidt will operate now that has the full reigns of an organization for the first time in his long career. The lack of activity at the trade deadline didn’t provide many hints about Schmidt’s plans, and given Feasel’s payroll projection, it could be any real serious expenditures are held off until next winter.
The broader question also exists about how much things will really change in Colorado under the Schmidt regime, considering that Schmidt is already a long-time Rockies staffer, and owner Dick Monfort’s insular management style has come under heavy criticism. To this end, some new voices are expected to join the mix, as Schmidt said the Rockies are already looking to increase the analytics department. (An understaffed and sometimes-ignored analytics team was identified by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Nick Groke as one of the Rockies’ many issues in a harsh spotlight and critique of the organization last March.)
When former GM Jeff Bridich resigned in April, the expectation was that the Rockies would conduct an external search for a new general manager or president of baseball operations following the season. According to Feasel, however, Schmidt’s work as interim GM impressed upper management to the point that “he didn’t give us a choice…I mean, how many times you need to be hit over the head with a bat. And he was the right guy for us at the right time.”
Details about Schmidt’s contract weren’t released, and it could be that Schmidt isn’t working under a traditional deal, as Feasel said there isn’t a firm length attached to Schmidt’s role. “We consider him an officer of our club and we think that’s pretty special. His standing is not going to change,” Feasel said.
I challenge you all to say one good thing about the Rockies FO. I’ll go first: they developed Charlie Blackmon
I’ll give the Rox FO props for hiring and keeping Bud Black who I believe is a very good manager. I’ll also give them credit for one of the best MLB stadiums in a fantastic downtown location (probably not a FO decision, but I’m hard pressed to keep things positive).
They do a great job developing home grown bats in general – when it comes to pitching that’s another story.
They picked up German Marquez cheap.
This team is crazy. Rip it apart. Build it back up. Save as much payroll as you can next season so you can put that money into a later year where you might actually win something. It sounds like their plan is to just sign people and pretend everything’s fine. They could always talk Mike Hampton out of retirement for $100 million. It didn’t work the first time but Colorado’s plan seems to be “If you fail just try, try again.”
Bigger trainwreck: Padres or Rockies?
Easily Rockies, and that’s saying something, but they’re not in the same universe as far as dysfunction
Yeah. It’s easily the Rockies. As bad as this season has gone for the Padres it wouldn’t shock me if the Padres won it all next season. It would shock me however if next season the Rockies were even as good as the Padres were this season.
Padres. No one excepted the Rockies to even be in the playoff picture at the beginning of the season, let alone be seen as the one team to usurp the Dodgers.
What a joke this entire organization is. Rich kids playing with their $$$
When your GM says “relief pitching and {add a power bat}” but doesn’t mention the face of their franchise, Trevor Story, by name as a priority, he’s not coming back and they don’t expect him to.
Who knows what went wrong with Story. Either you give him a seven year deal and try and pick up some FA’s or start over. The Dodgers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The Giants are getting old. The Padres have overspent and are stuck and the D-Backs are nowhere close. The Rockies play well at home. Just have to figure out the road woes
Something tells me that one of the main reasons the Rockies were so good at home this year has more to do with the other teams players not being used to playing in the Colorado altitude than it does the Rox actually being good. When other teams go to Colorado their managers don’t even expect the pitchers to have good games. If they are bad the managers just write it off and say it was the altitude. It seems like the opposing hitters just care more about trying to pad their stats with home runs than actually win the game. The Rockies might be the only team who actually even attempt to form a winning strategy when they are in that place. I think Story is as good as gone. When a guy sounds clearly disappointed he wasn’t traded it’s not usually a sign that he wants to stay. The Rockies should be letting him go anyway rather than jumping into another big contract. They should have started a complete rebuild the day they traded Arenado. Before that actually. If I ran the Rockies I would be focused on building a great pitching core. Just draft and acquire as many different pitchers as possible who can handle pitching both in and out of Colorado with consistently great results. Once you have a whole bunch of them (and I mean a lot. At least 4 great starting pitchers and close to half a dozen relievers) the Rockies should then start spending money to buy hitters off the market with the assumption hitting will be easier in Colorado so it’s not as tough to fill those spots. Until this team can figure out a way to get a serious core of consistent pitching they will never contend. There are only a few pitchers who can handle pitching there and they need to make sure they get literally every single one. The hitting will be there. The pitchers who can handle it are far my re valuable to the Rockies than any other team. I liked the plan they had several years ago where they focused on drafting pitchers who had already proven they could consistently pitch well in Colorado and other even higher altitude areas. That’s how they ended up making it to the World Series. They need to get back on that path and just stay there until it eventually works out. I feel bad for Rockies fans. This team looks like it is going to have a more difficult time winning any championship became we of where they play. I wonder if they could move into a dome and just pump it full of air and humidity to increase the pressure during games.
Colorado leadership believes this year was a watershed moment. Doing as well next year is the Story as well as reducing the budget and raising ticket prices.
The amount of prospect value traded this year, imho, was the highest ever. And they sat on Story, Cron, Freeland, Marquez, and Gray. Do they ever want to compete, or are they happy with the ‘we tried’ story, and settle for .475 every year?
“Baseball fever catch it”
The Pittsburgh Pirates almost became what the Rockies are today. Just a middling team standing idol and when they do make a trade, it’s usually not a good one. No direction, pretty meh farm system, and not doing anything to help the farm system or major league roster.
When Ben Cherington came in, he essentially put his foot down (no half-measures), said this is what we’re going to do (rebuild by trading off the valuable veterans), this is the plan (acquire and develop top prospects), here’s when we plan on being competitive again (2023), and we’re going to see this plan through-and-through.
That’s what the Rockies need. If you’re going to trade Arenado, you need to trade guys like Kyle Freeland, Jon Gray, Daniel Bard, and Trevor Story in the same off-season. Maybe keep around Marquez since he’s affordably controllable through 2024, but he should be far from untouchable. If a team is willing to pay even a little over full market value for Marquez, you jump on that trade.
Story is a free agent.
I said “If you’re going to trade Arenado, you need to trade guys like Kyle Freeland, Jon Gray, Daniel Bard, and Trevor Story in the same off-season”. Meaning last off-season.
I can see that now. But it depends on you define being competitive. The Bucs have really not been a serious contender for awhile. But who knows? They have a few good players. Most of the time, trades don’t work out. Prospects are just that. Heck a couple of years ago, Gavin Lux was the second coming. While he still might develop, he sure isn’t a sure bet. Same with Cody Bellinger. While injuries may have slowed him down, he looks nothing like he did as a rookie.
“We’re not the Dodgers. We’re the Colorado Rockies. We scout, draft and develop.”
So says Schmidt. Nah the Dodgers don’t scout, draft or develop. What a yutz.