Rockies owner Dick Monfort has spoken with longtime big league reliever Adam Ottavino about the team’s top front office vacancy, reports Tim Healey of The Boston Globe. (That’ll presumably be a general manager but the title could change based on whomever they hire.) Meanwhile, Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic reports that Guardians’ assistant general manager Matt Forman and Diamondbacks’ AGM Amiel Sawdaye — previously reported to be finalists for the position — are now out of the running.
It’s unclear how seriously the Rockies are considering Ottavino as a candidate to run baseball operations. The 39-year-old not only has no front office experience of any kind, he’s still technically an active player. Ottavino pitched in the majors with the Yankees as recently as this past April. He made three appearances before electing free agency. He spent the rest of the season as a free agent but has not officially announced his retirement.
Ottavino has long been expected to find a front office or coaching role once he concluded his playing career. He was well-versed in using analytics as a pitching development tool. He’s also media savvy and has frequently appeared as a guest analyst on the MLB Network over the offseason. Still, it’d be shocking if a team hired him as their top decision-maker before he gets any kind of post-playing experience.
The Rockies have been one of the sport’s most insular organizations with front office and coaching hirings. They’ve already announced that they would not promote from within this time around. Ottavino would be an outside-the-box hire, but he also has close ties to the franchise and to Monfort. He has spent almost half of his MLB career in Denver. He posted a 3.41 earned run average over 361 appearances with the Rockies between 2012-18.
Ottavino is personally familiar with the challenges of pitching (and succeeding) at Coors Field. He discussed exactly that in an MLB Network appearance in May. It makes sense that the Rockies would want him in a front office role of some kind, yet a GM hire would obviously be a massive amount of responsibility.
There doesn’t appear to be a clear timetable for the Rockies to install anyone at the top of baseball operations. Forman and Sawdaye were the only two known remaining candidates coming into today. Ghiroli writes that they were indeed the only two finalists as of last week. It seems they’re now branching back out.
Crazy, but awesome. They need a new approach, and what works for others is not going to cut it for them.
I’m very interested in Ottavino being involved in the front office, but I sure hope they choose someone with some amount of experience for GM/PBO.
Giants didnt seem to have any issue with Buster Posey..
Posey is an owner of the Giants
kell – Posey had a couple years as owner and on the board of directors before getting his current job. He also had sort of a pre-hire tryout by leading the negotiations on Chapman’s contract.
And he’s a former catcher, all catchers be smart. Look how he fleeced the Red Sox last June.
Maybe Dante Bichette and Vinny Castilla could co-GM?
And Todd Helton as manager
Who’s being considered for the top back office positions?
A large chunk of the internet is devoted to these kinds of personnel considerations.
memet, jason kaplan, nowicki, chris wilding
Chooch – Don’t forget Kent Bottenfield and Butch Henry.
No hurry. There’s nothing going on in the next month of off-season anyway.
The Rockies do have 1st dibs on DFAs/waivers or something of the like, but hey, what’s that worth anyway? Asking for a friend.
Clearly, the whole “outside hire” thing is no longer sitting right with Dick Monfort, assuming it ever was.
Armchair GM’s around here will clearly express their dismay and bewilderment at taking a guy that has been around baseball his entire life being plucked right off of a roster and placing him unwisely in charge of baseball operations, and how clearly unqualified he is for that role right off the bat.
These same armchair GM’s will also express that, even though the last baseball that they played was in Little League, they know how to run their favorite team better than anyone.
He is totally unqualified for the position and this is a terrible idea. I am also unqualified for the position and would do a terrible job. Your hypothesis has been debunked.
Matt Forman was a baseball writer for Baseball America. I’ll take the big leaguer with no experience.
If a Rockies fan or whoever cares believe it would be a dopey hire, so be it. The argument would be legit if they’ve brushed up on poaching someone among other astute organizations that is blocked.
How do you get experience if you have never done the job.If they keep hiring retreads with experience.Same with a player,this pitcher has never thrown 200 innings.Well you can’t if you never throw 200 innings.You got to start somewhere.What do they lose if they get it wrong?More years of bad baseball?
You start like most GMs as director of baseball ops or an assistant or special advisor to the GM. You do that for a few years and then move up.
This is like being a line employee of a corporation with 500+ employees and then being named the CEO with no steps in between.
Well I have a feeling the Monforts are not letting go of the reins so that’s why so many candidates have backed out. Ottavino knew how to pitch at Coors Field and I was disappointed when he left. Teach him how to be a GM just like Jerry Dipoto(ex Rockie) who started green. Get Jorge De La Rosa as a pitching coach, he could pitch here too. I’m okay with Warren Schaffer as a manager and I don’t care if his post game interviews are dry. I’d also consider Matt Holliday in that role.
Jerry DiPoto spent approximately 10 years in various front office and scouting jobs with the Rockies, Red Sox, and Diamondbacks before he got a GM job.
DiPoto did not “start green” as a GM in anything like the way that Ottovino would be if Ottovino is hired as the Rockies’ GM this offseason.
Copy that, my bad.
Apparently being the head of baseball operations for a MLB team requires no training or experience.
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So much for going outside the organization to get someone that at least has a possibility of being qualified. Instead talk to a former Rockies reliever with zero experience.
Congrats NL West teams, you will have many more years of beating up on the Rockies.
To be fair, it wouldn’t matter much who they hire as long as the current ownership group remains intact.
First player/PoBo? I’d hate to be the manager who tries to yank him out of a game.
Goalie Garth Snow got the GM gig for the Islanders like this, right? He wasn’t great at it but also wasn’t a disaster.
Maybe they pair him with a veteran exec in a special advisory role. Worked with Chris Young and Dayton Moore in Texas.
I hope “spoken with” literally means they discussed it in passing because the last thing the Rox need is someone inexperienced. They should be taking someone from Tampa, Milwaukee, etc who can rapid deploy cutting edge solutions. They have an entire org to redraft, top to bottom.