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.
Schmidt’s off the board. Now we wait to see who wins the Omar Minaya sweepstakes.
I disagree with the article’s statement that Holliday and Condon have “trended down”.
More like have holes in their game but impressive players
That is much more fair. I expect both to become stars in a few years.
100% agree with you. Ethan Holliday is a HS #1 pick. That’s why people authoring articles here aren’t in baseball operations- they’d get fleeced on their trending down players. I know it’s just a narrative description open to interpretation. But it’s wrong. And it’s certainly NOT fair to say. I agree with you.
Both are top 5 draft picks with minor league ops under .800
Holliday was hitting in the extreme hitter parks in the CA league too. They certainly aren’t trending up since the draft
Isn’t Omar still with Yankees?
Before the Rockies gags start. I just want to say that Bill Schmidt is a great baseball guy. He was involved in developing a lot of talent in a very difficult environment years ago – before a meddling owner led to nearly two entire core groups of baseball-side scouts, etc, leaving for much conducive environments – quite a few who had both built the Montreal teams, and more recently the Braves last world champion. Very good baseball guy!
At the very least Bill is a competent scout but a terrible GM tbh.
He had nearly an impossible task with Monfort overriding the baseball side. The guy had an absolute crush on Kris Bryant.
Riley Pint looks like a good buy low candidate.
Bill shown here demonstrating the proper way to rock a chin diaper.
He’s special coz when Pitt says fetch cafe he gets Folger
A little curious that DePodesta takes over and the guy that got the ax gets a job with DePodesta’s former organization. Especially after DePodesta has had some time to make a complete review of the organization. The A’s have been notorious for not turning over Front Office or internal staff. They have the smallest Administration in MLB. Adding two bodies in a week is a big deal.