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.
Nobody wins in that 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
Charlie Condon put up a 132 wrc+ last year and Holliday has played a grand total of 18 games. Don’t see how either of those indicate they’re “trending down”.
It’s trending down because they were so highly ranked before. Condon is a first baseman so his bat needs to be much better than league average to make it. We’ll see where he ends up but Colorado’s track record doesn’t inspire much faith. Holliday wasn’t very good even in a small sample, if he has a much better year than last, he’ll be trending up. You guys are so dramatic and act like trending in one direction means anything more than what the definition of the word trending
At six feet six inches, shouldn’t he weigh more than 215?
DRS – reversing a bad take doesnt correct the take. He was a high school draft pick with some raw upside. Making any kind of declaration at this point is fairly meaningless. Hitting in extreme hitter parks or extreme pitchers parks don’t speak to professional progress. If someone wants to draft a quick up trend…go pick Dustin Ackley #2 overall and talk your scouts out of Mike Trout like Jack Z did in 2012.
Honestly, quick prognosticators kind of always seem to be signaling their own need to be taken seriously.
Put Ethan Holliday on the block right now and 29 teams are on the phone. That’d tell you what any “trend” was worth right now. No..its not fair to say. Because the source is a writer for an online site and not a baseball professional. Citing me any kind of park metrics doesnt mean much. Small sample and not speaking to growth Potential. BOTH Holliday brothers came in with long swings that maximized their amatuer ability and need to adjust to their first time ever failing.
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.
Having a Pint at Coors is apropos
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.
I think it is a bit pf a stretch to call Brendan Rodgers a “miss.” Granted he is not going to the HOF by any means, but he has had a decent big league career thus far including winning a Gold Glove. That is not a miss to me. Swanson, Bregman, and Rodgers were widely considered the top three players in that draft with some people arguing that Rodgers was #1. There is not one team, other than the two that picked before the Rockies that would not have selected Rodgers at #3 that year. All I am saying is they could have done better, but they could have done much worse with that pick.
And it is definitely too early to call Veen and Montgomery misses, Veen has barely gotten a chance and Montgomery hasn’t really gotten a chance at all.
A picture
So they’re gonna ask Bill who he would draft so they know exactly who not to? And they’re gonna pay him for that? Could have saved a lot of money hiring an MLBTR commenter from these boards to do the same thing.
Bill Schmidt always was consistent being able to evaluate low first round picks every year.
This article is a bit harsh on first round misses…if the player made it to the show and played more than 50 games that ain’t a miss. Many 1st rounders do not even make it that is a miss.
Only 50 games is a miss. Many of those are brought up to justify the pick but once they show they don’t belong … bye-bye.
He drafted the players who became the worst team in baseball.
A special assistant in professional baseball would be a perfect cover for a CIA agent, because the role is never defined and the person is rarely ever heard from. Gotta go check on a hot prospect in Venezuela next week. Whoa, there’s a great arm in South Korea by the DMZ. Be back after a quick look at a catcher in Cuba…