Rockies VP of baseball operations and assistant general manager Zack Rosenthal has resigned from the organization, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports. Rosenthal has been in the assistant GM role since the 2014-15 offseason, and the VP position was added to his portfolio following the 2021 season, after Bill Schmidt was elevated from interim GM to the full-time job.
Schmidt is now out after a disastrous four-year run, as Colorado has won only 231 games since Opening Day 2022. This year’s squad was simply one of the worst teams in MLB history, with an astonishing 43-119 record and the worst rotation ERA (6.65) and run differential (-424) in baseball’s modern era. Ownership has already stated that the Rockies’ next front office boss will be someone from outside the organization, which seems like a long overdue step for a club often criticized for being too insular and not in touch with analytical and developments trends are commonplace in the sport.
With this in mind, it isn’t surprising that other longtime front office staffers like Rosenthal are on the way out, as the next top executive will likely have a wide berth to bring in their own personnel. Since Schmidt’s title was GM rather than president of baseball operations, Rosenthal was his de facto number two, as the Rockies’ only assistant general manager.
Rosenthal told MLB.com’s Thomas Harding (multiple links) that he made his own decision to step away. “I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to stay with one single organization for 20-plus years,” Rosenthal said. “So many amazing experiences and memories. My first full-time season was the World Series year [in 2007]. That was magical…I want nothing but success for the Rockies. This city deserves a team that competes, because there’s nothing like Coors Field in October.”
Starting his baseball career as an account manager with the A’s and as an intern with the Red Sox, Rosenthal arrived in Denver in 2006 as a player development intern. From there, he became a baseball ops assistant and then the director of baseball operations. Beyond just the baseball-specific duties, Rosenthal was also the Rockies’ assistant general counsel for much of his time with the club, dealing with legal matters related to front office matters and the team’s business operations.
