As Rockies spiral towards historic losing season, front office shakeup could be looming

Et tu, Rockies?

The idea of Colorado moving on from general manager Bill Schmidt is generating chatter within the industry and drawing public acknowledgment from ownership. But before Sunday, the possibility of Schmidt getting dismissed or more likely reassigned before the amateur draft and trade deadline seemed remote.

It might still be remote, but baseball often is a copycat industry. And the Washington Nationals, operating without regard for the baseball calendar, just fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez one week before the draft and less than a month before the deadline.

If anything, the Rockies have even more reason to act. At 21-70, they are on pace to finish 37-125 and break the 2024 Chicago White Sox’s mark for the worst record in modern major-league history. When it comes to the draft and deadline, it would be almost impossible to do any worse than they have for the past decade. Schmidt, 65, ran the scouting department for more than 20 years before becoming GM in May 2021.

The Rockies already have instituted changes, replacing manager Bud Black with Warren Schaeffer on May 11 and installing Walker Monfort, the son of owner and CEO Dick Monfort, as executive vice-president on June 26. Schmidt, sandwiched between the two, almost certainly will be the next to go.

Every draft and every deadline is potentially transformative. The Rockies hold the No. 4 overall pick. Their major-league roster includes players other teams want. But the franchise is so far gone that its decisions over the next month will carry only so much importance.

The Rockies’ next head of baseball operations needs to come from outside their weird little world, but possess a feel for the challenges of building a winner at Coors Field. And the first task for that person should be to gut virtually the entire organization.

Walker Monfort, through a team spokesperson, declined comment Monday on Schmidt’s status. A move in the coming days would be as curiously timed as the Nationals’ firing of Rizzo, not that the Rockies ever seem to care about departing from industry norms. But whether the team would be confident elevating an interim replacement the way the Nats did with assistant GM Mike DeBartolo is not known.

As recently as March, Dick Monfort, chairman of the owners’ labor policy committee, sounded more comfortable calling for a salary cap than addressing his own failures as an owner, telling the Denver Gazette, “the competitive imbalance in baseball has gotten to the point of ludicrosity.”

Teams in smaller markets than Denver – notably, the San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers – find ways to compete. But Dick and his brother, Rockies co-owner Charlie Monfort, finally seem to be seeing the light about their own operation, at least by the standards of an organization that takes peculiar pride in operating with the shades down.

Charlie Monfort told the Denver Post last month, “We need a new set of eyeballs.”

Dick Monfort did not disagree, saying, “That’s not only Charlie’s opinion, it’s the public’s in general, and I get it. There is a criticism, which is fair, that we are very loyal, insular, and we promote from within.”

Dick Monfort also made the point that baseball at altitude is different, saying, “We have this dynamic of playing somewhere where nobody else plays.” The Rockies certainly have not figured out how to achieve sustained success at Coors, making the playoffs only five times in their 33-year history, and back-to-back only in 2017 and ‘18. The park’s offensive tendencies, combined with the way players wear down at altitude, might exasperate even the most brilliant baseball minds.

Across the sport, rival executives have gamed out theories for how to conquer the elements in Colorado. But the ideal choice for the Rockies would be someone who is intimately familiar with the Coors experience, someone who previously worked for the organization, then went onto other clubs.

Thad Levine, who was in the Rockies’ front office from 1999 to 2005 before becoming assistant GM of the Texas Rangers and GM of the Minnesota Twins, fits the profile. So do Seattle Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto, who pitched for the Rockies and served two stints in their front office, and Mariners assistant GM Andy McKay, who was Colorado’s peak performance director before joining Seattle as farm director.

Levine, whose people skills and leadership ability might make him more suited to a team president’s role, currently is available after agreeing to part ways with the Twins last October. The Rockies could hire him immediately and give him time to learn the organization, similar to what the St. Louis Cardinals did with Chaim Bloom.

Dipoto might not want to leave Seattle, where he has headed baseball operations since Sept. 2015, for a lateral position with a downtrodden franchise. McKay, who according to major-league sources, interviewed for the Miami Marlins’ managerial position last offseason, might prefer a role that bridges the gap between the front office and players.

Milwaukee Brewers special advisor Billy Eppler, who served a nine-month suspension last year for fabricating injuries to create open roster spots for the New York Mets, began his career in baseball as a Rockies scout. A number of former GMs with no ties to the Rockies, from Dayton Moore to James Click to Ruben Amaro Jr., also could be candidates, both in Washington and Colorado.

The task will not be easy for whoever the Rockies choose, not when the team lags in so many areas. Take the draft, for example. In the past nine years, the Rockies have had five top 10 picks and nine others in the top 42. Those 14 picks have combined for -1.7 bWAR, though the number could rise in the future. Right-hander Chase Dollander holds considerable promise and last year’s first rounder, outfielder Charlie Condon, was No. 14 in Keith Law’s latest top 50.

On the trade front, the Rockies for years refused to engage on many of their better players, missing one opportunity after another to maximize on those players’ values. They plan to be more open-minded at this deadline, entertaining offers for third baseman Ryan McMahon, right-hander Germán Márquez and reliever Jake Bird, among others, according to a source briefed on the club’s plans. More open-minded, though, is not good enough. The Rockies need to be completely open-minded, willing to trade anyone and everyone.

Such is not the case, the source said. The Rockies remain unwilling to move younger players such as Dollander, shortstop Ezequiel Tovar and center fielder Brenton Doyle; right-hander Ryan Feltner and relievers Seth Halvorsen and Zach Agnos. Tovar, signed through at least 2030, might be a building block. Doyle might be, too. But goodness gracious, the Rockies are only (14-36) under Schaeffer after going 7-33 under Black.

If some team wants to give up a monster package for Dollander, whom the Rockies optioned to Triple A on Monday, why not listen? Neither the team’s major-league roster nor farm system is teeming with talent. After a crushing 2024 in which many Colorado prospects either were injured or underperformed, Law recently rated the system 23rd out of 30.

If the Rockies don’t want to make like the Nationals and remove Schmidt immediately, OK. But it’s not enough for Dick Monfort simply to recognize that change is necessary. He needs to pick the right head of baseball operations, then empower that person to overhaul the organization.

Anything short of that, to borrow one of Monfort’s favorite words, would be ludicrosity.

(Top photo of Schmidt with Rockies infielder Kyle Farmer: AP Photo/David Zalubowski)