DENVER (AP) \u2014 Josh Byrnes has taken notice of all the winning going on in the Mile High City. The Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets aren\u2019t too far removed from titles and the Denver Broncos have one of the best records in football.<\/p>\n
He wants the Colorado Rockies to join in on that prosperity and fun. <\/p>\n
The new general manager believes the Rockies can be a success story, too. It\u2019s why Byrnes took the risk of leaving the front office of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that just won a second straight World Series crown, for a franchise that lost 119 games last season. The Rockies haven\u2019t been to the postseason since 2018. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, 119 losses, there\u2019s no sugarcoating it. There\u2019s a lot of work to do,\u201d Byrnes said Friday in an introductory video call. \u201cIf you really talk to people around the game, there\u2019s quite a bit of intrigue in trying to solve it here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because Colorado\u2019s long been a puzzle: How to consistently win at elevation and in a park as expansive as Coors Field? But Byrnes has been here before \u2014 he was an assistant GM in Colorado from 1999-2002 \u2014 and knows the challenges. He\u2019s also tight with Paul DePodesta, who was hired Nov. 7 as the Rockies\u2019 president of baseball operations. The two worked together in Cleveland in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
DePodesta always wanted to work with Byrnes again. So he got him to leave the safety of the Dodgers, where he\u2019d spent more than a decade as the senior vice president of baseball operations and won three World Series rings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved every day with the Dodgers and have a tremendous amount of respect for the people,\u201d said Byrnes, who\u2019s also worked in the front offices of the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres and Boston Red Sox. \u201cBut I\u2019ve known Paul for 30 years, and he and I have always embraced challenges. I think he\u2019s brilliant. I think there\u2019s a lot we can both bring to this, and also not just tell stories about what we\u2019ve done, but create a new future for this franchise.\u201d<\/p>\n
DePodesta said they\u2019ve been given assurances they can make changes happen. The Rockies won\u2019t shy away from the trade front, either, in reshaping the roster. In years past, there\u2019s been some reluctance to deal players.<\/p>\n
\u201cJosh and I have both been in situations with immense resources, and we\u2019ve also been in situations that have have had lesser resources, also by a significant amount,\u201d explained DePodesta, who said the team is close to rounding out the coaching staff for manager Warren Schaeffer. \u201cWe feel very comfortable with what\u2019s available here. The mindset is that there\u2019s a desire to invest pretty heavily on the baseball side.\u201d<\/p>\n
First, though, the front office must find an identity \u2014 the Rockies\u2019 way of doing things. Byrnes pointed out that what made the Dodgers elite was their mindset of constantly pushing to be better. He mentioned Shohei Ohtani stealing 50 bases, Mookie Betts sliding over to shortstop and Clayton Kershaw finding ways to win without his 95 mph fastball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a nonstop quest for improvement, and in their cases, greatness,\u201d Byrnes said. \u201cIt has to come from the player, but we also have to support it and and and be right there with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rockies have a solid nucleus that includes All-Star catcher Hunter Goodman and shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. The team also drafted an exciting player in Ethan Holliday with the No. 4 pick last summer. <\/p>\n
\u201cPaul and I have talked about it, just conceptually, raising the floor,\u201d Byrnes said. \u201cHaving a deeper team with fewer sort of gaps \u2014 innings, plate appearances \u2014 that are that are going to players that aren\u2019t quite what we need. So there\u2019s a lot of ways to start attacking it, but there\u2019s definitely some talent in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wants to get this team back to winning \u2014 like the other teams around town.<\/p>\n
\u201cWouldn\u2019t come in here without some optimism and confidence that we can get there,\u201d Byrnes said. \u201cThe excitement around those teams in Denver for winning is something you can feel, I\u2019m sure. We want to be part of that, without a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n
Pat Graham, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Josh Byrnes has taken notice of all the winning going on in the Mile High…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-328048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}