by Tyler Fransen
The Colorado Rockies have done something previously thought impossible under the Monfort administration; they’ve hired a respectable manager that can address a key issue to their struggles. Whodathunk?
I mean these are the Colorado Rockies we’re talking about, a team that relishes in its own mediocrity but hasn’t had the longevity of losing like the Cubs have to make it endearing. In other words, we’re not as good as the Cubs at being bad.
But we’re still pretty bad. This is the team that has written the Encyclopedia Britannica on how to lose baseball games. Having a strong lead going into the last few innings? That’s gone. Complete blowout? Yep. Walk-off? You betcha! Every way imaginable to lose a baseball game, and the Rockies have done it in ways that you never thought possible.
They have reinvented losing to make it seem as if you almost expect them to lose, and the excitement comes from them not necessarily winning by surprise but losing by surprise. But the one consistency throughout this Rockies club has been a lack of pitching.
It’s become the running joke, but it’s a joke that is so poorly delivered, Andrew Dice Clay got most of his material from it. “We’d be so good if we had some pitching,” the Rockies fan like myself says, “we’d be so good!” And I’m right, we would be so good.
Nolan Arenado is a multiple gold glove winner, Trevor Story could have been rookie of the year and home run leader, DJ Lemahieu is the reigning batting champion and Charlie Blackmon won Silver Slugger. How is it that a team with multiple offensive superstars, can’t get above .500 to save their life? It’s all in the pitching.
If your team’s supposed ace pitcher is Jorge de la Rosa, you’ve got some issues to work out. And the problem isn’t necessarily de la Rosa, the problem is the fact that this team hasn’t had any good prospects as of late.
This is where the Monfort brothers come in, or as I like to call them, “dumber and dumber than that.” They are the brothers that have magically concocted the formula for selling out crowds at Coors Field, yet not guaranteeing the team will even show up to perform that day. On the off chance they do, it’s been because the offense got hot and the pitching just had to throw it above the knees, and they couldn’t even do that sometimes.
So when it came time to replace Walt Weiss as the head honcho of the team, the Rockies did something I never thought they would do; hire a pitching minded manager that enjoyed success as a manager at the professional level. Remember, Weiss came right out of high school coaching at Regis Jesuit once his pro career was over. He had never managed at the pro level, he hadn’t even managed or coached at the college level! Of course he was going to fail, and frankly that was the point. So long as Weiss bowed to the wishes of his bosses Charles and Richard Monfort, they’d let him do whatever he wanted as long as he could sell out crowds at Coors.
The Monforts decided to replace Weiss with former San Diego Padres manager Bud Black. (Side note, what is it with the Monforts hiring managers with two syllable alliteration names like Walt Weiss and Bud Black?).
Black may not be the next Joe Maddon or Dusty Baker, but he’s definitely not the next Weiss. He’s competent and his experience on the mound as both a player and a coach, make him a superb candidate for a team that already has tremendous offensive firepower. All they need is just a little extra push of experience and knowledge of the pitching game.
It certainly helps Black’s case when you realize that there are some potentially decent prospects on the mound for the Rockies this year.
Jeff Hoffman is the Rockies top pitching prospect and a former number one overall selection in the 2014 draft. He was picked up by the Blue Jays and then traded as the top prospect in the Troy Tulowitzki/Jose Reyes fiasco. Hoffman throws 99 miles per hour on his fastballs and has struck out batters 124 times in the minors.
Grand Junction Rockies pitcher Riley Pint is right behind Hoffman in terms of pitching prospects. In his time with the GJ Rockies, he threw around 92-97 miles per hour on fastballs and maxed out at 102. He’s a little young, all of 19, and he’s prone to be inconsistent. This will be the job of Black. If he can showcase to these young prospects the mechanics and necessities needed to be consistent on the mound, then the Rockies are already lightyears ahead of where they were even last year.
Jon Gray returns to the Rockies, hoping to improve where he was last year, along with Tyler Chatwood and Chad Bettis. Chatwood and Bettis each had winning records while Gray was at .500 going 10-10 on the mound. Chatwood has the best ERA of the three with 3.87, while Gray and Bettis have a 4.61 and 4.79 ERA respectively.
So Bud Black has his work cut out for him. If he can make the pitching at least a non-liability, the Rockies will be in a position to utilize the offensive lighting storm they have with the likes of Blackmon, Story, Arenado, Lemahieu and maybe Carlos Gonzalez. They might try trading Gonzales away for pitching or prospects, but as sad as it would be, it would at least make Rockies fans feel like they were doing something to win.
I hope, like many other Rockies fans, that Bud Black does everything in his power to succeed, if for no other reason than I don’t want to be the Cubs of 1908-2016. I want to win some day, and I want to win soon. The Rockies are not going to the World Series anytime soon unless they find their 2007 playoff elyxir somewhere in Clint Hurdle’s basement.
But what they can do this year with Black’s leadership is at the very least get above .500, and maybe get a spot in the wildcard. Who knows? We might be looking at your 2017 World Series Champion Rockies because after Trump, the Cubs, the Cavs and the Buffaloes, frankly anything is possible at this point.
