The grass is forest green, expectant. Peanut shells crunch underfoot. Bright sun splashes across the stadium. Baseball is hope breathing. Until the first pitch.
The Rockies do to optimism what the moon will do to the sun on Monday. It’s a total eclipse of the heart. Baseball is a romance. Loving this Rockies team is more like a one-night stand — the home opener or a fireworks night.
Watching the Rockies stumble through their first week, it made the 103-loss 2023 club look like overachievers. Friday provided suspension of disbelief, allowing for Up with Purple joy for the sellout crowd in a 10-7 victory.
Even in their worst seasons, the Rockies find ways to remain competitive at home because of swings like Ryan McMahon’s walk-off grand slam. We must not let that create avoidance of critical thinking about the local nine. What is sought, at least based on my email inbox over the last month, is a more sustainable solution. There is an answer at Coors Field. It just happens to be in the visitors dugout.
The Rockies need to be more like the Rays. They need to think outside of the batter’s box.
I asked Rays manager Kevin Cash how the Rockies could emulate Tampa Bay, an organization’s whose stubborn frugality has not prevented a stream of regular-season victories.
“I appreciate us being looked at as doing things the right way,” Rays manager Kevin Cash told me. “We want to continue that. That’s the best I can give you. I wouldn’t tell you if I did know.”
He does. We all do. Tampa Bay has revolutionized the sport by using a model of clinical efficiency and sobering intelligence that is more suited for Wall Street than Blake Street. The Tampa Bay Way provides a peek into how to accelerate what currently looks like an eight-year rebuild for the Rockies.
Flip the calendar back to 2016. The Rays won 68 games, sat in the cellar of the American League East and boasted a pedestrian farm system. Over the past seven years, they have posted six winning seasons and advanced to the playoffs five times. The Rockies have reached the playoffs five times in their previous 31 seasons.
I acknowledge this is not apples-to-apples because of the altitude that turns Colorado baseball into a Rubik’s Cube. But the Rays offer a model of how to contend that is rather different than the Rockies overspending on homegrown prospects and adding unnecessary veterans (Kris Bryant) while waiting for more young players to ripen on the farm.
First, invest heavily in scouts and data miners.
The Rays carry a bloated 44-person analytics staff as of last season, compared to currently 11 for the Rockies. This opens an avenue for achieving success in the margins, for wringing out every calorie of ability from players. I know the knee-jerk reaction: It is more Ivy League than Major League. The best organizations balance both a scout’s eyes and what the numbers reveal. They blend new school with old school. There is room for both.
Owner Dick Monfort has no plans to beef up the analytics staff, pointing to The Lab in Scottsdale, Ariz. — a place where players can measure and evaluate their performance and study their biomechanics — as a sufficient investment for now. This speaks to a larger issue. Monfort is a proven businessman — see McGregor Square, the care of the stadium and the party deck. What he needs is more modern baseball men. There is a reason teams have plucked away Tampa Bay’s top executives. The Rockies require less groupthink, less echo chamber. This situation demands a fresh set of eyes. Installing a young, bright executive as president of baseball operations would serve as a starting point, permitting Monfort to oversee the business, not the baseball.
General manager Bill Schmidt has attempted to provide a fix as he enters his third season, aggressively pursuing trades and adding pitching. Monfort is loyal, so give Schmidt additional resources and bodies. Here’s the issue: The Rockies are making clear strides in Latin America, where there is an even playing field in international pool money.
They must significantly improve in the draft. And development. It’s impossible to contend with a middle of the road payroll in the National League West — there is no salary cap on the horizon — without nailing the amateur selections. It takes complete buy-in with scouts finding players and analysts digging for diamonds in the dirt. There will be some trial and error, but it will come from a place of structure and creative friction.
I like some of the Rockies’ prospects, including slugger Jordan Beck. But do you realize Brendan Rodgers is their best domestic player drafted since 2015? And the two drafted pitchers in the rotation — Kyle Freeland and Ryan Feltner — are taking on water. If this sounds familiar, this is how John Elway fueled the Broncos’ nosedive. There are three players (Garett Bolles, Courtland Sutton and Justin Strnad) remaining with the team from his last five drafts from 2016 to 2020.
The Rays not only began landing a battery of prospects, but they also have shown zero reluctance in trading them. They like their players. The Rockies love theirs, too often holding onto them until their value is negligible. Tampa Bay will trade good players and add better ones. And their faith in their pro scouts and the ability of their big-league coaching staff to unleash potential is unwavering.
“That’s on our group led by (president of baseball operations) Erik Neander. We try to see some things and value some things a player does really, really elite and special,” Cash said. “And we try to maximize it.”
The Rockies provided a moment of splendor with McMahon’s moonball. Celebrate it. But understand what you were watching is an interruption. This franchise needs less of the Rockie Way and more of Tampa Bay.
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