Recent Comments By Rockies Owner Reignites Offseason Ire

[PeterBal]

1 hour ago, Redd Vencher said:

You're the one who brought up being bold in the OP. The Brewers aren't spending $280 M on a single player, so you're better off supporting a different team if that's the only bold move you can think of. They can probably get both Adames and Woodruff extended for less money than Correa signed for.

Nelson Cruz is 42, and he was bad last year. I don't know if counting on a 42 year old DH only player is a good idea.

Michael Wacha 2018-2022 497.0 IP 4.33 ERA 95 ERA+ 4.69 FIP 4.22 xFIP

Sean Manaea 2018-2022 581.2 IP 4.02 ERA 100 ERA+ 4.05 FIP 3.94 xFIP

Johnny Cueto 2018-2022 405.1 IP 3.93 ERA 103 ERA+ 4.19 FIP 4.45 xFIP

Wade Miley 2018-2022 462.1 IP 3.50 ERA 129 ERA+ 4.12 FIP 4.33 xFIP

Looks like they got the best of those pitchers on the cheapest deal.

You're banking on Brandon Drury finally figuring things out at age 30 when he's been bad his entire career. I would not have given him the deal the Angels did.

Candelario would have been an interesting bounceback candidate, but he was worse than Anderson last year without the clear injury to point to like Anderson. Candelario is also a worse defender, so you're getting the defense if he isn't hitting.

Wait, where’s Miley on this graphic that MLB.com just posted? 

[CheeseheadInQC]

39 minutes ago, PeterBal said:

Wait, where’s Miley on this graphic that MLB.com just posted? 

Not old enough yet.

In all seriousness, though, I don’t know that anyone would contest that Cueto is the bigger name. Does that mean he will be the better pitcher next season? Not really.

The truth is, everyone at this level of free agency has warts, including both the guys the Brewers signed and the guys on your list. If they didn’t, they would be on the list of guys getting 6/$180 million or something like that. The question becomes who do you think will best be able to overcome the warts or whose do you think you will best be able to hide. Miley and Anderson wouldn’t have necessarily been my first choices, but I can understand the rationale for both. But if the Brewers choices fail, and yours are better, it will be a failure of pro scouting, possibly recruitment (if they had similar offers turned down) or, given who they signed, potentially injury risk assessment. It has nothing to do with organizational philosophy.

[torts]

It see till kind of shocks me that San Diego is considered a small market

[sveumrules]

11 hours ago, torts said:

It see till kind of shocks me that San Diego is considered a small market

Maybe small in terms of geographical reach with LA to the North, Mexico to the South, Ocean to the West and desert to the East, but San Diego has the 8th largest population with a sky high cost of living.

Looks like median household income in SD is 89K with median home prices around 750-850K. Meanwhile MKE is around 45K and 175-190K.

Padres also own property around Petco that I would imagine generates way more income year round than the Brewers parking lot does for 80-90 days a year.

Sure, San Diego and Milwaukee have similar media market sizes…but that’s about it.

[wiguy94]

8 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Maybe small in terms of geographical reach with LA to the North, Mexico to the South, Ocean to the West and desert to the East, but San Diego has the 8th largest population with a sky high cost of living.

Looks like median household income in SD is 89K with median home prices around 750-850K. Meanwhile MKE is around 45K and 175-190K.

Padres also own property around Petco that I would imagine generates way more income year round than the Brewers parking lot does for 80-90 days a year.

Sure, San Diego and Milwaukee have similar media market sizes…but that’s about it.

Yeah San Diego is the 8th biggest US city and 17th biggest US metro. It’s much larger than Milwaukee. Their media market is small for the reasons you listed, proximity to LA and Mexico. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Every time someone from ownership of the Reds, Pirates, Rockies, et al open their mouths to say something about the sport, I'm glad I follow the Brewers and Twins.

Go ahead and complain about Attanasio - he's certainly not without his flaws - but realize that objectively, he's one of the more tolerable owners in the sport.

It's damned hard to be a Rockies fan right now.

[Jopal78]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Every time someone from ownership of the Reds, Pirates, Rockies, et al open their mouths to say something about the sport, I'm glad I follow the Brewers and Twins.

Go ahead and complain about Attanasio - he's certainly not without his flaws - but realize that objectively, he's one of the more tolerable owners in the sport.

It's damned hard to be a Rockies fan right now.

Fans of the Rockies shouldn't be upset with the Monforts; they've been nothing but competent owners who try to win. However, there is nothing they can do about the fact the team is in a location that makes it nearly impossible to have effective pitching.  

Of their 30 seasons as a team, the Rockies have allowed 785 (4.85 runs per game) or fewer runs in 9 seasons. In those 9 seasons of allowing fewer than 785 runs, they went to the postseason 5 times and even won a pennant.

By contrast the Brewers, even including the dregs of the mid to late 90s and early aughts, have allowed 785 runs or fewer in 20 of the last 30 seasons. The Brewers have been to the playoffs in only six of those 20 seasons. 

It's nearly impossible to consistently pitch well in Colorado, and without pitching its impossible to win, no matter if the owner spends 100 million dollars or 300 million dollars. 

Why did Arenado want out of Colorado? Because they couldn't pitch. In 2019, Arenado's last in Colorado, the Rockies were 4th in the NL in runs scored and lost 91 because of league worst  pitching which allowed 958 runs (5.91 runs per game).

And it wasn't for lack of investing in their pitching. That particular staff featured the 3rd overall pick in the '13 draft (Jon Gray), the 8th overall pick in the '14 draft (Freeland), the 9th overall pick in the '14 draft (Jeff Hoffman), the 20th overall pick of the '11 draft (Tyler Anderson) plus the 44th overall pick in the '15 draft (Peter Lambert). 3 top 10 picks, 4 first round picks and five starters from near the top of the draft and they still sucked. 

If you read Monfort's comments in their entirety, I think he isn't complaining about the San Diego payroll, rather he has a bear-ish view of the Padres pitching and in spite of that San Diego is dumping more money into improving their hitting. Certainly from Monfort's perspective, he has seen that very strategy (overcome poor pitching with plus ultra hitting) fail over and over again. 

 

 

[jerichoholicninja]

The Rockies have been far from competent. They have absolutely no plan and no direction for their organization. The last decade they have been in no way talented enough to compete within their division yet they refuse to chose to either tear it down or "go for it". They've never won their division and have finished second only four times in their nearly 30 year existence while consistently finishing under .500. They refused to trade Arenado and then gave him a ridiculous contract just to pay the Cardinals to take him the next year. They refused to trade Trevor Story and lost him for only a draft pick. Instead of trading Charlie Blackmon they extended him only to watch him get old turn in to a guy who can't even hit playing in Coors Field. Kris Bryant, Wade Davis, Ian Desmond... all wasted money and signings everyone knew were stupid at the time.

People can complain about certain franchises being "cheap" by not spending money but they at least have a clear objective to what they are doing. The Rockies do not. They have no clue what they're doing. You can't even say that they're just trying to put a "competitive" team on the field (i.e. Herb Kohl strategy) because one offseason they'll spend a bunch of money and then proceed to sell off veterans the next year and go and spend more money or make trades the next offseason to fill the positions they just traded away.

[sveumrules]

21 minutes ago, jerichoholicninja said:

The Rockies have been far from competent. They have absolutely no plan and no direction for their organization. The last decade they have been in no way talented enough to compete within their division yet they refuse to chose to either tear it down or "go for it". They've never won their division and have finished second only four times in their nearly 30 year existence while consistently finishing under .500. They refused to trade Arenado and then gave him a ridiculous contract just to pay the Cardinals to take him the next year. They refused to trade Trevor Story and lost him for only a draft pick. Instead of trading Charlie Blackmon they extended him only to watch him get old turn in to a guy who can't even hit playing in Coors Field. Kris Bryant, Wade Davis, Ian Desmond... all wasted money and signings everyone knew were stupid at the time.

People can complain about certain franchises being "cheap" by not spending money but they at least have a clear objective to what they are doing. The Rockies do not. They have no clue what they're doing. You can't even say that they're just trying to put a "competitive" team on the field (i.e. Herb Kohl strategy) because one offseason they'll spend a bunch of money and then proceed to sell off veterans the next year and go and spend more money or make trades the next offseason to fill the positions they just traded away.

Yup, Monforts took over in 2005. Since then Rockies have won the 26th most games in baseball with only the Marlins, Pirates, Orioles and Royals winning fewer.

Maybe they've been trying to win, but they haven't done a very good job.

[Brock Beauchamp]

57 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Fans of the Rockies shouldn't be upset with the Monforts; they've been nothing but competent owners who try to win. However, there is nothing they can do about the fact the team is in a location that makes it nearly impossible to have effective pitching.  

Of their 30 seasons as a team, the Rockies have allowed 785 (4.85 runs per game) or fewer runs in 9 seasons. In those 9 seasons of allowing fewer than 785 runs, they went to the postseason 5 times and even won a pennant.

By contrast the Brewers, even including the dregs of the mid to late 90s and early aughts, have allowed 785 runs or fewer in 20 of the last 30 seasons. The Brewers have been to the playoffs in only six of those 20 seasons. 

It's nearly impossible to consistently pitch well in Colorado, and without pitching its impossible to win, no matter if the owner spends 100 million dollars or 300 million dollars. 

Why did Arenado want out of Colorado? Because they couldn't pitch. In 2019, Arenado's last in Colorado, the Rockies were 4th in the NL in runs scored and lost 91 because of league worst  pitching which allowed 958 runs (5.91 runs per game).

And it wasn't for lack of investing in their pitching. That particular staff featured the 3rd overall pick in the '13 draft (Jon Gray), the 8th overall pick in the '14 draft (Freeland), the 9th overall pick in the '14 draft (Jeff Hoffman), the 20th overall pick of the '11 draft (Tyler Anderson) plus the 44th overall pick in the '15 draft (Peter Lambert). 3 top 10 picks, 4 first round picks and five starters from near the top of the draft and they still sucked. 

If you read Monfort's comments in their entirety, I think he isn't complaining about the San Diego payroll, rather he has a bear-ish view of the Padres pitching and in spite of that San Diego is dumping more money into improving their hitting. Certainly from Monfort's perspective, he has seen that very strategy (overcome poor pitching with plus ultra hitting) fail over and over again. 

I agree that the Rockies face an uphill battle playing 81 games in Colorado but strongly disagree Monfort has been a competent owner.

[Brock Beauchamp]

36 minutes ago, jerichoholicninja said:

The Rockies have been far from competent. They have absolutely no plan and no direction for their organization. The last decade they have been in no way talented enough to compete within their division yet they refuse to chose to either tear it down or "go for it". They've never won their division and have finished second only four times in their nearly 30 year existence while consistently finishing under .500. They refused to trade Arenado and then gave him a ridiculous contract just to pay the Cardinals to take him the next year. They refused to trade Trevor Story and lost him for only a draft pick. Instead of trading Charlie Blackmon they extended him only to watch him get old turn in to a guy who can't even hit playing in Coors Field. Kris Bryant, Wade Davis, Ian Desmond... all wasted money and signings everyone knew were stupid at the time.

People can complain about certain franchises being "cheap" by not spending money but they at least have a clear objective to what they are doing. The Rockies do not. They have no clue what they're doing. You can't even say that they're just trying to put a "competitive" team on the field (i.e. Herb Kohl strategy) because one offseason they'll spend a bunch of money and then proceed to sell off veterans the next year and go and spend more money or make trades the next offseason to fill the positions they just traded away.

I was going to type almost this exact thing but didn't need to repeat what you've said here. All of it is spot-on.

The Rockies are unpredictable in the worst way. Where some GMs are delightfully unpredictable, the Rockies are nauseatingly unpredictable, constantly back-tracking and doing the opposite of what they did mere days beforehand. There's no rhyme or reason to their moves and they waste absolute buckets of money running in circles.

Like I said earlier, it's damned hard to be a Rockies fan.

[SF70]

30 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I agree that the Rockies face an uphill battle playing 81 games in Colorado but strongly disagree Monfort has been a competent owner.

Montfort spends above his revenue, the problem has been his choice of GM’s. 

[nate82]

Just now, SF70 said:

Montfort spends above his revenue, the problem has been his choice of GM’s. 

Maybe Montfort doesn't want to hire a GM that will tell him that he needs to tear everything down and to stop spending like a drunken sailor?

[Thurston Fluff]

On 1/29/2023 at 7:54 PM, PeterBal said:

More importantly, I wish just one Milwaukee sports media person would ask GM Matt Arnold and owner Mark Attanasio, “How important is it to try to win a World Series vs. ‘put a good team on the field [something Arnold has said multiple times as of late]’?”

A lot of people think one helps get to the other, but in reality, one is a commitment. The other is…just business.

Both are commitments. The only difference is one commitment is to cycle from four years of competitiveness followed by six years of fielding crap teams to get to the next four year window. The other is believing a cycle of booms and busts does not help a franchise win World series any better than remaining competitive and fans don't show up six out of every ten years.

[Jopal78]

4 hours ago, nate82 said:

Maybe Montfort doesn't want to hire a GM that will tell him that he needs to tear everything down and to stop spending like a drunken sailor?

Of course they flail about as an organization, shuffling players around. It’s because they’re trying to defy the rule that you can’t win without pitching. 

They tried signing pitchers as free agents and it worked out so poorly that now  agents don’t want to sign there.

In their 30 seasons they’ve spent 24 first round picks on pitchers and couldn’t teach any of them to pitch in Denver

Then the cherry on the top is that their Division features two of the most successful clubs of the last 30 years in LAD and SF, not to mention an upstart SD.
 

Which brings it back to the GM; are they going to be able to hire the hot upstart GM when the deck is already stacked against them and the competition is fierce? That likely explains why despite years of failure they continue to promote from within in filling their GM spot 

[Brock Beauchamp]

50 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Of course they flail about as an organization, shuffling players around. It’s because they’re trying to defy the rule that you can’t win without pitching. 

There's no way to rationally explain away the situation of how they ended up with Kris Bryant at that dollar amount and no longer have either Trevor Story or Nolan Arenado (while also paying Arenado). It was wildly bad management and not a single one of those names is a pitcher.

And I'd bet my left arm that if Monfort knew the right person to pluck out of a system like the Rays or Guardians and paid them handsomely to manage the Rockies, they'd find a way to work around their elevation and pitching issues, or at least mitigate them somewhat.

[rickh150]

On 1/29/2023 at 8:44 PM, sveumrules said:

There is no “doing whatever necessary” to bring a World Series to Milwaukee.

The Yankees have spent 2.5 Billion on payroll since 2009 to not make it to a single World Series.

The Dodgers have been the most dominant regular season team of the last decade, spending about 2.2 Billion on payroll with one pandemic WS to show for it.

The Angels have spent just shy of 2 Billion on payroll since 2010 to make the playoffs one time.

The Mets, Phillies and Padres spending paid off in 2022, but they all missed the playoffs with Top 10 payrolls in 2021.

No amount of money can overcome the randomness of the postseason.

I don’t agree with this line of thinking either…
Just getting to the playoffs, year in and year out, favors the high payroll teams. And it usually isn’t even close… the top half payroll teams dominate over the bottom half.  And I think the teams actually in the playoffs, and only those teams mind you,  have a “random” opportunity to win it all.

 

On 1/30/2023 at 10:04 AM, sveumrules said:

Yes, spending money improves a team’s chances but doesn’t guarantee anything.

That’s literally the story all the stats I post are telling.

 

You need a bunch of stats to argue that more money doesn’t “guarantee” a WS title? No one ever believed that.  More money and ultimately better proven players usually improve your odds, of course. 

[StearnsFTW]

Well there's 10 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.

 

[Jopal78]

13 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

There's no way to rationally explain away the situation of how they ended up with Kris Bryant at that dollar amount and no longer have either Trevor Story or Nolan Arenado (while also paying Arenado). It was wildly bad management and not a single one of those names is a pitcher.

And I'd bet my left arm that if Monfort knew the right person to pluck out of a system like the Rays or Guardians and paid them handsomely to manage the Rockies, they'd find a way to work around their elevation and pitching issues, or at least mitigate them somewhat.

Arenado demanded to be traded, players demand to be traded all the time frequently with years of control remaining: A-Rod, Greinke, Yelich, Arenado, Bryan Reynolds, etc. it's rare when a team actually refuses the request and hangs on to the player. So the die was cast when Arenado wanted out of Colorado. Its no surprise they made a terrible trade with St. Louis, because Arenado held all the leverage in the situation: he had a full no trade clause,  and the right to opt out of his deal after the '21 season.  Faced with the prospect of only being able to trade Arenado to a team of his choosing, or lose him for nothing after the season, they made the best deal they could....a bad one.

As for Trevor Story, the Rockies will most likely be proven right to let him walk. His OBP, SLG and durability have all been trending in the wrong direction for years. 

With Kris Bryant they paid market rate for a terrific player, nothing wrong with that. In fact, I wish the Brewers had a .880 OPS 3rd baseman who has been to 4 all-star games and won an MVP. 

Colorado is just a terrible place to have put a baseball team, nobody is ever going to win there not even Theo Epstein and a 400 million dollar payroll. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

3 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

With Kris Bryant they paid market rate for a terrific player. I wish the Brewers had a .880 OPS 3rd baseman who has been to 4 all-star games and won an MVP. 

Who is playing left field.

Which kinda summarizes the point a bunch of us are making about the Rockies.

[Jopal78]

4 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Who is playing left field.

Which kinda summarizes the point a bunch of us are making about the Rockies.

I guess people see what they want to see. 

If you recall, Bryant missed most of 2022 with a back injury. I suppose the reason he played 30 games in LF for the Rockies in '22 is because playing LF was likely easier on his back than the hot corner would have been. Further, it wasn't necessarily a foreign position because Bryant had 101 previous starts in LF before joining Colorado, not to mention another 83 starts in RF, 14 in CF and 23 at 1B. 

Again, I wished the Brewers had an .880 OPS All-Star hitter with MVP hardware who could play all over the field. 

 

[sveumrules]

8 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Again, I wished the Brewers had an .880 OPS All-Star hitter with MVP hardware who could play all over the field. 

Yelich is an 840 OPS All-Star hitter with MVP hardware. Of course he's only put up 4.3 WAR since 2020 so his contract (6/162.5) is about a hundred million underwater.

Don't see how Bryant (4.2 WAR since 2020) with 6/158 remaining is any better of a deal. 

[jerichoholicninja]

Bryant is consistently injured. He wouldn't be helping the Brewers or any MLB all that much.

[Brock Beauchamp]

33 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

I guess people see what they want to see. 

Cut it out with the condescension.

The Rockies already had Ryan McMahon, who they extended for five-ish years last offseason. I'm not the one "seeing what they want to see" here. The Rockies signed a third baseman in Bryant, then extended their current third basemen a week later, and put Bryant in left field.

The Rockies stack nonsensical moves on top of each other. It's kind of "their thing".

In isolation, any single move they make can be justified. Signing Bryant is fine. Extending McMahon was probably a pretty savvy move.

But as a whole, their moves are pure chaos and not a reasonable way to build a baseball team, as evidenced by their constant losing.

[Jopal78]

6 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Cut it out with the condescension.

The Rockies already had Ryan McMahon, who they extended for five-ish years last offseason. I'm not the one "seeing what they want to see" here. The Rockies signed a third baseman in Bryant, then extended their current third basemen a week later, and put Bryant in left field.

The Rockies stack nonsensical moves on top of each other. It's kind of "their thing".

In isolation, any single move they make can be justified. Signing Bryant is fine. Extending McMahon was probably a pretty savvy move.

But as a whole, their moves are pure chaos and not a reasonable way to build a baseball team, as evidenced by their constant losing.

Grow some thicker skin. It’s not condescending; your mind is clearly made up.  They’re idiots in your purview, I get it. 

Although you haven’t really contradicted the premise that nobody can consistently pitch well there and their moves should all be viewed from the lens of trying to win without being able to pitch effectively.

Thus, one sees what they want to see.