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In 2021, the Rockies last 87 games. In 2022, they dropped 94. The 2023 season saw them take the L 103 times, and in 2024, they improved their record for the first time since the pandemic-shortened 2020 forced them to lose fewer games than they had the prior year, by losing “just” 101. Oh, right, and in 2019, before that 60-game season, Colorado lost 91 games. Don’t worry, in 2020, they were still on pace for 92 defeats, this was an unbroken string of failure.
How do the Rockies plan on fixing things for 2025? They’re once again hoping their youth movement does the trick, and also, they’re planning to cut payroll again. And this goes beyond just not spending the money that the end of Charlie Blackmon’s career frees up, as well, according to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. They’ll be attempting to trade late-stage arbitration-eligible players to free up additional salary, players like Brendan Rogers, Cal Quantrill, and Austin Gomber.
Part of this, as Saunders put it, is to free up space for some of the nearly there prospects in the system, and some is to have some money to spend on the holes they do need to fill sooner than that. It’s a little hard to be patient about things, however, given the Rockies have been so bad for so long now, and promises of youth saving the day have been made before.
Granted, the Rockies’ revenue has taken a bit of a hit with the loss of their regional streaming network deal, but theirs is a stadium that continues to put butts in the seats regardless of their performance, too, so it’s not like TV was the end all, be all for them. The farm has taken steps forward, yes, but it’s not like this is an Orioles-level system that’s set to populate the roster with a number of stars, either. They’re going to have to spend some money, and spend it wisely, to get out of the rut they’re in. They do, after all, share a division with the Dodgers, Padres, and Diamondbacks, and there are only so many wild card slots even in the current postseason system.
The Rockies could choose to spend on veterans while waiting for their prospects, to put a better product on the field and energize even more fans to show up to each game. They could trade some of the prospects they do have to fill holes, instead of putting themselves in a position where they all have to hit for things to work out. This would all require that they not only spend but also spend wisely, however, and the latter is not exactly something the team is well-known for, either. I’m not exactly optimistic that this rebuild will go much differently than the previous ones.
Which is something that sticks out even more as we come off of a weekend where the Mets’ season finally ended in the NLCS against the Dodgers. The Mets weren’t any good, perpetually finishing in the bottom-middle of the NL East, and then owner Steve Cohen started spending money and even more money to make up for the lack of prospects in the system, and to fill holes that needed filling. Things didn’t work out in 2023, no, thanks to some misfires and injuries and general Metsiness, but they won over 100 games in 2022, and there’s no shame in losing in the NLCS to anyone, never mind the Dodgers. The suggestion here isn’t that the Rockies should be spending twice as much on their roster, no, but a reminder that there are ways to rebuild a team outside of sitting around being awful for the better part of a decade, in the hopes you can accumulate enough quality prospects at the same time to not be an abject embarrassment for a couple of years before blowing it all up again. You could also try. Actively. That’s not as profitable, however, so many teams do not.
We’re at the opposite side of the thought exercise former commissioner Peter Ueberroth presented to the owners in the 80s, before collusion, in which he said (per Lords of the Realm):
“Let’s say I sat each of you down in front of a red button and a black button,” he said at one early meeting. “Push the red button and you’d win the World Series but lose $10 million. Push the black button and you would make $4 million and finish somewhere in the middle.”
He paused to look around. “The problem is, most of you would push the red one.”
Ueberroth chided them for checking their business sense at the door. “You are so damned dumb.”
The Phillies’ John Middleton is pushing that red button. The Padres’ previous owner, Peter Seidler, was slamming that red button until his death last year. Steve Cohen is trying to see if he can get an even bigger red button made just for him. Most owners, however, don’t even see the red button anymore. The black button is the only one, and the fact that there are now three wild card teams per league only makes pushing the red one seem even more “damned dumb” from the perspective of these guys. Why try when the barriers for entry have been lowered by so much? It might be good “business sense” in the short-term, but it makes for some awful baseball. And while that might fit the Rockies’ brand, it shouldn’t be aspirational.
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