Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 07, 2006
Unearned Extensions?

Mike Carminati wonders why the Rockies management team received contract extensions:

This is a team that has witnessed one winning season in the last eight and that hasn't made the playoffs in the last ten. They have seen their attendance slip from first in the NL in their first 7 seasons (and as high as 4.5 M in their inaugural season) to fourteenth in the 16-team NL last year with their first attendance mark under two million for a season.

O'Dowd has held his job over six seasons and has job for over six seasons and has registered one season (barely) over .500 and that was over five years ago (82-80 in 2000) and has never had a team finish higher than fourth in a five team division. Since O'Dowd took over no Rockie team has finished within 15 games of first and his teams have finished on average 21 games out. And it should be mentioned that the Rockies fell from first in attendance in his first full season as GM and have been falling steadily since.


Posted by David Pinto at 06:36 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I'm not much of an O'Dowd fan, but the first 4 years were largely the fault of ever-changing direction from the ownership. Throw in the bad luck with Mike Hampton going all mental and rag-armed and O'Dowd's lousy luck or judgement on veterans and you have what you've seen.

Their young players are pretty decent and Hurdle has the makings of a good manager. If he has a relatively intact roster for 2006, he may be a more pleasant surprise.

If not, fire 'em both in September!

Posted by: 357 at February 8, 2006 12:21 AM

I've had this bold assumption that the Rockies will never win a championship until they move out of Coors Field (or negate it's effect on pitching).

If pitching wins playoffs, how can you hope to win if your pitchers confidence is at rock bottom come September?

I asked Steve Philips about this, and having covered the Rockies for a while, he hypothesized that they need a stacked offense and a bunch of reliable pitchers like Aaron Cook and Jeff Francis, who can pitch in Coors. In other words, this management is on the right track given their financial flexibility or lack thereof. I still don't buy it. Yesterday, Jason Bay said Coors was his 2nd favorite stadium to play in, but if the Rockies ever want to win, I think they need to turn it into a dome.

Posted by: Nat at February 8, 2006 10:43 AM

The problem with Coors field, honestly, isn't what it does to the pitchers...it's what it does to the hitters. Coors field turned guys like Castilla and Dante Bichette into MVP candidates. And the thing is, everyone assumes the Rockies always have good offensive players. But they rarely do. They have average guys with inflated numbers, and average pitchers with deflated numbers. I think the wrong problem is being addressed - I think they should get a team with a bunch of savvy, veteran, reliable innings-eating starters who won't get psychologically damaged by Coors Field(and are past the point of caring about their stats and their next contract) and then shell out serious money for real offensive threats, and the Rockies can win. But the approach they're trying and have been trying - develop pitchers who can "survive" in Colorado while calling up every average Atkins/Hawpe/Barmes hitter around and giving them starting jobs - is just not working, and is not going to.

Posted by: david at February 8, 2006 06:09 PM
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