[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone, JJ Cooper, Jeff Ponce.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are back for another in our fixed series and today we are taking on the biggest challenge in baseball.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can the Colorado Rockies be fixed?
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, I think we could start with just like, no, no, we're good.
[SPEAKER_04]: We can't, sorry.
[SPEAKER_04]: In the podcast, in a video.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but we're not going to do that, obviously, but at the same time, I would say that this is the most daunting challenge.
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, the Colorado Rockies, they weren't just the worst team in Major League Baseball in 2025.
[SPEAKER_04]: They were arguably the worst team of all time.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that they had a better record, but they also had the worst run differential.
[SPEAKER_04]: Any time you start using the words Richmond Spiders, you know that if you have any comparison to them, anyway mentioned with them.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just a gaping black hole, smoldering black hole of disaster that you are talking about.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was your 2025 Rockies.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's even worse to be honest because this wasn't a team.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like we've had teams in recent years, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: The Astros
[SPEAKER_04]: basically, and the Orioles after them, and a couple other teams taint in a way where it was like, look, we're going to be terrible.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to suck up all the top picks with that, and then we're going to turn it around.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rockies were this bad this year knowing that the highest that they could pick was tenth because they were in the lottery.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been in the lottery and they knew they could not win.
[SPEAKER_04]: They could not be a top anymore than a tenth pick.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they knew going into this year.
[SPEAKER_04]: This was not a year where they were tanking.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a year where they were trying.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they produced, again, one of the worst seasons we've ever seen in the major leagues.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Jeff, as we record this, it only has gotten worse.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's where I think we have to start here, which is John Hayman, we had seen the reporting over the weekend into yesterday,
[SPEAKER_04]: The two finalists that we had heard of, Matt Foreman and Amale said, I have both are out.
[SPEAKER_04]: John Hayman reporting today that one of the two, we do not know which one, but one of the two turned down the offer and the other backed out before they got to that stage.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do not have any way to spin that, to explain that, to theorize on that Jeff, that's not bad for the direction of the Rockies.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not you were shooting for the Moon and Theo Epstein said thanks, but I've done enough.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm good.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not that you're trying to pluck a GM from another organization.
[SPEAKER_04]: Two people who are not running their team, who are Lieutenant's where they are, looked at this, talked about this, and then came away saying, no, we're good.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to stay where we are.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's pretty bleak, you know, especially when you think about how poorly the national's organization has performed over the last couple years, just as a comparison point, same sort of market free agent market in terms of going after a baseball personnel that can run your front office.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not in a great spot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, they do have more talent.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we talked about the nationals last week.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not like, it's so much talent.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just a matter of like the cubs.
[SPEAKER_03]: And a few years back, you got to just kind of figure out how the pieces work together.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was certainly one of those.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's been some questions with ownership and resources there.
[SPEAKER_03]: But people seem to be tripping over themselves to go to Washington.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they drew some of the best front office personnel that's been, you know, hired up over the last couple of years.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I even had a conversation with a front office person that,
[SPEAKER_03]: was talking about, hey, if you've ever come across these guys from Boston that you used to run into from time to time, drop my name.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd love to get an interview.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think the buzz around the nationals is a really good comparison point for the Rockies, because they can't even get somebody to take over the operation, which should really be the easy part, because there's pleas... Oh, and 30!
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's plenty of incredibly driven smart people in a variety of front offices that want to jump at the chance to be, you know, the president baseball operations at GM and make those decisions and build an organization and their likeness.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the issue is the last part there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the issue is that they're not allowing whoever's coming in and it must have been a clear point that was made to both candidates that neither was going to get the opportunity to bring their people in and run things their way.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, it's funny when you think about that because you look at the Rockies and as an expansion team their first 18 years as an organization starting in 1994 were a more successful run than their last 16 years where they've had three winning records and that's including the
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, 2010, so 16 years back over the last 15, there's only even two.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was, you know, catching lightning in a bottle with Aronado and story and some of that, you know, black men in some of that talent in 17 and 18.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, since that point,
[SPEAKER_03]: This has been a below average franchise, a below 500 franchise, and things really bottomed out when I had initially taken over writing the Colorado Rocky system.
[SPEAKER_03]: God bless Hay Zeus, Kanoa or coworker, who's taken over the Rocky's coverage this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Hay Zeus.
[SPEAKER_03]: They had never lost 100 games up to that point, I took it over 2022.
[SPEAKER_03]: They've now lost 103, 101, and 119 games over the last three seasons.
[SPEAKER_03]: their level of failure is actually kind of remarkable.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I think that's a big part of it is, if you're coming in and we saw some comments to this when it was announced that this job would be opening up.
[SPEAKER_03]: that a lot of baseball people looked at this as a job where anything that you put in place is likely to be an improvement based on previous processes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you have people that look at this as a lower risk job in terms of your success points are probably a lot easier to achieve than if you take over a mid tier sort of performing franchise,
[SPEAKER_03]: If you even have people that don't want to take those jobs, when the expectations for the Rockies are literally as low as they could possibly be, I really don't think that boats very well for the future of the organization.
[SPEAKER_03]: Strengthings happen, baseball is a funny game, but I don't know if there's enough momentum to swing things in the other direction at this point.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Topic one is ownership is the biggest problem here.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know another way to explain it because this is the perfect embodiment of this.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a team, this is an organization that knew they were making a change or knew that they were likely to make a change for months now.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is an organization where everything was clear like the turnaround has to begin in this off season.
[SPEAKER_04]: by mid-season, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a team that at that point, the only question that remained for 2025 was will this team have the worst record of all time, or just one of the worst records of all time?
[SPEAKER_04]: And here we are, the offseason has begun now.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are now decisions being made that have to be made.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are two weeks away from setting 40 man rosters.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are at the point where free agency, you know, teams, players are filing.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have to decide who you're gonna tender non-tender.
[SPEAKER_04]: All of these decisions,
[SPEAKER_04]: are things where every all 30 organizations, the teams that are in that are deep in the playoffs, often talk about how they've lost time.
[SPEAKER_04]: One challenge they have is if you are in the world series, you are behind on your offseason planning because you can't turn that page until the world series are.
[SPEAKER_04]: Good problem to have.
[SPEAKER_04]: No one's gonna begrudge the Dodgers or BlueJays for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's versus everyone else.
[SPEAKER_04]: You see, like you said, you mentioned the nationals.
[SPEAKER_04]: The nationals had this situation.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here they are.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have a team in place that, by the way, has a cohesiveness that has worked together.
[SPEAKER_04]: A group where it's like, okay, they are now pointed in one direction where you've, you've, you've, Paul Taboni has his team and off they go into the off season.
[SPEAKER_04]: And here we are with the Rockies.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rockies recently, you know, they placed a plan on waivers recently, who got claimed by multiple teams from what I understand.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're like, I don't know who put them on waivers to be honest, like I don't know why they put them on lathe, but I don't know who put them on waivers like because they really are in a situation here where they are now behind everyone else and to go to what you said, I guess I've talked to people you've talked to people are like, this really is.
[SPEAKER_04]: a fascinating opportunity for someone because of two things.
[SPEAKER_04]: One, the Rockies are a very challenging environment.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you could be the one to crack that, that would be kind of the dream in some ways.
[SPEAKER_04]: For like, whoa, this is the leadership group.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the GM or the Pobo who figured out how to make chorus field and asset rather than a detriment.
[SPEAKER_04]: That would be huge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think, you know, on the other side, when we look at, you know, ownership, and we look at how they might be meddling, typically it's a matter of a clash of egos.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we talked about this when we talked about the ideal candidate for this job.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there is a strong amount of ego that's almost needed to come in here and sort of laugh at the history of pitching in Coors Field and the lack of success for this team and some of the, you know, contributing factors, whether it be the altitude and how that impacts injuries and recovery and some of that stuff, breaking balls and movement on pitches, you know, having some
[SPEAKER_03]: having a way where you believe that you have the ability to hack that and figure that out.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about that in more depth later on.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think this is a certain amount of, you know, almost arrogance or ego that needs to exist and you have to wonder if
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the way that ownership is hands on, you know, bad way, not necessarily in a way, like maybe a Steve Cohen is at least perceptively at this, you know, at this point with perceptions there at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Steve closed on making decisions he's saying how big a check do I need to write exactly exactly, you know, and holding people accountable that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but if you're getting involved in making.
[SPEAKER_03]: baseball decisions.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I can't speak for the day-to-day operations there with Colorado.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's funny.
[SPEAKER_03]: Always even covering the team.
[SPEAKER_03]: I heard a lot less about how things function from them than I did from the Cardinals or the Astros or the Cubs or the Red Sox and some of these other teams that I've covered over the years.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're more than happy to give you an idea of
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, what their mentality is toward player development and why they're doing the things that they're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never had those conversations with folks in the Rockies front office when I was covering it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, you just sort of have to wonder what the directive is from the top down.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, how ownership plays a part in all that, just in terms of
[SPEAKER_03]: Investing in the technologies, investing in the people that have, you know, big picture ideas that can have a larger impact on the greater group of prospects.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you look at teams that have been successfully particularly in the player development side, it's not just one guy, it's a lot of incremental improvement throughout each system.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a very clear connection between
[SPEAKER_03]: the type of groceries that you shop for and the type of meals that you're player development team wants to make, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of going back to the old billpar cells thing where I almost wonder if there's some of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you know, you want me to make the meal or you should at least let me shop for the groceries that I almost wonder how much of that is in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you have to, you know, I think it's
[SPEAKER_03]: Sterling Montfort is involved in scouting.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you have to wonder how much power he has to make decisions and that's not something that, you know, that's a very tricky tricky game to play when it's the son of the owner, you know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, again, from every kind of had like he really diligent works at it all that, but at the same time there is just the reality it is just the overwhelming reality that that is someone who is at the end of the day unfirable and there are not really at the end of the day real consequences for in the same way that there is for anyone else because you are the son of the owner like that is not that is a
[SPEAKER_04]: that is a different level of power than anyone else who is coming in in any way.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that kind of ties into the second point you want to make.
[SPEAKER_04]: You already hit on this a little bit, which is the way I would describe it is is that if you roll, if you really want, rewind to like 2016, 2017.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you said, the last time that the Rockies were actually successful.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've had two winning records since 2010.
[SPEAKER_04]: Two of their, I think, eight best records of all time have been in the last 15 years.
[SPEAKER_04]: that's not a good trend.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you said in 2016, if you said where the Rockies are, I would say that if this was kind of the baseline of development and technology and integration of all these different tools and all that, the Rockies were here, they were behind, but they weren't massively behind.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I would say that in the last decade, I would say that technology
[SPEAKER_04]: analytical evaluation of players at the major and minor league level biomechanics, sports science, all these things that you could talk about.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's now the baseline is here, I would say, like where it is grown so dramatically in the past decade, and the rockies have stayed here kind of basically is what I would say.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not as much
[SPEAKER_04]: that they've started, that they've really changed dramatically what they're doing, it's what's happened is is they didn't change when everyone else did.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, I would say that you probably had these conversations too, but I, I'm coming at some reporting when I say that.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is not speculation.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is when it comes to
[SPEAKER_04]: kind of going next level with pitching evaluation for amateurs, going next level in how you develop players, the technological tools that you have to work with and all that.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rockies were never cutting edge on this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to make it sound like that, but they've gone from kind of being like, okay, we're slightly behind, that we're not cutting edge.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not even
[SPEAKER_04]: Second, you know, like we're not the early adopters and we're not the ones who say, okay, I'm going to let someone spin the money figured out and then we'll be right behind them because there are teams, I think they do that somewhat and actually it is kind of a way that you can kind of stay caught up.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, hey, they're figured out something there.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to hire someone from there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, now we're bringing in that tech boom.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now we're kind of caught up all that.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rockies have fallen further and further behind on this and
[SPEAKER_04]: I would say, that's where we talked about that this is kind of almost appealing potentially to someone to come in.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because if ownership gave a new GM POBO whatever, the real blank sheet, hey, we understand we're behind, we're going to invest in technology.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to invest in people who are going to really kind of help ramp this up.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is no more low hanging fruit out there in any organization in most organizations at this point I would say if you came in and took over you might be able to make a tweak here or tweak there, but you're going to find that.
[SPEAKER_04]: that this is not, this is not when think of your thinking about money, about the movie, and you're thinking about, hey, teams didn't realize that I'm based for a sentence.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was really useful and kind of undervalued.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are now in a world where the margins that you find are so thin most of the time, and then get the Yankees became Team Sweeper at one point, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And a year later, everyone else's Team Sweeper too, because it's like, oh, that works.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're gonna adopt that too.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you look at this, it does feel like that the Rockies do have more room to grow here than anyone else, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think so.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's the biggest takeaway when I started really looking into this, you know, kind of researching for the podcast and you know, it's it's a
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a repeated talking point that I don't think is true, but people talking about how bad the bottom of the MLB is now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Always, of MLB is two days in a row.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've said that now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, you know, it makes me, my shoulders kind of, I don't think I'm going to get this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think I'm going to get this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never written it that way, but, you know, I just, I needed the rhythm.
[SPEAKER_03]: It gave me like the extra, like beat, and anyway.
[SPEAKER_03]: So in MLB,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think yeah, but when you look at the white socks and you look at the rockies, things have developed over the last five or six years in terms of the influx of information and then our ability as individuals, whether it's just being able to look at things based on experience or of course with the assistance of machine learning, have been able to understand so many more details around what makes pictures good, what makes hitters good.
[SPEAKER_03]: What their finger print is in terms of the types of things that they can become right from their underlying characteristics, whether that's how you release or spin a baseball, your blank of your fingers, finger strength, then grips strength, things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: On the hitting side, how your arms move and your motor, how much more projection might be there for power, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've learned so much on that end of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Teams across the board,
[SPEAKER_03]: have access to all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: They all have sports science departments, but even the bad teams, even the teams that are effectively below 500 just barely every year, have a lot of that stuff now.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're still pretty good teams.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we see that in the playoffs.
[SPEAKER_03]: All these teams are really good.
[SPEAKER_03]: All these teams can play with everybody pretty much on any given day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even against the Dodgers, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We just saw someone take the Dodgers to seven
[SPEAKER_03]: The Rockies are multiple generations behind that.
[SPEAKER_03]: That I can't even say that it's money ball, which is a term that's now used for a catch all by random fans that saw the movie, don't understand analytics and how advanced it's gotten since those days.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they might be looking at that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very clear based on the feedback that we've gotten and reporting over the years.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a very small, if non-existent analytics department, and you have to question how much power and voice that analytics are that are in DP people can have within the decision-making process within acquisition windows.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's really what the concern is.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think when you look at that, and then there's no clear direction in terms of what they're
[SPEAKER_03]: what they're doing once they're in, there seems to be a very clear lack of development plans post draft, whether it be for pitchers or be for hitters.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's sort of, these are the guys we got, this is what they are, let them go play.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's almost like you're simulating the minor leagues in MLB the show and hoping that some of these guys pop and turn to big leagueers for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have no insight into any of it seems or no ability to put coordinators in certain spots that are going to make guys better across the board.
[SPEAKER_03]: It just kind of seems like the guys that came in are all the same, you know, whether they leave the organization or eventually matriculate up to the majors.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's really nothing new.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never see, oh, this rocky's picture out of this pitch or added multiple ticks of velocity year over here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, every organization does that.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's plenty of guys in the angels.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can plan about the angels and knock them all the time, kind of as a collective and the baseball media space.
[SPEAKER_03]: They have guys over here that have velocity.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've seen positive traits and things happen with with with hitters in that organization.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like all the guys that they sign in the international market, and they've signed some good talent in players in the international market.
[SPEAKER_03]: They never grow, there's never this growth in terms of approach.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's never adjustments in the swings of this guy's backspinning the ball more clean.
[SPEAKER_03]: None of that stuff you see with any of these rocky prospects.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, their best development story is, you know, Brent and Doyle figured out how to hit enough that all the tools finally clicked.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's really their biggest win.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when you say that's their biggest win, win that kind of almost itself kind of comes with the hate to say it, but a little bit of last risk, cause, well, Brent and Doer had a,
[SPEAKER_04]: excellent 2024, he also hit 23274, 376 this past year, you know, and was a basically replacement level player.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's their win.
[SPEAKER_04]: 100 good men is their win.
[SPEAKER_04]: 100 good men is a legitimate right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: This year he is.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's where that ties into.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to get back to the the hitters, but to go back to the pitchers.
[SPEAKER_04]: When I say invested in a pitching lab, I mean by this that you need to say, we are clean sheeting this, we are starting over and we are bringing in, again, it's not hard to find these days.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are bringing in someone who has worked, whether it is at a facility or with a club who has a record of helping pictures get better.
[SPEAKER_04]: because to go back to what you said, the Rockies in the last decade, I just looked at top 100 picks.
[SPEAKER_04]: You could look at their whole draft, but I want to top under picks.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm saying, these are the players that they targeted and said, these are our priority picks.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have taken 22 pictures in the top 100 picks of the last 10 drafts.
[SPEAKER_04]: One has produced an ERA under six for the Rockies, which is J.T.
[SPEAKER_04]: and Hill, who's been a new useful reliever for them.
[SPEAKER_04]: The others who have reached, Chase Dallender will see, like I don't, I will say this.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's hard to say that Chase Dallender, like he was a victim of course field.
[SPEAKER_04]: He has a very good solid ERA on the road, runs aloud on the road, and it is terrible at course field, but he has a six, five, two ERA career ERA.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then you've got Carson Palmquist 8.91, McHade Brown 7.36, Ryan Rawls and 7.02, Tommy Doyle 8.31, Riley Pank 22.09, Bidden Bowdoin 6.56, those are all the pictures who's made it to Colorado.
[SPEAKER_04]: Top 100 picks that are last 10 drafts, and the thing that also stands out about this is you said it already.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are now in an era where you draft pictures, knowing this is what the pieces are now, but this is how we're going to improve them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, we could talk about Cam Schlittler, and what the Yankees and Cam Schlittler did, where he went from being 90 to 92 in college a lot, to now sitting at 99 in dominating in the postseason.
[SPEAKER_04]: But we could talk about Peyton, holy with the Red Sucks.
[SPEAKER_04]: We could talk about,
[SPEAKER_04]: the mariners and their gas camp and how many starters they have now who throw much harder but also guys even like Logan Evans who has reached you know is their number six starter this year who was basically terrible in college and throws harder and better than he ever didn't call it and then you look at the rockies and to just give a couple of examples of this Brody Brecht when he was at Iowa
[SPEAKER_04]: was looked at as like, okay, there's some understandable risk here.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a little wild.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a two-way guy who's now focusing on pitching, but he's also a premium athlete who threw 98, 99 as a starter touching 101.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you're like, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a lot to work with.
[SPEAKER_04]: Brexit 95 this year.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I know he needed to improve his control.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that that's probably
[SPEAKER_04]: That's league average for a fastball velocity now, for a starter, for my hand to starter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Touch 99, you used to touch 101 as a starter in college.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I know adjusting from seven, you know, to have more approach schedule, there's a lot of things that I'll tie into here.
[SPEAKER_04]: But,
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, to take the other extreme, Sean Sullivan, when you draft Sean Sullivan, you are drafting Sean Sullivan, who was the 46-bick in the 2023 draft.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are drafting him saying, we like a lot of what we see here, but we're really ideally gonna have to find an extra two to three ticks of velocity for him to really be the pitcher you want him to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: John Sullivan sat 90 in touch 95 in college is draft year.
[SPEAKER_04]: So if you said, okay, we're going to have to take that 90 to 92 93, but the fact that he touches 95, let's just think we can get there more consistently.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a week and 87 touching 90 this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean some of that even seems generous.
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw 85 mile per hour fastballs, not this year but last year.
[SPEAKER_03]: in a start in New Hampshire, you know, like it was legitimately 85 to 86 miles an hour and he was out of the game and like the third inning because guys were just they weren't teen off of them, but they were driving this pitch count up because like every at bat went seven or eight pitches because he couldn't put anybody away and guys were just fouling everything off hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I kind of feel like that's especially in coolers, that seems like a terrible combination, like that sounds like a recipe for disaster.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you could look at those two drafts with like so Sean Sullivan, Jack Mahoney, Gabriel who's all three of those are not sitting at the velocity they were sitting at when they were drafted and I know guys get injured guys have to work through things all that but there's really it's really hard to point to many examples of rocky pictures who are drafted come in and you're like they really help that guy get a lot better and that's
[SPEAKER_04]: I would say in 2025 that when we say like that that's not the norm, that means you are way behind the curve because every other organization almost, you can point to guys where you say some of it is like if you draft a 19 year old.
[SPEAKER_04]: sometimes if you just stay out of the way, they'll do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But organizations are really good nowadays at finding guys and saying, look, you're not using your legs the right way.
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, we got to get you on a strength program.
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, look at how you're you're disconnected here.
[SPEAKER_04]: We found this biomechanical flaw.
[SPEAKER_04]: We found, hey, if you change your take with all these things, there are
[SPEAKER_04]: all these pitch doctors out there as a way I would describe it, who, and sometimes it's also the other thing you do not see with the Rockies the same way as you see with a lot of organizations is their organization is like, hey
[SPEAKER_04]: they almost like the pitch assortment is almost like they come to you with a platter of like options and it's like try this grip.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now try this, see this because they're going to figure out what works best with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you a pro-nator?
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you a supernator?
[SPEAKER_04]: What is going to help you get to the best that you can be?
[SPEAKER_04]: we don't have really many examples of that with the Rockies.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's where this is again.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is low hanging fruit.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is things that you don't have to be cutting edge in major league baseball to get improvement here.
[SPEAKER_04]: You just have to be
[SPEAKER_04]: mediocre at it would be a significant improvement.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say a mid major college program might actually be a good like goal for first year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you be as good at developing an identifying talent as a mid major college program?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because it seems like some of them might be doing a better job, especially in the fiction development side.
[SPEAKER_04]: So then we're going to go back to the hitter
[SPEAKER_04]: And the other thing that just baffled me, I will tell a little story of how I got here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Speaking of you said, Hazus could I was working on a Rockies Top 10.
[SPEAKER_04]: It'll be up top 30 after that, but our top 10 will be up at baseballmer.com, a couple weeks after we post this.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he would put in their best defense of in-velder.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it started with, and we're still going back and forth.
[SPEAKER_04]: We haven't finalized it yet, but it was Ethan Holiday.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that, like, was a needle scratch moment for me because you could say a lot of things about Ethan Holiday, but he is a drafted shortstop who you would say that in an ideal world.
[SPEAKER_04]: maybe he's still in the things that being a short stop when he reaches the majors.
[SPEAKER_04]: But realistically, he has not his brother's body, it is more of his father's body, third base, corner out, field, first base.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's not like a plus defender.
[SPEAKER_04]: So then I started looking at it and said, well, there's gotta be a better candidate here.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you look at it and you realize like, Jose Torres was playing a lot of short stop for them.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a minor league rule five pick.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, Ryan Ritter was a triplet shortstop much of your, he don't qualify anymore.
[SPEAKER_04]: He graduated, but Ryan Ritter is one of the few guys that they've actually drafted his shortstuffs.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I went back again, last 10 years, top 100 picks.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know that that does leave off a couple of guys like Ryan Ritter now, but we're again saying, this is where they spent their most drafts cap draft capital.
[SPEAKER_04]: 2016, they drafted Garrett Hampton, 81st pick.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a shortstop.
[SPEAKER_04]: 2019-96 picks.
[SPEAKER_04]: So right and just under the cutoff at top under, but Teren Varva, Vavra, who is really kind of a utility infielder type, but you can call him a short stop.
[SPEAKER_04]: 2023 Cole Carrig was a catcher, short stop, setter, fielder, take your pick, but like we can say whatever we say, that is a athletic up the middle player.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you want to throw Ethan holiday in there, you could say that Ethan holiday is you said, he's a short stop now, probably going to be a corner down the road.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's it, top of your picks.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then if you say, okay, that's fewer than their first baseman, they've drafted because they've drafted Charlie Condon, who's playing first base, played a multiple position, but he was a corner out fitter right away than moved to first base.
[SPEAKER_04]: Jared Thomas, who they're trying to play in quarter out field, but was a college first baseman.
[SPEAKER_04]: Michael Toglia, first space been Grant Levine, first space been that doesn't count the other corner out filters like Jordan Beck, Zach Veein, Max Blue, like they've had There's been such an emphasis on what I would describe as corner bats lacking an athleticism whose power is better than their hit tools And a little bit of that could be nice, but like I do think that at the end of the day
[SPEAKER_04]: Overweighting towards that is a rough profile for really any organization, but especially if you're in course field where power is one thing that will kind of almost like grow organically a little bit because of the altitude.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that there's the human or an onel.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the flip side of it is you need to athleticism to cover those big outfields as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the part of this, like the fact that the Rocky struggled about pitching, I do try to give them some real benefit of the doubt on because it is course field.
[SPEAKER_04]: But when the Rockies have the worst offense in baseball arguably, when the Rockies are at 237, 293, 386 team as a whole, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like that's something where there is no such thing as a successful Rockies team ever.
[SPEAKER_04]: That doesn't hit because the one thing the Rocky should be able to do is mash and by the way, when they've been good, they've mashed and played defense at the same, those two things and this is a team that needs a talent infusion of athleticism up the middle hit first will develop the power guys again when we talk about player development.
[SPEAKER_04]: Not that every player can develop power, but there are ways that you can help and develop this, there are bad speed programs, there are strength training, there are things you can do.
[SPEAKER_04]: it is to be honest in 2025, I would say that it is probably a little easier to do that than it is to take guys who aren't middle infelures and turn them into middle infelures.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the Rockies are not a team that's going to go out there.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're not going to say we're going to don't worry.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to bring in a premium free agent shortstop or a premium free agent center fielder.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not really been their MO.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you look at it,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think so.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think some of it comes down to targeting the types of players that they're looking at, the types of athletes that they're looking at.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, because a lot of the athletic testing, I think probably most direct correlation to success, like immediately, at least in terms of the five tools is defense.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're gonna find better defensive outfielders, you're gonna find better defensive infielders.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and hopefully guys that have a little bit more left in the tank when it comes to, you know, power projection, maybe some speed and kind of all that stuff that that makes the game work.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's probably, you know, in an important place to look.
[SPEAKER_03]: But also probably trying to find some guys that have more developed hit tools, um, you know, it feels like they've never like despite the types of players they go after they never seem to be land a corner outfield that with power, they never find the ones that have.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's a vulnerability and approach and kind of marry all that together.
[SPEAKER_03]: Usually you can find a few of those guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not even all that hard to find.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, even have to pay that much.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they've drafted within that grouping of like corner infielders and corner outfielders.
[SPEAKER_03]: What the types of players that go on after don't necessarily have as much upside as the guys that develop into everyday regular in the big leagues.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll put it this way, we just did, we talked about, we had our stuff plus ratings for organizations to the minor leagues and our hit plus ratings over at baseballamerica.com.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rockies are basically near the bottom when it comes to sliders, when it comes to sweepers, when it comes to curveballs, when it comes to fastball velocity, they're middle to back of the middle of the pack.
[SPEAKER_04]: Movement on fastballs, really has changed up sort of one thing that they're a little bit above average at.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's not a lot of things that we're gonna get at.
[SPEAKER_04]: The least surprising thing out there is that the Rockies are 30 if in swing decisions across all 30 organizations.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was if it had not been that out of been surprised because the profile when you read Rockies, you know, when we're writing up Rockie's prospects and you've written up over the years,
[SPEAKER_04]: How many times is it that they need to do a better job of understanding the strikes and that they need to do better job of pitch recognition that they need to Mary the power that they have with better bat to ball skills with better decision making, you know, there's something to that like their 25th and our pit plus overall rankings which
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, is bad, that's bad, but it's especially bad when you consider how often they're drafting high, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like the real like one of the giant problems here to summarize at all is this is an organization
[SPEAKER_04]: that when it comes to acquiring talent, has had significant advantages in recent years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, the lottery has changed a little bit, but this is the team that is drafting high year after year after year.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they just have very few wins that you can point to.
[SPEAKER_04]: As you said, if you say right now,
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a multi-year process, we talked about the nationals.
[SPEAKER_04]: We said like, you could try to go for faster, you could try to go for, we're gonna tear it back down and start again.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Rockies is a, I don't think there's any scenario where you're talking before 28 that this is a turnaround.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because in a best case scenario, Hunter Goodman, Brenton Doyle, I don't know who else you're gonna talk about among position players who you're saying is like,
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, not that there won't be other players who will still be on the team, you know, but there's not a whole lot of players that you could say, hey, this guy is going to be a key part, you know, tow var maybe like you hope, but pitching lies dolander.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's just so few pieces here, Seth Halverson, but there are so few pieces here where you say, there are even to go back to something else, not trying to pile on, but we go back to ownership.
[SPEAKER_04]: That the fact that this team had talent like they did, and almost time and time again, either let that talent walk in pre-agency for very modest compensation, or held onto that so long, like a no-lanaire and out of his case,
[SPEAKER_04]: did not trade him at peak value, resigned him, then decided they didn't want him and then dumped him for very modest return, you know, in, that's all gone now.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just over and over, this is a team that it needs to almost do a 180, is the way I would say.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's my summary, what is your summary for how to fix the Rockies?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, you know, everything needs to change.
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of got to tear it all down to the studs.
[SPEAKER_03]: rebuild everything from the ground up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's, you know, maybe not international.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do feel like they do find talent there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe that's the one part of the organization to keep in place and be like, guys have established some relationship, sure good.
[SPEAKER_03]: You would at least sign some decent players.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then really redo hitting development, have a focus on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's probably easier a lower hanging fruit there at least for immediate success with some upper minors guys
[SPEAKER_03]: Pitching might take a little more time, but I think you do need to build a pitching lab.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you need to hire, you know, interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: And brave people, people who are willing to think a little bit outside the box and try things that aren't scared of failure, you know, I think a lot of is going to come down to who you have running these different departments and then just figuring out, you know, how to stay out of the way is ownership and, you know, make sure the communication is flowing between departments and that, you know, there's very clear directions for everybody from the top down.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be a mammoth task for whoever ends up getting this job and whenever that is which again that I will say the simplest thing to say is is which when they say whoever and whenever the whenever should have been a week ago the whenever should have been I don't mind if it's that the news leaks out you know because we're because we're not going to make the official announcement to left the road series is over that's fine but the offseason is here and there is no reason that the rocky should need to take this long.
[SPEAKER_04]: to fill a position that they knew that they needed to fill for quite a while.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is a tough time to be a Rocky's fan.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, I will say this for Rocky's fans.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are a loyal bunch that the number of people who come through the gates that who are field every year is remarkable considering where this team is right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: They deserve credit for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do hope for their sake that there will be a better team for them in the, let's say, mid to distant future because again, it's going to be a long
[SPEAKER_04]: For Jeff Ponds, I'm Jay Jay Cooper, so long everybody.