GREELEY — Prior to the 2020 season, owner Dick Monfort boldly predicted the Rockies would rebound from their disastrous 2019 season and win a franchise-record 94 games that year.
Instead, the Rockies slid into a three-year swoon, finishing the pandemic-shortened season with a 26-34 mark, followed by a 74-87 record in 2021 and 68-94 record last season.
Saturday morning, with spring training less than three weeks away, Monfort played it much safer.
“We have a lot of talent, a lot of good things are going to happen, and I think they are going to start happening this year, and I think we can play .500 ball,” Monfort told the crowd at the annual Northern Colorado Friends of Baseball breakfast at the Island Grove Event Center.
Monfort also touted a Rockies farm system that has four players — shortstop Ezequiel Tover (No. 25), outfielder Zac Veen (27), shortstop Adael Amador (68) and catcher Drew Romo (84) — ranked among the top 100 prospects by MLB Pipeline.
“We had four of them, but I kid you not, there could have been 15,” Monfort said. “We have an incredible amount of talent in the minor league and some of them are going to be up this year.”
Following the program, Monfort explained his thinking in more detail.
“I think we have a competitive team, and I think we are learning some things that we need to learn to do differently,” he said. “I think this is really a year where we can really step it up a little bit.
“This is a year when people need to take a step forward and some of the new kids need to come in and show excitement, knowing that there are more (prospects) coming in behind them. Keep the faith here. I think we are on the right track. … I’m more confident now than I was last year.”
Monfort added that last season he thought a .500 record was “in the cards” after the team signed Kris Bryant to a seven-year, $182 million contract. But injuries limited Bryant to just 42 games and a number of players failed to meet expectations.
“I think with .500 in the cards, and if (stuff) goes right, and with the expanded playoffs … who knows what happens?” he said. “That’s sort of what we thought, and then as it ended up, Kris didn’t play much and we ended up a little worse than what I thought.”
During a wide-ranging interview, Monfort, who joked that he won’t be making bold, 94-win predictions again, spoke about a number of topics:
• On the pressure to spend more money to compete in the National League West with teams like the free-spending Padres and the perennial powerhouse Dodgers. The Padres are projected by FanGraphs to have a 2023 payroll of $251 million, the third-highest in the major leagues. The Rockies’ projected payroll is $163 million (16th).
“That puts a lot of pressure (on us),” Monfort said. “But it’s not just the Padres, it’s the Mets, it’s the Phillies. This has been an interesting year.
“What the Padres are doing, I don’t 100% agree with, though I know that our fans probably agree with it. We’ll see how it works out.
“I look at the Padres and they have a really talented team, but they have some holes, too. They’ve got three, maybe four starting pitchers, and then they’re sort of like us. They have (Joe) Musgrave, (Blake) Snell and (Yu) Darvish, so I don’t know. They have spent a lot of money and they will have to spend a lot more if they want to keep (outfielder) Juan Soto. But it does put a lot of pressure on you. Yes, it does.”
• On Bill Schmidt, who’s entering his second full season as general manager:
“I think Bill has been a really steady hand and he’s let (manager) Buddy (Black) and the coaches do (their jobs). … From an organization standpoint, he’s done a great job.”
Monfort added that he believes the combination of Schmidt and farm director Chris Forbes has worked well.
• On the future of Black, who’s entering the final year of his contract:
“I like Buddy. I like him a lot. He’s done a lot of great things for us. I think it’s sort of up to Buddy and how long he wants to do this.”
• On the Rockies’ analytics department, which has increased to eight members, including Brian Jones, who was promoted from video coordinator to the director of research and development in August:
“We’ve gotten criticized a lot for our lack of analytics, but I think Zack (Rosenthal, the assistant GM) has put together a pretty good group. I think having ‘Jonesy’ there is really a good thing because all of the (players, coaches and staff) like Jonesy. It’s a lot easier to listen to a guy that you have a relationship with.”
• On the Rockies’ relatively quiet offseason:
“We needed a true left-handed center fielder and (Brandon) Nimmo would have been great, but the (Mets) weren’t going to let him go. So we really didn’t address the center fielder situation.
“But we believe we have probably three legitimate center fielders coming up, and the one thing you don’t want to do is box yourself in. If (prospect Brenton) Doyle goes off, you want Doyle to be in center field. We didn’t really want to box somebody in. So we were really looking for a one-year (contract) guy.”
• On the possibility of retiring Charlie Blackmon’s No. 19 jersey after Blackmon retires. The outfielder, in the final year of his contract, is entering his 13th season with the Rockies.
“I don’t know, but I probably would. In an era where stars seem to want to go other places, Charlie’s been pretty loyal and pretty good.
“Charlie’s been, I would say, in the history of the Rockies, he would be right behind Todd, right? But I’m guessing that Charlie will want to play more.”
