What Exactly Is the Rockies’ Plan for Getting Back to .500 and Beyond?
Is it possible that the Rockies are re-using a game plan that hasn’t worked for them in almost 20 years?
The end game for every professional sports franchise is to win a championship. One of the biggest challenges in that pursuit is simply making the postseason; figuring out how to do that can often be a lot harder.
It’s been six consecutive losing seasons for the Colorado Rockies. During that time, the front office at 2001 Blake Street in Denver has hinted at various plans for getting back to .500 and beyond. Each offseason since those consecutive playoff appearances in 2017-18 has been absent of grand proclamations about the club’s future.
This has led some to believe there is no tangible plan in place for climbing out from the basement of the National League. But some allusions to a strategic approach have been crafted in recent years. None, unfortunately, seem to fit.
Is it possible that Colorado is re-using a game plan that hasn’t worked for them in almost 20 years?
Dancing With the Diamondbacks
The Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Rockies in the 2017 National League Wild Card Game before getting swept in the NL Division Series. One year later, Colorado won the 2018 NL Wild Card Game and was swept in the next round in similar fashion.
Like the Rockies, the D-backs struggled to make it back to the postseason for the next several seasons. Arizona reached a nadir in 2021 with 110 losses before winning the NL just two years later. The Diamondbacks reaching the 2023 World Series with a roster of mostly homegrown talents provided a lot of hope to smaller market clubs.
Several months before the Rockies finished their first of two straight 100-loss seasons, the top brass felt strongly that they were hot on the heels — or in the case of the Diamondbacks, the rattler — of their southwestern siblings.
“They were ahead of us in the process. And I still feel that way,” GM Bill Schmidt said at the 2023 Winter Meetings. “I think we’ve made some major strides, our young players have.”
Organizational accomplishments like Ezequiel Tovar and Brenton Doyle have emerged as future superstars, while other successes like Ryan Feltner, Michael Toglia and Victor Vodnik occupy a roster with potential for even more growth. Countless other prospects who finished 2024 in Double-A or Triple-A could also provide a boost in the same way as the Baby ‘Backs.
While Arizona entered 2023 with a young roster that had a similar makeup to the 2025 Rockies, not all of the players assembled by GM Mike Hazen followed the draft-and-develop model of Schmidt’s program.
A cluttered outfield afforded Arizona the safety to risk a trade of one intriguing youngster, Daulton Varsho. The 25-year-old had the best big league track record of his peers and was coming off a breakout season. But Hazen took a chance and acquired two players for his one from the Toronto Blue Jays: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno.
The risk paid off better than most. Gurriel was a first-time All-Star en route to the Fall Classic, while Moreno won the NL Gold Glove Award as a 23-year-old catcher. Varsho won a Gold Glove for center field in 2024 and has been worth 9.0 bWAR, seventh-best among all outfielders.
The debate as to who won the trade is less important than the simple fact that both teams benefitted in their own way from the deal.
Consider 2019’s old-school baseball trade of Jazz Chisholm Jr. for Zac Gallen, who was the NL starting pitcher in the 2023 All-Star Game, and the Diamondbacks managed to craft the best club in the Senior Circuit without the help of a significant free agent signing on their playoff roster. (Madison Bumgarner — signed to a five-year, $85 million deal a few seasons prior — was released in April ‘23 because of underperformance with roughly $35 million remaining on his contract.)
Could the Rockies replicate this and make it back to Rocktober? Absolutely. They’ve got enough prospects to help mirror a Jazz-Gallen kind of swap and an abundance of young outfielders is another similarity between these situations.
Whether or not we’ll be looking at the 2025 Rockies in the same way as the 2023 Diamondbacks remains to be seen. This offseason, should it be an active one in terms of trades, will tell us all we need to know about this comparison by the time we reach Opening Day.
Relating to the Royals
Another club that can optimism to Colorado after reaching rock bottom is the Kansas City Royals.
Perennially last in the American League Central with only five winning seasons since the division formed in 1994, the denizens of Kauffman Stadium tied a franchise record with 106 losses in 2023.
Then Kansas City became one of the best stories of 2024. They won 30 more games than the prior season, something that has occurred only five other times since the start of division play in 1969. The Royals also dismissed the Baltimore Orioles in the AL Wild Card Series to become a beacon of hope for struggling squads around the game.
“I think anything is possible. I’m optimistic,” manager Bud Black said in September when asked if his club could experience a similar turnaround.
After failing to get above .500 in each subsequent season following the 2015 World Series win, KC took a different tactic heading into 2024. Knowing the newly implemented MLB Draft Lottery would no longer allow them to pick within the top six year after year, the Royals’ new ownership recognized they could not cross their fingers and wait for the farm system to flourish.
President of baseball operations J.J. Picollo convinced owner John Sherman to spend a whopping $110.5 million over the offseason to support World Series MVP Salvador Perez and transformative superstar Bobby Witt Jr.
Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo fortified a young rotation. Relievers Will Smith and Chris Stratton guaranteed guile for an inexperienced bullpen. Hunter Renfroe provided pop in the middle of the lineup, and Garrett Hampson added depth on the bench.
Unfortunately, Colorado will not be touching this strategy. The club is expected to cut payroll this offseason even after clearing $13 million for the recently retired Charlie Blackmon and $9.5 million for free agent Daniel Bard.
Even if the Rockies could creatively navigate a roster overhaul like the Royals, expecting to win 30 more games is not reasonable. A 20-win improvement could be considered by an enthusiastic member of the front office, but that’s also a reach since the club has never experienced that kind of rebound.
Colorado has posted an improved winning percentage on 14 occasions, or 45% of the time. On four occasions, they’ve won 10 or more games than the previous season, the last coming in 2017 during Black’s first campaign with the club.
The largest increase in victories seen in Denver came in 2009 when the franchise won 18 more games with a roster mostly comprised of familiar faces from the team’s first 90-win season in 2007.
The Rockies’ last stretch of six consecutive sub-.500 seasons came from 2011-16. It was immediately followed by the hiring of Black and playoff appearances in 2017-18. Five of six campaigns produced more wins than the previous year during this period, including a franchise record four-straight improvements from 2015-18.
By winning 61 games in 2024, two more than 2023, Colorado experienced only its second rebound over the last six years.
Were the Rockies to have an 18-win improvement to tie a franchise record, that would put them at 79 wins for 2025. With an expanded postseason that has allowed several teams to sneak into October with only a handful more wins than losses, Colorado might feel a lot better about its playoff chances.
As enticing as it might seem to squint at the possibilities of this kind of rebound, it’s simply not enough. When asked last year about the addition of a third Wild Card increasing the enticement for his club, Schmidt said, “We’re trying to build a foundation.”
Since the addition of a third Wild Card in 2022, 84 wins — by both Arizona and the Miami Marlins in 2023 — is the fewest by a club in the playoffs. In 2024, Arizona won 89 and the Seattle Mariners won 85 in the AL, but both missed the postseason.
That puts the math at Colorado needing 25 more wins to even have a 50-50 chance at reaching the NL Wild Card Series. It’s not impossible, but it is unlike anything we’ve seen from the men in purple pinstripes.
The Bamboo Theory
“We’re not where we need to be. But I use the bamboo theory,” Schmidt said ahead of the 2023 season. “There’s a lot of stuff growing underneath that people don’t see, and it’s gonna pop here. When it does, we’re going to be good.”
Colorado may have looked more like potato farmers based on their lack of development of many overhyped prospects the past few seasons, but the crop in 2025 will be critical for determining if the bamboo farm is a successful one.
Schmidt’s bamboo theory is the fairest of all the plans espoused. While the Rockies may bear a resemblance to the Diamondbacks, that run to the 2023 World Series and the lag time before Colorado could actually experience such a turnaround strikes it down. Reducing the payroll disqualifies any hope of the team becoming the Royals 2.0 in 2025.
So what is the blueprint exactly? Are Schmidt and owner Dick Monfort trying to replicate the much-vaunted 2007 squad, a team that was barely .500 through most of the season but caught lightning in a bottle to win the NL and reach the World Series?
Yes.
Winning 21 of 22 games during that magical run to Rocktober has proved to be a gift and a curse to a franchise that seems to believe this to be the only strategy for success.
The plan for the 2017-18 team was arguably the best ever formulated by the club. It was similarly a homegrown roster, but it was also a hybrid that included more supplemental, high-priced pieces acquired in free agency.
Though that group did not produce a World Series appearance or even a postseason series victory, it was effective for a longer period of time. (Colorado occupied a tie for the final NL Wild Card as late as July 1, 2019.)
Since improving through free agency is a route the front office has ruled out at this time, the biggest hurdle for the 2025 Rockies in attempting to resemble the 2007 team is the glaring absence of a Hall of Fame leader like Todd Helton.
Look up and down Colorado’s 40-man roster for a player with a decade of experience and excellence like Helton, and the void is as large as the Royal Gorge.
However, there’s a chance. A $182 million chance named Kris Bryant.
Bryant won the 2015 NL Rookie of the Year, 2016 NL MVP and starred during a historic 2016 World Series. Only Atlanta (Ronald Acuña Jr.), the Chicago Cubs (Cody Bellinger) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (Shohei Ohtani) currently have a player with that kind of hardware.
Since signing a seven-year deal ahead of the 2022 season, the 32-year-old has been hampered by injuries, playing in only 159 games. With a pedigree similar to that of Helton, Bryant will hope his age-33 season can provide the same lift as the Toddfather in 2007. If that happens, Colorado could legitimately be playing relevant baseball games in July for the first time in a 162-game season since 2019.
For now, the plan is to pray for the young players to develop into a mix of All-Stars and critical depth pieces with the hope that Bryant can regain some form of the aircraft carrier Dick Monfort so heavily invested in him to become.
Such a turnaround might not be as miraculous as 2007, but it would explain how lightning could strike twice for the Rockies and why they believe it an appropriate plan to salvage their franchise.
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