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The day after the exchange of the biggest star of their franchise, Rockies owner Dick Monfort and general manager Jeff Bridich tried to explain themselves to the media.
It was not pretty.
The hour-long surreal press conference on Tuesday took on the tenor of a public flogging as Monfort and Bridich attempted to explain why they sent Nolan Arenado to St. Louis, and also agreed to send $ 51million. dollars to steal the deal. Monfort could only lament Arenado’s departure as he struggled to tackle a profession that had already been widely criticized by Rockies fans.
“I’m a fan. I really am,” said Monfort. “I understand how they feel. And to be completely honest, I would probably feel the same and maybe even feel the same. When we signed Nolan it was an attempt to keep Nolan for the rest of his career. But things are changing. “
Meanwhile, at another Zoom press conference at the same time, Arenado answered softball questions from the St. Louis media about the glorious past and bright future of the Cardinals.
“As a kid you dream of winning a World Series, and it’s still the dream now,” he said. “To join this organization, they care about winning and getting things done, and it’s really exciting.”
Less than two years after Arenado signed the biggest contract in professional sports history in Denver – eight years, $ 260 million – he is gone. On Monday, he was officially traded to the Cardinals as part of a lopsided deal that saw the Rockies acquire lefty starter Austin Gomber and four prospects, none of whom were in the Cardinals’ top five.
The trade was over a year in the making. According to the Rockies, Arenado asked to be traded after a disappointing 2019 season in which they finished 71-91 after making the playoffs two consecutive years.
“If I had my druthers, I would prefer Nolan Arenado,” Monfort said. “But it wasn’t anyone’s choice. He wanted to move on. I’ve speculated over the past year (as to) why. I’ve talked to Nolan about it a lot over the past year. But the fact remains that I think he just felt it was time for him to try something else.
Reporters pressed Bridich and asked if the trade was the result of organizational failure, the result of a feud that developed between Bridich and his third baseman – or both.
“If you’re looking to pass the blame, blame me,” Bridich said. “It’s the job of the CEO to create a team that competes and wins as much as possible.”
About a year ago, Arenado, upset by the team’s direction and angry that Bridich had ended business negotiations with several teams, said he felt “disrespected” by Bridich.
On Tuesday, smiling ear to ear as he joined his new team, Arenado didn’t want to revisit the feud.
“I think when you have a contract like mine and you lose, a lot of contracts usually transfer,” he said. “That’s sort of what has happened now. I signed up (Colorado) to stay there for a long time. I wanted to win there, it didn’t work out, so you move on.
Bridich, who had never spoken publicly about his deteriorating relationship with Arenado, said: “It wasn’t always peaches and cream. There were bumps here and there and relationships change over time.
“There are relationships in our human existence that last forever. But we are human beings in a business where sometimes relationships don’t last forever and commitments don’t last forever. … In this case, Nolan’s desire was to move on and be with a different organization. We have tried to honor that.
The Rockies tried to trade Arenado last year, but the teams were hesitant about the asking price. As losses continued into the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and financial losses increased as Arenado’s situation worsened, the Rockies decided it was time to move on.
Monfort calculated that Arenado would use his opt-out clause after the 2021 season and felt that picking five players now would be better than getting just one draft pick in compensation when Arenado walked away.
“We tried to get the best return possible,” said Monfort. “A lot of the teams we talked to about trades just didn’t make sense. There were times over the past two weeks when I didn’t think Saint-Louis trading made sense.
Arenado, however, said he was not sure he would have exercised the exclusion clause after the 2021 season, leaving $ 164 million on the table at a time when the pandemic dramatically changed the financial landscape. baseball.
“I don’t know if I would have done that,” he said on Tuesday. “It would have been a (difficult) decision to leave my contract there, obviously.”
Either way, Colorado’s eight-year Arenado era is over. He takes his eight gold gloves, four platinum gloves, a career 0.293 batting average and 235 homers to Busch Stadium, in the shadow of Gateway Arch.
The Rockies? Despite the loss of their marquee player and despite an exhausted farming system that ranks in the bottom five, they insist that Arenado’s departure is not the first wrecking ball. Bridich, in fact, dismissed the idea of the Rockies starting over.
“There are levels and variations of the rebuilding process, but it is certainly not a complete teardown and rebuild as some teams have chosen to go,” he said. “I think if that was the case some players would have already been traded.”
Finally, towards the end of the event, Monfort was asked if he had considered sacking Bridich based on Colorado’s performance after the 2017 and 2018 playoffs.
“No, I didn’t think about firing Jeff,” he said. “I thought about firing, but I didn’t think about firing Jeff.
How did the Rockies fare under the direction of their GMs?
The Colorado Rockies have had three general managers in their history: Bob Gebhard from 1993 to 1999, Dan O’Dowd from 2000 to 2014 and Jeff Bridich since 2015. None have an overall winning record during their time with the Rockies. . The graph shows where the Rockies finished in western Newfoundland and Labrador in each season *. The size of the circle corresponds to the first place return matches. WC = lost in the wild card game, DS = lost in the division series; WS = lost in World Series. Click / hover for more details.
The exchange
In February 2019, Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado signed an eight-year, $ 260 million contract that owner Dick Monfort said would keep Arenado in Colorado for his entire career.
On Monday, Arenado was distributed to the cardinals of St. Louis. Here are the details of the trade:
- The Rockies have agreed to send the Cardinals $ 51 million, over a number of years, to help pay for their new deal.
- Arenado agreed to defer the money, but also added another year to his contract ($ 15 million), taking him to 2027 with Saint-Louis.
- Arenado gave up his no-clause contract to join the Cardinals, but the no-trade clause has since been reinstated.
- Arenado kept the opt-out clauses after the 2021 and 22 seasons.
- The Rockies received five players in return: big league left-hander Austin Gomber, as well as right-hander prospects Tony Locey and Jake Sommer, and field prospects Elehuris Montero and Mateo Gil.
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