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The Rockies have removed the “interim” label from Bill Schmidt, as Schmidt will officially take over the team’s front office as the new general manager. Schmidt has been acting CEO since May 3, a week after former CEO Jeff Bridich resigned.
The club also announced the promotions of two other internal executives. Danny Montgomery moves from Special Assistant to the Director General to newly created Vice President and Deputy Director General of Scouting, while Deputy Director General Zack Rosenthal has seen the title of Vice President added to his current role.
“After five months as interim CEO, it became increasingly clear that Bill was the right person to lead this franchise forward.Rocky Mountain President and COO Greg Feasel said in the press release.We already knew Bill as a trusted and respected baseball professional in the game. He got into a tough spot and quickly made an impact on the game on and off the field. Promoting Bill also gives the organization the opportunity to promote two experienced individuals, Danny and Zack, to leadership roles that will be essential in taking us to the next level.“
As Bridich left, the Rockies announced that a broader search for a new CEO / president of baseball operations would take place after the season, although the club have now decided to stick with one face. familiar. Schmidt has worked in Colorado since October 1999 in various recruiting positions and has led the team’s draft since 2000. Schmidt was promoted to vice president of recruiting in 2007, a title he held until he becomes interim general manager. Prior to joining the Rox, Schmidt also worked as a minor league scout and coach with the Reds and Yankees, minor league coach with the Brewers, and as a national auditor for the Indians.
Hiring Schmidt is sort of an old school move, as teams have generally tended to look to younger, more analytic-prone front-office executives in recent years, rather than convicts. in life in older and more established baseball. Schmidt is known to be widely respected in the sport, and his hire will surely be applauded by his peers happy to see him finally get a chance to lead a big league organization.
It’s fair to wonder if Rockies fans are that excited, though. Bridich was also a longtime front office employee before he was hired as managing director in 2014, and the hiring of Schmidt (and even the promotions of Montgomery and Rosenthal) reflects more continuity within an organization. which many fans and pundits say is in need of a reshuffle. . Owner Dick Monfort is known to be very loyal to his employees – perhaps wrongly so, as the team’s insularity has been seen as the main reason the Rockies have only enjoyed five winning seasons since the Monfort brothers became majority owners in 2005.
Thanks to a brutal 19-34 start, the Rockies will still finish below the .500 mark this season, despite posting a respectable 55-51 since May 30. This performance over the past four months likely inspired the team’s decision to stay mostly tapping on the trade deadline, moving only Mychal donations despite the number of imminent free agents (notably Trevor’s story and Jon gray) on the list. The Rockies have plans on re-signing Gray, while Story is almost gone, but the team couldn’t find an acceptable trade offer, so the decision was made to keep Story and at least grab a draft pick. via the qualification offer.
Schmidt now faces a tall order to get the Rockies back on track, given potential free agent losses, a farming system seen as lacking in impact talent, and the always tough NL West. It will be interesting to see how Schmidt’s approach differs from that of Bridich, who mainly relied on free agency to make his moves and didn’t rock a lot of major deals (aside from moving stars from long time Nolan Arenado and Troy tulowitzki) during his tenure as Chief Executive Officer.
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