Colorado Rockies news and links for Monday, November 11th, 2024
It’s later than expected. Colorado is experiencing major snowfall for the first time since spring. The Major League Baseball regular season has been over for more than a month whilst a dreaded bully was crowned king.
It’s been quiet at 20th and Blake. Coors Field sits cavernous and empty as the winter winds begin to blow. The ghosts of fans sitting in the row of purple seats have a blanket of snow draped across their laps as they await the spring under cold, gray skies.
Several blocks away at the intersection of Speer and Chopper is Ball Arena, home of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche. The building is aglow with the warmth of NBA and NHL regular seasons underway.
For the first time since 2021, there was no champion crowned in the Mile High City and there was no new banner raised into the rafters. Neither the Avalanche nor the Nuggets even made the final round of the playoffs in their respective leagues. However, both teams had a different monumental occasion to celebrate.
For the first time since 1989—when it was done by Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson—two professional athletes from the same city took home their respective league’s Most Valuable Player awards. Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić presented Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon with the Hart Memorial Trophy, and MacKinnon, in turn, presented Jokić with his third Michael Jordan Trophy as the NBA and NHL seasons began.
Meanwhile, Colorado Rockies fans—slowly dwindling in numbers—were treated to yet another unpleasant season in LoDo. The Rockies hit the century mark for a second-consecutive season and the second time in franchise history with a 61-101 record in 2024 after going 59-103 in 2023.
Nikola Jokić has won three MVP awards over the last five seasons. The Rockies have had just two players even receive MVP votes in that same period of time. Trevor Story placed 11th in MVP voting in 2020, while Daniel Bard placed 16th in 2022. Neither player remains with the organization.
The Rockies haven’t had a player finish in the top five for MVP voting since Nolan Arenado finished third-overall in 2018. The Rockies haven’t had multiple All-Stars in a season or even a Silver Slugger Award winner since 2019. Save for a few well-earned Gold Glove Awards, there has been precious little for fans to celebrate at 20th and Blake in years.
With the franchise sitting at rock bottom and lacking in any kind of concrete direction, all Rockies fans received following the end of another long and frustrating campaign was an unsurprising lack of accountability, nebulous claims of being contenders in 2025, and whispers of looming austerity measures.
The 2024 end of season letter to Colorado Rockies season ticket holders.
Last week, the organization finally released their letter to season ticket holders. It came a full month after the end of the regular season and rather than coming from owner Dick Monfort, or even general manager Bill Schmidt, the letter was penned by manager Bud Black.
Monfort’s decision to hide behind Black—the true public face of the organization—is a curious one. The perception of Black by Rockies fans is mixed after six consecutive losing seasons and the decision to bring him back for another year was met with both confusion and derision by the baseball public.
Even Jerry Reinsdorf—the much-maligned owner of the even more maligned Chicago White Sox—penned his own letter to the fanbase after the White Sox’ historically awful season. Monfort, just like the Rockies, has become more insular and reclusive since the Nolan Arenado trade, and subsequent fallout, prior to the 2021 season.
Photo by Dustin Bradford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Although he has his fingers in the many pies of the Rockies’ daily baseball operations, fans are unlikely to hear from the owner of the team until just before or at the very start of the season. If he does say something, there is a likelihood it will lead to massive criticism that will drive him out of the spotlight for the rest of the year.
The letter contains nothing unexpected. It is full of vagueries and empty promises.
“2024 was another challenging year,” Black writes. “But we’re fully committed to putting a winning team on the field—you deserve it. Every one of us shares a relentless drive to build a team that embodies the spirit of Colorado and brings pride to our fans.
“I’m more confident about 2025 than I’ve been since our back-to-back playoff seasons in 2017 and 2018. We are building a roster you can be proud of and I’m hopeful you’ll see our efforts pay off next season.”
Setting aside the fact that there’s no real way to quantify what “embodies the spirit of Colorado” when it comes to baseball—especially when this team has largely lacked an identity in recent years—Black’s letter says nothing to back up its claims.
While the letter pays lip service to some of the young talent on the roster like Brenton Doyle and Ezequiel Tovar, it fails to lay out a direction for how the Rockies intend to put a “winning team on the field” and why fans should be as confident for next season as Bud Black claims to be.
Doyle and Tovar are indeed exciting players, but how will this team get better next year? Austerity measures are being put into place as TV revenue dries up, so it’s difficult to see how the Rockies will make improvements to the existing roster. At the same time, Black and the Rockies front office have done very little to account for the failures of 2023 and 2024 besides laying the blame squarely on their players’ shoulders by saying they need to play better. How will that be accomplished?
Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images
Meanwhile, there are still plenty of question marks surrounding the team’s $182 million man in Kris Bryant, who has only played in 159 total games since signing here three years ago. The Rockies may be doing winter check-ins with the former MVP and getting “positive reports,” but there is very little to indicate a 33-year-old with chronic back issues will suddenly bounce back to being a major contributor.
“So far, all the reports I’ve gotten are very positive,” general manager Bill Schmidt told The Athletic. “There was no surgery or anything. It’s just about strengthening the back and rehabbing it and doing some baseball activities, ramping up maybe a little earlier than he normally would.”
Colorado Avalanche fans are willing to wait for their captain Gabriel Landeskog as he attempts to come back from what might have been a career ending injury. Landeskog hasn’t been on the ice since 2022, but he pushed himself to the brink while bringing Avs faithful a Stanley Cup. The fans support him.
Photo by Kyle Cooper/Colorado Rockies/Getty Images
Both the Avalanche and the Nuggets are off to more bumpy starts than expected this season. However, their MVPs Nikola Jokić and Nathan MacKinnon are still playing like MVPs and hope remains. Even the Denver Broncos—a painful basement dweller since their last Super Bowl victory in 2015—are giving fans a glimmer of hope in a different part of downtown Denver. With rookie quarterback Bo Nix showing he could bring the Broncos back to their winning ways, there is a clear direction for the organization to follow.
Back at 20th and Blake, there is no direction… While the three other members of Denver’s “big four” find their way to success, fans of the Colorado Rockies look at their empty ballpark under the winter skies and wonder when it will be their turn.
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Arizona Fall League
Arizona Fall League Fall-Stars Game: American League 6, National League 5
The Rockies had two members of their Arizona Fall League delegation named to the Fall-Stars roster. First base prospect Skyler Messinger entered the game in the sixth inning. He played sound defense but went hitless in two at-bats while striking out once. Left-handed pitcher Evan Justice had his first struggles of the Fall League in the game. Justice entered the game in the second inning and yielded five earned runs on two hits and three walks while also giving up a home run. Justice had previously not given up a single hit in 7 2⁄3 innings and only given up one walk.
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This outfielder is poised for 2025 bounceback | MLB.com
In this excerpt from Thomas Harding’s newsletter, he explores the difficult 2024 season endured by outfielder Sean Bouchard. Bouchard struggled with both injuries and poor performance in 2024, but the Rockies are confident in his ability to bounce back.
“I always believe in Sean,” general manager Bill Schmidt told Harding. “How he fits going forward, time will tell. But throughout his Minor League career and appearances at the Major League level, he’s shown to have a bat. He’s got to get better defensively, but there is a pretty good hitter in there.”
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