Any team can have a bad weekend, but the Colorado Rockies were completely punchless in a three-game set in San Diego. The Padres shut them out in all three games as the team sunk to 3-12—the worst record in MLB. According to Andrew Mason of Denver Sports, they became the third team in modern history with zero runs, fewer than 10 hits, and at least 30 strikeouts over three games.
This was the kind of series that might call the overall direction of the franchise into question, if that hadn’t already been happening. Before this disastrous weekend, the Denver Post called out Rockies owner Dick Monfort for being comfortable losing. The three games since then have reinforced that point, and they’re now last in MLB in runs scored per game (2.7) and runs allowed per game (5.6).
Losing is nothing new for the Rockies, who finished 61-101 last season and landed in the NL West basement each year since 2022. This year will almost certainly be their seventh in a row with a losing record as they are widely considered to have one of the worst rosters in MLB. They haven’t reached the playoffs since 2018 and they have famously never won a division title dating back to their inception in 1993.
Monfort himself has to shoulder most of the blame. Since he and his brother Charles Monfort purchased the team in 2005, they have never ranked higher than 12th in MLB in team payroll, which they did in 2019. The club record for competitive balance tax payroll was $194.5 million in 2023, but it slipped to $171.0 million in 2024 and is projected to be down to $146.0 million this season. The largest contract they handed out in free agency this offseason was a one-year, $4 million guarantee to infielder Thairo Estrada after he was non-tendered by the San Francisco Giants.
Rather than invest in his franchise, Monfort lobbied publicly for a salary cap to rein in the free-spending Dodgers. His cries ring hollow when his team cut payroll by nearly $50 million over two years and is barely keeping pace with the majority of the league. He also called for a model that would give all 30 clubs a chance at winning the World Series, yet his own club is nowhere near playoff caliber. Besides, nine different teams have won the World Series in the last 11 years. If MLB has a financial disparity problem, it hasn’t slowed down most other franchises as much, so Monfort should look in the mirror before blaming MLB’s financial structure for his club’s failures.
Under Monfort, the Rockies have continued to operate under the assumption that their internal decision-makers are the most qualified people for the job despite their win-loss records. General manager Bill Schmidt took over four years ago after working his way up through the organization since 1999. His predecessor, Jeff Bridich, had been a Rockies employee since 2004. He stepped down two months after the inexplicable Nolan Arenado trade, in which they essentially paid the St. Louis Cardinals more than $50 million to take their best player and the face of their franchise off their hands, making it one of the most lopsided deals in MLB history.
Two of Monfort’s sons—Sterling and Walker Monfort—hold high-level positions despite no known work experience outside of the organization. Walker is the vice president of corporate partnerships, which is a business role that shouldn’t affect baseball decisions directly, but his brother, Sterling, is the director of the scouting department. The Athletic’s Keith Law ranked their farm system 23rd in MLB despite the fact that they’ve had high draft picks for the last several years.
The historically bad weekend the Rockies endured was the result of the team’s mismanagement and lack of direction over the last several years. Rough three-game sets happen to every club, but there’s usually hope they can pull out of it. In Colorado, the problems seem to start from the top and infest every aspect of the organization, trickling down to the field. Most other franchises could rebuild a roster like theirs within a few years, but recent history suggests the Rockies aren’t capable of pulling out of their never-ending tailspin under their current leadership.
