Unlovable Losers

 You may have noticed there's been a weird uptick in Colorado Rockies content on this blog. It's mostly because I find a few of their players (current and former) interesting, but also because the organization fascinates me.

Before we start, let me just say that normally I'd post scans of various Rockies cards scattered through the post to spruce things up, but the Rockies players are great and genuinely trying so I don't want them associated with this post that's got a more negative tone, that type of shame should be reserved for Rockies ownership and the front office they put in place.

Owner Dick Monfort: Rockies can “play .500 ball” in 2023 https://t.co/4gpIpzFhdz

— The Denver Post (@denverpost) January 30, 2023

The Rockies came into being as an expansion team in 1993, 30 years later they've made no progress as a sports franchise. It's pretty remarkable.

They spend money but on players that don't address their most pressing needs.
Their approach to offense is to hit for contact and with no power, in Coors Field.
Their approach to pitching is to get guys who can't consistently throw strikes and have them pitch in Coors Field.
They have no analytics department whatsoever and have no plans to get one anytime soon. Sidenote, whenever I hear someone on social media complaining that there's too much analytics in baseball without much nuance or reasoning behind it, I assume that must mean they're yearning for every baseball team to be the Rockies.

If you want to know more about the Rockies aren't very good Nick Groke of the Colorado Sun wrote an incredibly good article about the sad state of the franchise and how the future doesn't look that much brighter for the team or its business operations. I'd recommend the article if you root for one of the other four teams in the NL West and want to qualm your fears about the Rockies being good out of nowhere one day.

Such levels of incompetence would be amazing if not for how we all collectively as sports fans no longer accept that "lovable losers" nonsense.

Despite my fascination with the org due to a handful of actually fun and enjoyable players and also due to a mild interest in their incompetence, that's also the same reason why I will never believe in them to accomplish much of anything or follow them at anything more than a casual pace.

At this point baseball fans have been conditioned to let an entire decade of rancid baseball happen just so some window of opportunity for a realistic championship might open, which in turn has made teams who are just mediocre at best no longer acceptable. Either be great and win as much as possible in your window of opportunity or tank, reload and get out of the way until you look like a real team Apple TV would want to show. I can't really say I'm immune to that type of thinking.

But there's another issue, the Monforts do not inspire any confidence they or their underlings would have a plan in place to successfully pull off a rebuild.

It's very apparent that the Rockies are the way are not because they're just genuinely trying and just merely bad, they're that way because the folks at the top are incredibly indifferent to any of this.

Coors Field attendance tonight: 30,620 diehard #Rockies fans

— DNVR Rockies (@DNVR_Rockies) September 12, 2023

They know they're bad, they do not care why and they don't need to care since they're one of the teams that's benefitted the most from having being a good team no longer be a requirement to being a profitable team.

Honestly the more I think about this the more I just get jaded in general because, as it usually does, it comes down to a rich failson who happens to own an MLB team getting unprecedented levels of wealth off of their team but not using that to put the best possible product they can out on the field (this was about Dick Monfort but you can probably name several other MLB owners who fit the bill).

But then again this isn't new. And if you want a cure all one needs is to simply just go to a live baseball game in person at any level of competition, crack open a beer or take a big puff of that good good, turn your brain off and just watch the game for a few hours. Note: as bad as the Rockies are, the reviews for Coors Field are spectacular.

Because the game of baseball itself is great. It's just that everything around the sport sucks ass if you think about it for longer than 2 seconds.

Go Rockies I guess. At least their mascot Dinger is one of the best in the game.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.