Bill Schmidt and the Colorado Rockies front office: An interim grade at the 2023 midway point

Bill Schmidt is a long-time Colorado Rockies front office staffer who was appointed senior vice president and general manager following the conclusion of the 2021 season. His first two seasons in that job have been frustrating.

The Rockies finished last in the NL West in 2022 with a 68-94 record and, halfway through the 2023 season, little has changed in the standings. They’re 31-50 and last again, saddled with the worst winning percentage in the National League.

The question is how much, if any, of the blame for that performance falls to Schmidt?

What follows is a mid-term assessment of the Rockies’ front office personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the team’s performance.

The standard of measurement in Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by the Rockies’ front office impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players not already under control it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how the moves made by Schmidt since the end of last season stack halfway through the season by those five yardsticks.

Acquired or traded

Dealings with other teams since the conclusion of the 2022 season have brought Schmidt just four major league players, all of them second-line pitchers. That’s not much of a surprise given the Rockies’ perennial search for pitching depth.

Three of those four have played significant roles in 2023.

Connor Seabold came over from Boston in January for a Player to be Named Later. The Rockies have given him 10 starts and seven relief appearances, good for a 1-4 record and 5.98 ERA. That works out to a -0.5 WAA, which in Denver is about average for a pitcher.

Chase Anderson was picked up from Tampa Bay on a May waiver claim. Inserted into Colorado’s rotation, he’s made eight starts with an 0-2 record and 6.57 ERA.

Reliever Brent Suter arrived from Milwaukee in a November waiver claim. Assigned to the Colorado bullpen, he’s 4-0 with a 2.81 ERA in 41 innings over 31 appearances and a +0.5 WAA. So it’s pretty obvious which of those three moves has yielded the most benefit.

Schmidt dispatched four players in deals with other teams, the most impactful of those being the trade of Connor Joe to Pittsburgh for a minor leaguer. Joe got off to a hot start, as did the Pirates, but both have since cooled badly and Joe’s WAA sits at -0.8.

Free agency

Like a lot of teams that do not have huge stores of cash to throw around, the Rockies spent much of their offseason and early season trying to add veteran marginal free agents. Schmidt added 11 of them, fellows of the stripe of Mike Moustakas, Brad Hand, Fernando Abad, Jurickson Profar and Harold Castro.

The results have been pretty much what you would expect from players rejected by their former teams.

As determined by WAA, Profar (-1.9) and Castro (-1.1) have both cost the Rockies more than one game in the standings. Abad and Jose Ureña were sufficiently bad to be released.

The one pleasant surprise has been Nolan Jones. A Cleveland castoff signed on the open market for next to nothing last November, Jones is hitting.316 in 29 games while earning regular time. He’s delivered a +1.0 WAA, making him Schmidt’s most productive personnel acquisition this season.

His most impactful departure was the decision to let veteran pitcher Chad Kuhl disappear over the horizon. Kuhl set sail for Washington, where he’s 0-4 with an 8.45 ERA in 16 appearances, five of them starts, before being released. That works out to a -1.6 WAA.

Kuhl is one of only four players to depart the Rockies’ orbit on their own for another big league team, the other being Garrett Hampson, Alex Colome and Carlos Estevez. Only Estevez (+0.9), who signed with the Los Angeles Angels, has helped his new team.

Farm system

Schmidt’s system has produced nine players in their first season with the major league club, and almost all of them have had the usual adaptation problems.

Three have seen regular duty. Ezequiel Tovar (+0.4 WAA), who has taken over as the starting shortstop, is batting.262, while Brenton Doyle (-0.4 WAA) in center is stuck down at .216. Justin Lawrence (+0.7) has been a bullpen asset with a 3.02 ERA in 35 appearances.

Statistically the big rookie impact has been a negative one. It came from starter/reliever Noah Davis, who’s had four starts to show what he could do. Summoned in mid-April, he was shelled, sent down, brought back last week, shelled again and sent down again, Davis’ presence has to date cost the Rockies -1.0 WAA.

The rest have filled bit roles: Blair Calvo, Riley Pint, Coco Montes and Gavin Hollowell.

They’ve generally done what rookies often do, rode the shuttle between Triple-A and the big leagues. Hollowell got a few days’ introduction earlier this month, Pint was up for a few days in May, and Montes has stuck since being called up in mid-June.

Calvo is the exception; debuting in May he made one appearance before being sold to the Tigers, who immediately sent him down.