Colorado Rockies Owner Dick Monfort Is Cheap And Terrible

Another day, another embarrassing and clueless effort by Dick Monfort. The most incompetent owner in baseball managed to outdo himself this weekend. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Rockies franchise, they have been having various alumni make appearances throughout the season at specific games. Honestly, this seems like a halfass way to do this kind of thing but at least it's acknowledging baseball history. I'll never shit on that.

What I will shit on is how cheap and pathetic Dick Monfort is handling this. I know a lot of younger fans might not remember Marvin Freeman but you could make a case that he had one of the greatest years by any starting pitcher in Rockies history, In 1994, he lead the league in winning percentage and went 10-2 with a 2.80 ERA. He even finished in 4th place in Cy Young voting that year. He was an important part of the early seasons for the Rockies. In 2023, Monfort can't even swing a Spirit flight for him.

John Leyba. Getty Images.

Dick Monfort (and his brother Charles until 2011) have been the primary owners of the Rockies since 2005 and their tenure has been a failure. They've only made the playoffs four times and went to a World Series once (swept by the Red Sox in 2007). For most of their run, they've made very questionable decisions. It's almost like they are trying to see what would happen if someone owned a MLB team with their heads up their own ass. 

It's not just the off the field stuff. The Rockies player decisions are either confusing or idiotic depending on how you look at it. Monfort seemed to negotiate against himself and signed free agent Kris Bryant to a 7 year/$182 million contract before the 2022 season. This somehow makes even less sense now than it did then. When the signing happened you could justify it by being first step to making other moves to improve the team. Nope. That was it. He hasn't made another major transaction since. Meanwhile Bryant gets paid $26 million a year and has played a grand total of 107 games for the Rockies over the past two seasons. He's currently on the IL.

In January, Monfort made headlines saying he thought the Rockies "could play .500 ball." The Rockies are 45-73. It's not crazy to be overly optimistic about your team. Hell, I thought the Mets would win 97 games this year. But it's one thing to own the team and be that wrong and it's another to have such a weak amount of optimism. He said they were striving just to be mediocre. 

Erick W. Rasco. Getty Images.

They do have five Top 100 prospects in their system. I think the only play is to lean into a total rebuild like we saw the Astros and Orioles do. They should have traded 34 year old All-Star Game MVP Elias Diaz before the deadline. Could you get anything at all for Charlie Blackmon? Why didn't they move bullpen pieces like Daniel Bard and Brent Suter? It has felt for so long that this is a franchise stuck in neutral. Maybe that's for the best though considering how inept this franchise is. When they do make a move, it's a Kris Bryant disaster.

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They'll have another 2 million fans come through the turnstiles again which I think is pretty great support for such a disaster of a franchise. They haven't had a winning season since 2018. They've made the playoffs five times in franchise history. As a point of reference, the Rays came into the majors five years after the Rockies and have been to the playoffs eight times. This is a good fan base that deserves a lot more. This team needs to completely tear everything down. But I have zero confidence in anything Dick Monfort is involved in. He can't even shell out a few bucks for a Spirit flight and a room at the Holiday Inn for a former player they are using to help sell tickets.