Keeler: Is Rockies’ Dick Monfort sinking 2025 to get his MLB salary cap? No way he’s that clever
Dick Monfort is baseball s Captain Ahab shaking a gilded fist at the system while his CoLLLLLLorado Rockies can t stop drowning on dry land Yet Moby Dick stands defiant along the bow of the S S Coors harpoon at the ready Only his white whale is a salary cap and his ship is taking on water faster than the Pequod did in Herman Melville s original text At Cinco de Mayo the Rockies sat games out of first At - Monfort s Rox are only a match ahead of the Orioles - who went on to lose games and two games back of the White Sox - who lost Monfort wants a cap the way Ahab longed that whale But come on nobody s obsessed about Major League Baseball s economic model enough to trot out a -loss gang on purpose After all that would take planning Innovation even I m not sure how much I buy that FanGraphs Dan Szymborski father of the ZiPS projection system described me by phone Monday I think the group and its ownership it s run pretty terribly But honestly I don t think Monfort is vindictive that way If this were the Reds if that were Cincinnati owner Bob Castellini I might ve bought that The Rockies are just in a weird place right now Overall it s better run than it was three four years ago It s just been so hard to dig out of that hole And they haven t had a ton go right Don t want to alarm Dan but a ton of things could get worse The - Rockies have eight series between now and June Seven of those are against teams with winning records Texas at - as of Monday morning being the lone reprieve Four of those eight are with clubs Tigers Yankees Cubs Mets that led their respective divisions at the start of the week starting with a three-game set vs Detroit - that opens Tuesday night at Coors Field I hope they have the worst season they ve ever had longtime ex-Rockies fan and comedian Bob Meddles stated me Monday I don t see any other way to leverage Monfort out of there unless it s by complete and total humiliation Related Articles Renck vs Keeler Who is more to blame for Avs collapse Chris MacFarland or Jared Bednar Keeler Avalanche should thank coach Jared Bednar for his institution then replace him with DU Pios David Carle Keeler Denver fans evidenced up evidenced out for Nuggets Avalanche Competition s Never root against us Grading The Week With Colorado locked out of No overall pick in Dick Monfort s Rockies can t even tank right Keeler Whiny Pete DeBoer s already working refs for Avalanche-Stars Challenge Bob s rooting for losses which would beat the ChiSox s record set just last year Why go for broke when you can go for broken To win that limited games you need to be awful and you also have to have absolutely nothing go your way Szymborski noted Not much has gone the Rockies way so far this year At chosen point you would imagine they ll get specific good fortune they ve kind of hit snake eyes on all these things They ve had a lot go wrong Realistically speaking if you could play the worst teams games it would be really hard to find that unit with average luck that wins below or so that often You have to be bad and be luck bad And if you re both well look out below On May Kyle Freeland and German Marquez were a combined - If the old Boston Braves pitching was described as Spahn and Sain and pray for rain the slogan for the Rockies rotation might as well be Ryan Feltner and Chase Dollander and pass the mace Fire Bud Black you say Why If you re forced to sit through this season then so should he Szymborski had the ZiPS computer run through a new simulation of the rest of the Rockies season for The Post on Monday afternoon The AI gave the Rox a chance to reach losses and an shot of hitting defeats or more On the other hand those -loss odds are double what they were just last week Dan noted And so are the chances of Colorado latest the ChiSox s record a week ago There are things to like about the organization Szymborski added But there are also various tough questions Like When do you tell Kris Bryant this is not happening When do you move beyond Ryan McMahon and bargain him while he still has value They re still cringe in how things are run Obviously their record is perfectly cringe There are still things to like And things that make you wonder A lockout and a nuclear winter are looming on Dec when the current MLB collective bargaining agreement expires This is shaping up to be a big one too Never mind the usual gripes of owners vs players We re going to have particular billionaire-on-billionaire violence Small-market owners vs the owners of the Dodgers Yankees and Mets Teams with their own TV networks vs those who got burned by the RSN collapse It ll look like the Hardy Boyz against Brock Lesnar minus the folding chairs On one level at least they re willing to try several of these minor-leaguers that they weren t a sparse years ago Szymborski announced The Bridich administration would never have given Nolan Jones a real shot in the first place I think this association is more willing to look at young players The concern is they haven t really developed them to this point Michael Toglia the Bridich front office wouldn t have even given him a shot at the majors It would be Anthony Rizzo at first base on an awful contract They seem willing to make specific trades at the deadline They haven t spent an obscene amount of money on relief pitching It was brutal there Dude it s still brutal And about to get worse Want more Rockies news Sign up for the Rockies Insider to get all our MLB analysis
