Rockies manager Bud Black will return, but team finds two scapegoats

Coming off a 68-94 season, tied for the fifth-worst record in team history, the Colorado Rockies are making a couple of coaching staff changes.

But it’s nothing all that major. The big one, as announced by the team on Thursday morning, is that manager Bud Black will return in 2023.

Hitting coach Dave Magadan is out, as the Rockies and Magadan agreed to “mutually part ways.” Third base and infield coach Stu Cole has been reassigned to a Minor League staff position. That means Black and the rest of his staff will be back, including pitching coach Darryl Scott.

Manager Bud Black, Bullpen Coach Reid Cornelius, First Base Coach Ron Gideon, Assistant Hitting Coach Andy González, Assistant Hitting Coach P.J. Pilittere, Bench Coach Mike Redmond and Pitching Coach Darryl Scott will all return for the 2023 season.

— Rockies Club Information (@RockiesClubInfo) October 13, 2022

Black joined the Rockies in 2017 and started off well. Colorado made the playoffs that season and in 2018, before missing the postseason each of the last four years. The Rockies are just 417-453 under Black overall.

Colorado finished sixth in MLB with a .254 batting average in 2022, so Magadan becoming a scapegoat is a bit odd. However, the Rockies only hit 149 home runs, which was tied for 22nd in baseball. Playing at Coors Field, in a boom or bust game, that number simply isn’t good enough.

Who knows why Cole got booted to the minors? He’s been the team’s third base coach since 2012, so maybe he wasn’t moving his arm fast enough sending those runners? It seems strange to send him down a level, but again, the Rockies need scapegoats. Owner Dick Monfort sent a rambling letter on Monday to season ticket holders about how this season wasn’t good enough.

The most puzzling move is retaining Scott. Colorado’s ERA was 5.07 this year, which ranked dead last in MLB. The team’s pitching staff gave up 184 home runs, tied for the ninth most in the league. Clearly, his coaching could have been better.

The Rockies started a youth movement in September, so Monfort and GM Bill Schmidt must feel the majority of this staff is right to lead these young players. Or, they just don’t want to make big changes, because Colorado seemingly never makes big changes.

It’s more of the same at 20th and Blake as a long winter gets underway. Once again, the Rockies will hope to find lightning in a bottle in 2023, like they last did all the way back in the World Series year of 2007.

Good luck with that.

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