Mutt and Jeff, er, I mean Dick & Jeff, preposterously won’t repudiate rumors that the Rockies’ greatest player ever — Nolan Arenado — could be traded soon or “inevitably.’’
These two comic strip characters have not even revealed the Rockies’ reporting dates for spring training, which starts everywhere else in less than a month.
Oh, but if you want to know anything about the ostentatious development that will hide the western view of the beautiful and charming retro facade of Coors Field and take away 400 valuable, adjacent parking spots for games, just ask and get a penthouse brochure and a lecture.
Richard “Dick’’ Monfort, co-owner of the Rox with his other brother Charlie, and Jeff “The Brain’’ Bridich, seem like they are more interested in the LoDo construction project and rebuilding the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes (60-80 in 2019) than they are in the reconstruction project of the Rockies (71-91 last season).
In the offseason, the Rockies have signed nine players to minor-league deals and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on digging a giant hole (literally and figuratively) between Wynkoop and Wazee.
In the meantime the Roxheads have spent zero dollars on legitimate major-league free agents.
That’s $0.
Monfort and Bridich had prepared everyone they wouldn’t be very active in the winter free-agent department.
But totally inactive?
Monfort said: “I am patient.’’
Bridich was quoted in a team-friendly book co-authored by a lackey using an analogy about a brain surgeon and his job.
If Bridich was a brain surgeon, Monfort never would want to be his patient.
The Rockies took off the offseason. Their baseball strategy for this year is the same as the guy who buys Powerball tickets as a retirement strategy.
B & M are trying to wish themselves into a good season.
Of course, The Smartest Man in the Room asserted that one of the Rockies’ biggest needs was a backup catcher. Was he basically blaming Chris Iannetta for the Rockies ending up 35 games out of first place in the National League West? A reserve catcher will have a WAR of 15.3? I don’t think so.
But the Rockies have resolved that problem by signing Elias Diaz, whose nickname should be “Passed Ball,’’ and Drew Butera, who they’ve dismissed twice, to minor-league contracts. We assume both will be with the major-league club if and when spring training opens.
Bridich also was searching for relief pitching. They plucked Jose Mujica, who I thought was the former president of Uruguay. Different Jose Mujica. This one has been out of baseball since 2018 because of Tommy John surgery.
The Powerball Plan.
Harvard’s Own also enticed the likes of Owings, Gerber and Stamets — me, neither — and Michael Choice, who was a first-round choice in 2010, but hasn’t been in the big leagues since 2015 when he played one game for the Rangers.
One of the established and trusted baseball journalists — Bridich thinks all are worthless — has ranked him as the worst GM in terms of free agency since he was elevated in 2015 to replace Dan O’Dowd. In the past decade the mentor and his student led the Rox to fourth or fifth place six times, third three times and second once. The Rockies had three winning seasons, still haven’t won the division in 27 seasons of existence, and have won a playoff series only in 2007 (World Series year).
The Rockies’ duo indicate they can’t sign free agents because of Arenado’s $260 million contract. The truth is they will be paying Bridich’s biggest free-agent busts $58.5 million — Wade Davis ($17 million), Ian Desmond ($15 mil), Jake McGee ($9.5 mil), Bryan Shaw ($9 mil) and Daniel Murphy ($8 mil). They can’t trade or give away the Flub Five.
They could trade Arenado, who wants out now even if he will decline to say it publicly. He’d love to play with the Dodgers or the Angels near his family’s hometown.
If Monfort and Bridich , who in seamspeak said he will listen to offers, do trade Arenado, do you trust them after who was acquired in the Troy Tulowitzki deal — a washed-up domestic abuser who cost them $40 million to buy out and three lousy pitchers?
And if the two do, Dick Monfort should vanish in Greeley as his brother Charlie did, and Jeff Bridich should get out of baseball and fade into obscurity.
However, the Rockies are stuck with Mutt and Jeff for seven more years of bad luck and terrible baseball. There will be no rebuilding in 2020, but a new building in 2021.
How nice.
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