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DENVER — As first reported by Bob Nightengale last night, the Colorado Rockies have released most of the remaining coaching staff, giving walking papers to Rene Lachemann, Eric Young, Tom Runnells, and Blake Doyle.
Pitching coaches Steve Foster and Darren Holmes remain along with base coach Stu Cole — who some believe may be in the running for the open manager position — and Vinny Castilla, who likely is not.
These moves, much like the earlier dismissal of Walt Weiss, seemed inevitable after the decision was made not to bring back Weiss, the man at the top of the totem pole. Presumably — though no necessarily given modern day propensity for GMs to have more say in certain matters — whoever is hired as the new manager of the Rockies will have some say in filling out the other recently vacated positions.
It is interesting that the two-headed pitching coach returns but it’s easy to see it as merited after the phenomenal year the Rockies starting rotation just put together. Though, Foster and Holmes surely bear some responsibility for the performance of the bullpen, so that will be something to keep an eye on going forward.
Stu Cole is nothing short of adored in the clubhouse but BSN Denver cannot in good conscience endorse a promotion for a man who has been in charge of a running game that has been questionable at best over the last few years. It’s always hard to tell how much of that ultimately falls back on the manager, but if you can’t hold the base-running coach accountable for bad base running, who can you?
The dismissal of the original EY will surely be tough for some fans considering his long-time ties to the organization. It also means that Castilla — at this time — is the only coach left on staff who played games as a Colorado Rockie, and potential wisdom that comes from experiencing Coors Field and it’s hangover effect remains an ongoing debate among experts.
It’s clear that the Rockies are searching for a new identity in the coaching department and we will have an in-depth report for you tomorrow morning on the nearly 20 people we think have even a remote chance of taking the reigns of this team. But what last night’s move cemented is that GM Jeff Bridich is determined not to let the window of contention that is quickly approaching go by under business as usual.
Kind of like when the Denver Nuggets drafted Carmelo Anthony and then went through a series of sweeping image changes as a way of trying to shirk the bad karma of the past, these moves seem to be as much about coaching ability as they are about ushering in a new era of Colorado Rockies baseball that feels different in as many ways as possible.
Come to think of it, now would a great time to debut a new logo or a new uniform as well. This is not to say that all these changes are cosmetic, who the big wigs choose to manage the team will tell us a lot about their priorities toward winning.
They could render much of this speculation nonsense if they do hire Cole or otherwise stay in-house. Or they could go the other way and for the first time in a long time, bring in some new blood, change things up, and come into spring training 2017 with the most amount of excitement surrounding the Rockies since 2010.
