Shortly before this year’s baseball regular season ended, someone asked me if I thought Bud Black would be back as manager of the Rockies in 2025.
I gave them two reasons why I thought he would:
Owner Dick Monfort is loyal to a fault; he never lets anyone go if he can avoid it.
Bud thinks the team is turning a corner with young talent; he wants to be a part of it.
While the four League Division Series were playing out, the Rockies made it official, signing Black to a one-year contract.
So, the question now is not, Will he return? But rather, Should he?
In their announcement that Black would return for his ninth season in 2025, the Rockies made it a point to remind everyone that he is the winningest manager in team history.
But that’s not saying a lot. He surpassed Clint Hurdle’s 534 victories with his 535th on September 17 and finished 2024 with 537.
Against 657 defeats.
And while he has the most victories, Bud’s not the most successful skipper ever to wear the purple pinstripes. Don Baylor has the highest winning percentage at .484, with 440 victories to 469 losses. Buddy Bell is second at .465.
Black got off to a flying start after he succeeded Walt Weiss before the 2017 season, leading Colorado into the postseason in back-to-back years and compiling a 178-147 record.
But since then, his teams are 359-510, including back-to-back seasons with a combined 204 losses.
It’s not all his fault, of course. Significant injuries (particularly to the pitching staff), bad trades, poor free agent decisions and over-estimated talent levels on some young prospects have all contributed to the disappointing results of the last six years.
But is Black, at 69, the right man to lead the youth movement on which the Rockies are embarking?
The Rockies think so.
“We believe the foundation we’re building with our core roster and our farm system, along with Buddy’s skills, experience and knowledge are instrumental in achieving our goal of playing games in October,” general manager Bill Schmidt said in a statement released by the club when announcing Black’s new contract.
A look at this season’s playoff teams raises a question.
The four clubs with the youngest rosters—Detroit, Kansas City, Baltimore and Cleveland—all have managers 51 or younger. The Guardians’ Steven Vogt is 39.
Is it just a coincidence that four comparatively youthful managers all led young players to the playoffs?
Or did they relate to them in a way that older managers don’t, because of either the age gap or a difference in the way the game is played today compared to when they were much younger?
It is conceivable that the Rockies’ Opening Day batting order next March 27 in Tampa will average less than 26 years of age. And that includes the “old man”—Ryan McMahon, who will be 30 in a couple months.
So, relating to younger players is a must.
Black is well-liked by his players. But is he more like grandpa than a contemporary in his approach to today’s game?
This year’s Wild Card and Division rounds emphasized another point. Post-season baseball has changed.
The days of setting up a pitching rotation so that the ace and his understudy get as many starts as possible are long gone.
Detroit called it “pitching chaos.” But however a team chooses to describe its use of a deep bullpen, the bottom line is “deep bullpen.”
Which begs this question: Can a former pitcher who excelled during a time when teams relied on their starters to “go deep” adapt to utilizing six or seven pitchers in one game, as A. J. Hinch of the Tigers and many of his counterparts did in this year’s early rounds of the playoffs?
There were signs late this season that the Colorado bullpen might be developing some relievers who could fill roles in such a scenario. Victor Vodnik, Luis Peralta, Seth Halvorsen, Angel Chivilli, Jeff Criswell and Jaden Hill all showed potential. If it happens, Tyler Kinley, 33, can be their wizened anchor.
In Black’s first two seasons, I was among those who thought he really had an impact on the pitching staff. Since then, not so much.
Like it or not, he’s getting another chance to make a difference.
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Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 16 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.