Bad Owners Series: Colorado Rockies

In our continuing series of bad MLB owners, we bring you the Colorado Rockies.  The franchises primary owners are brothers Charles and Richard Monfort, who are sons of Kenneth Monfort who owned a successful meatpacking company that was later acquired by ConAgra foods.  The brothers have owned the team since 2005, with Richard as the managing general partner, chairman and CEO, while Charlie is the team’s other general partner and vice chairman.

How though have the Rockies fared under their ownership?  In one word, badly.  Under their ownership from 2005 through 2022, the team has 1,321 wins vs. 1,498 losses, good (or bad in this case) for a 0.469 win percentage.  Under their tenure, the Rockies have made the playoffs only four times while having just five winning seasons.  Their most successful year was 2007, when they won the NLDS and the NL League Championship on their way to their only World Series.  Unfortunately, the Boston Red Sox swept them in that Series.  Life since 2007 has not been kind to the franchise, as they have only two additional playoff series wins in 2009 and 2018, when they won wild card series in each of those years.  The only other semi-successful year was 2017 when they lost in the wild card round.  In the 18 years, that the Monfort’s have owned the team they have only had five seasons above the 0.500 mark.

In terms of team payrolls, the Rockies are somewhat towards the middle of the pack.  Their overall average salary since 2005 has been the 18^th lowest payroll, right at the $100 million mark.  The average team payroll was $112 million, with the NY Yankees leading the way at just under $202 million.  Even in recent years, the Rockies have been a mid-range payroll, ranking 15, 11, 16, 18 and 15 from 2018 through 2022.

It should be no surprise to you that the Rockies are having another dismal season.  As of this writing (July 11^th)  they are in last place, 23 games under 0.500 and 18 games out of first place.  It should also come as no surprise that the Rockies attendance is down from the past year.  Currently, they have the second biggest decline in attendance from the prior year of all teams.  

This Denver Post article and this fan blog post kind of sums up the fans’ frustration and despair with their current situation, since the Monfort’s have no intention of selling the team and winning does not seem to be on the horizon.  As the case of much in life, things are not always black and white.  It probably was in some ways a bit harsh of us to classify the Monforts as bad owners, since in terms of winning they are truly bad.  Winning is obviously the most important aspect to the fans and rightly so.  The Monforts have emphasized by online accounts the overall ballpark experience (some fans can actually see a game for as little as $4) rather than winning.  This ballpark rating ranks the Colorado Rockies as the ninth best experience out of the 30 clubs.   Therefore, they do deserve some credit, but unfortunately, the ultimate measure of a team’s success is wins and losses, which is why we include the Monforts in our bad owner series.

We do not discount a fan’s experience but most people consume games via television and online today.  Therefore, only a relatively small fraction can experience the benefits that these owners give to the fans that attend Rockie games.  In the context of what we cover here at Baseball Purist, we conclude once again that fans will not avoid games because of game length, but instead winning makes all the difference.  Nothing will ever change that fact.