How Kevin Gausman's success sent me down a Monfort rabbit hole

Although my Rockies attitude this season has been at best apathetic, and at worst actively rooting for losses, I couldn't help but enjoy them winning 3 out of 4 from St. Louis over the July 4th weekend. It looked like July was going to pick up where June left off for the under .500 Cardinals, as they continued west to face the Giants and their best record in baseball. 

Kevin Gausman, who might very well be the NL Cy Young frontrunner if not for the superhuman season from Jacob DeGrom, started the series with 6 no-hit innings against the Cardinals on Monday night. Gausman and the Giants did their best Mets impression, with minimal run support despite a gem from their starter allowing a mediocre opponent to win late.

Kevin Gausman, 2021 NL All-Star and (in a normal year) Cy Young contender. 

Seeing the performance from Gausman, a 6+ inning statement that neither the Giants nor their ace are flukes, reminded me of a brief glimmer of hope I had almost 2 years ago to the day. The former Orioles top prospect, Gausman had never fully reached his potential, finally getting waived by the Braves in early August of 2019. The Rockies had the perfect opportunity to buy low on a 28-year old Grandview High School product and former elite prospect whose recent struggles could mostly be attributed to injury.

When the Reds signed him instead, I sent the following text to my fellow GFW contributor:

It felt like such a no-brainer for the Rockies, who at the time were 8 games under .500, made literally zero moves at the trade deadline a few days earlier, and were clearly on the brink of having their playoff appearance streak end at two. The Reds flier did not amount to success, but it did give an actually competent franchise in the San Francisco Giants all the information they needed to conclude that Gausman still had potential. 

The Giants signed Gausman to a 1 year, $3.33M dollar deal for the shortened 2020 season, and bumped that up to $18.9M and an opening day nod for 2021. That sounds like more than the Rockies would have been willing to pay, but is comparable to what they paid Wade Davis, or any pair of the Bryan Shaw, Mike Dunn, Jake McGee trio, or Ian Desmond, in single seasons over the last several years. Instead, the Rockies, despite their well documented successes at Coors this year, are still going to flirt with 100 losses, The Giants are meanwhile storming towards the best record in baseball, despite being picked by most to finish under .500, on the back of the now 30-year-old Denver native. How could the Rockies have missed out on such a good opportunity?

The Rockies front office turmoil dominated their early season headlines. Jeff Bridich was overseeing a franchise in freefall, gradually pushing away much of the homegrown talent after back to back postseasons that his predecessor, Dan O'Dowd, probably deserved much of the credit for. Recent discussions on the Rockies GM search have, in the public eye, been surrounding the debate between an external hire vs. promoting from within. With admittedly little knowledge of the current prominent front office names, and a curiosity for any overlap between current potential internal candidates and those possibly responsible for missing out on Kevin Gausman, I began perusing their front office directory. Unsurprisingly, I saw that Walker Monfort, son of team owner and CEO Dick Monfort, is a high-ranking individual in the organization after his many years spent throughout the organization. 

What really caught my attention, though, was the presence of Dick's other son, and Walker's younger brother, Sterling Monfort, further down the list. His official title is "Assistant Director of Scouting Operations". Walker has been around the organization for over a decade, and perhaps his being VP of Corporate Partnerships is a perfect fit for someone with his background and upbringing, even if nepotism helped get the ball rolling. For Sterling, on the other hand, I found it harder to believe that he should already be in such an important role for the success of the organization.

To give him the benefit of the doubt before letting my cynicism take over, I looked into his background to see if perhaps he was well deserving of his position. The answer came quickly, in the form of an article and interview Sterling provided to the Greeley Tribune in October 2018, shortly after the Rockies beat the Cubs to go to their first NLDS since 2009.

Perhaps it is solely the fault of Bobby Fernandez and the Greeley Tribune, and not Sterling Monfort at all, but the absurdity of the headline is only matched by several of the quotes throughout the article. (Possibly related - why would such a mundane article be updated more than 18 months after its original publication?) 

Some notable quotes from the article, demonstrating how off-base Sterling Monfort (and by extension, the entire Rockies organization) is regarding their success:

• “Seeing guys like that, guys like Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story and David Dahl and Chris Iannetta go out there and help us win ball games down the stretch, and throughout the entire season, is obviously very, very gratifying.”
• They spent the subsequent 2 years angering Nolan to the point of trading him at his absolute lowest. 
• They are on the brink of doing the same with Trevor Story. 
• They flat out cut David Dahl not long after his 2019 all-star season. 
• And while I loved Chris Iannetta as much as any long-time Rockies fan, bringing back a veteran who spent several successful years away (including eliminating the Rockies with an in-division rival in the previous season's wild card game) to finish his career with back to back negative WAR seasons, is not exactly indicative of the success of identifying and cultivating homegrown talent.

• "Monfort and his colleagues pour [sic] through thousands of pages of statistical data, rack up countless miles on the road and through the air and sacrifice much of their professional and personal time to maintain an edge on other Major League organizations in hopes of snatching up that next big prospect."
• First of all, perhaps they shouldn't pour things all over their pages of statistical data, as that likely makes things harder to read.
• Secondly, they sacrifice their professional time... doing their job? What does that even mean?
• Finally, "maintaining an edge" would imply that you had an edge in the first place. The Rockies inability to turn high draft picks into top prospects in the Bridich era is exactly why they are a joke of a franchise right now (again, see here). 

• "The Rockies' scouting department has paid just as much attention, if not more, to character... We look into their family history, we look into their social media accounts, we meet with the players, we dig in, we try to figure out what makes them tick."
• Too on point to even be ironic, this article is from 4 months after the Rockies drafted Ryan Rolison as their #1 pick, who in the days that followed it was revealed had a suggestion on how to deal with former President Barack Obama following his re-election:

The lack of self-awareness from such a prominent person in the Rockies organization, and the son of team owner and CEO no less, does not bring much faith for a reasonable and encouraging re-structuring of the Rockies front office this coming offseason.

But at least Denver native Kevin Gausman is finally achieving the success that prep sports fans in the area long hoped he would, and is doing so with an organization that will find ways to win.