Sunday Notes: Rebuffing Criticism, Bill Schmidt Likes The Rockies’ Direction | FanGraphs Baseball

David Laurila’s Sunday Notes.

How can a team playing in Colorado not score more runs? There is no bigger indictment of their process than their lack of offense. They should be at the top of team run scoring leaderboard perennially. 

My own coverage of the club, which has focused primarily on players, prospects, and coaches, has included neither criticism nor compliment. Which isn’t to say I’m not intrigued by brickbats thrown. I am, which led me to approach Colorado GM Bill Schmidt to get his perspective on some of what has been said about the team he’s been with for two-plus decades.

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“We’ve brought some people in, but that’s neither here nor there,” said Schmidt. “I don’t think we’re stagnant. We have a belief that we think is strong, and if you ask anybody inside our organization, they will tell you the direction we’re going. We might not be up on top of the mountains screaming it out, but we know what direction we’re heading in.”

Philosophically-speaking, what exactly is that direction?

“We’re scout/development,” was the executive’s response to that question. “That’s who we are. Our foundation… not that we play all of our own guys — we will use guys to try to acquire what we need — but we’re going to give our guys opportunities.”

When The Athletic published an anything-but-complimentary critique of the organization in 2021 — Ken Rosenthal and Nick Groke co-authored the piece — a poorly-staffed (and allegedly under-utilized) analytics department was among the criticisms. With that in mind, one more question was in order: What is the current status of the Rockies’ analytics department?

“We have some very sharp people working for us, and they’re part of our process,” Schmidt told me. “As a scout, I always used stat sheets. That’s analytics. I’ve always looked at the numbers to help make decisions. Look, I like the direction we’re heading in. I think our good days are ahead of us.”