For Jim Tracy, Future With Franchise Comes Down To Friday Meeting

Colorado Rockies manager Jim Tracy will meet with new assistant general manager Bill Geivett on Friday to discuss the direction of the franchise and his future with the team. Due to Geivett’s new power and his close proximity to the day-to-day operations of the team during the final months of the season, he essentially holds Tracy’s fate in his hands.

Any excuse to include pictures of this argument. Image: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE

It is difficult to speculate about Geivett’s thinking from outside of the organization. The decision will be based on what Geivett observed during his time holed up in the corner of the locker room. Apparently he watched everything from how Tracy interacted with the team to how he managed the lineups to anything else that might factor into his effectiveness as the manager moving forward.

One would presume that an important factor would be whether or not the players quit on Tracy once the team was out of contention. Tracy is confident they did not, as evidenced by this quote:

“What is so meaningful to me is when you have a season like this, there does come a point in time when there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on. I have no sense whatsoever that’s what’s taking place. That’s real gratifying. I’ve never had to walk in, look in the mirror and say, ‘They quit on me today.'”

There is no questioning Tracy’s investment in his job and his players. It is more an issue of whether or not he is the right fit for a team that needs to rebuild. Geivett will be the one to decide if Tracy should remain in charge after managing the team to the worst two year stretch in its history.

There was a point when I would have taken great comfort in the fact that Geivett was the man making this decision; that was when he stepped up and junked the four man rotation piggyback paired nonsense. At that point he seemed like one of the only people with common sense in the organization. But then I read his incoherent ramblings in a recent two part interview with Jonah Keri of Grantland, and now I am not so sure. He showed the same inclination towards a lack of accountability and shameless excuse making that everybody else in charge of the Rockies has this season.

I don’t have any advice whatsoever about what Rockies fans should think of the meeting between Geivett and Tracy tomorrow morning. It seems like a meeting of two men who are still grasping for ideas to fix a problem that they do not think is their fault. I guess the problem is I do not think Tracy should be back as manager, but I do not see any reason to think Geivett needs to stick around either.

We are told there will be big changes this offseason. It’s good to know that the front office recognizes the need for change, but it’s hard to trust them to make the right decisions. Whatever it will look like starts with this meeting tomorrow.