Walt Weiss To Take More Active Role With Rockies

Could Walt Weiss provide some of the leadership the Rockies are lacking?

It’s a tough time to be a Rockies fan. We haven’t been to the playoffs in five years, we are coming off a 96-loss season, and we’ve had to watch, dumbfounded, as every other team in our division has taken huge strides toward becoming, or staying, a winner these past few weeks. I’ve said before and will say again that I intend to withhold judgment on Jeff Bridich until he’s had a couple years to reveal his big picture plan to us. But it is disheartening that next year’s team is going to look so much like last year’s.

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On the other hand, the pieces are there. If this team stays healthy (a huge if, I know), and Bridich makes another move or two to bolster the starting rotation, I think we have a contender on our hands. It might not be enough of one to play with the big boys in the division–uber-rich Los Angeles; perennial champion San Francisco; better, bolder San Diego–but it would be a start.

What this team really lacks, far more than an ace starting pitcher or a lockdown closer, is leadership. I’m not the first one to say that, and I won’t be the last, and there’s really no special reason to add my voice to the mix. But the specific question I’m interested in answering is this: What might be Walt Weiss’s contribution to filling this void?

Recently, Patrick Saunders wrote that Weiss will assume greater responsibility for running the team going forward. On the face of it, I like this idea very much. I never understood why Bill Geivett needed to have an office in the clubhouse when he was working with the Rockies’ front office, and I certainly never felt that it did the team any good. It sort of seemed like it had the same effect as Dick Monfort constantly breathing down Dan O’Dowd’s neck: the man who had been hired to do the job wasn’t able to do it and instead found himself regularly handcuffed by a less-knowledgeable colleague. So while it remains to be seen just what quality of work Weiss can do when unencumbered, at least we’ll finally know. If he’s not good enough, it’s simply a matter of replacing him.

What I really want to see Weiss do with this new-found freedom is emerge as a true leader. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that a person can be in a leadership role without providing the tiniest bit of leadership. He or she can be perfectly capable of performing all the tasks associated with the job he or she is doing and still do absolutely nothing to inspire, guide, or shape the people in his or her employ. Weiss has already proven himself to be capable: he shows up on time, isn’t drunk in the dugout, and even manages to heatedly argue with an umpire here and there. The next step is for him to show that he can do more than the bare minimum. That he can light a fire under his players, that he can gather them around a common cause (i.e. winning) and push them to their fullest potential.

One thing I’m sick of seeing the Giants do is take a relatively small amount of talent and manufacture a championship team with it. They are proof that you don’t need the Dodgers’ money or a rotation that’s money from top to bottom (though Madison Bumgarner certainly helps). You need Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy. You need, in other words, strong leadership. Bridich and Weiss are largely untested in that area, but I would love nothing more than to see them blossom in 2015.

Walt Weiss To Take More Active Role With Rockies

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