The Colorado Rockies’ Case To Retain Walt Weiss

Aug 21, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; Colorado Rockies manager W. Weiss (22) reacts during the first inning against the New York Mets at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

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Just because you played for the Colorado Rockies, it does not make you more uniquely qualified to manage the Colorado Rockies. (Smart asses among us would argue that actually makes you less qualified — heyooo!!!)

But Denver is a unique place to manage baseball, relative to most of the other stops in Major League Baseball, and Denver is one place where you might have a slight advantage with a manager who understands how the ball plays here and what Coors Field is really like.

Weiss has that. In the fire-Walt-now defense, so do a lot of other guys, including some who might one day make good managers, like Jason Giambi, or Gabe Kapler. But playing four years in Denver — including three at Coors Field — means Weiss is literally hundreds of games ahead of almost any other new manager in that regard.

[ Related: On Christian Bergman’s underrated year out of the bullpen ]

This doesn’t mean the Rockies should only look for alums to manage the ball club. Considering the somewhat slim-pickings of managerial-level talent that used to play baseball in Colorado, um, that would make for quite a long re-build.

But it does mean something like this ought to be taken into account a little bit with any manager; has he worked in a difficult situation before? In a unique stadium, or city? With unique or challenging payroll constraints? With any sort of significant adversity that goes above and beyond the “normal” daily big league grind?

Managing pitchers and a rotation in Denver — especially for a National League club — can quickly become one of those managerial nightmares. Is there anyone out there more familiar with it than a guy like Weiss right now?

Hey, speaking of other people out there…

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