Colorado Rockies podcast: Buster Posey’s retirement, Bob Melvin hiring, and award season

On Thursday, it was officially announced that San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey will be retiring after a career of 12 seasons (2009-2019, 2021). On the most recent episode of the Rox Pile Rockies Report, Kevin Henry and I discuss how Posey has been when he has faced the Colorado Rockies and the surprise that most people had when it was reported on Wednesday.

However, we shouldn’t have been as surprised as we are. We discuss why we can understand why he is retiring

Overall, against the Rockies, Posey has played equivalent to a full season against them. In 159 games, he has been a “Rockies killer” as he has hit .339/.418/.568 with 29 home runs, 109 RBI, 188 hits, and 39 doubles. Especially for a catcher, that is an MVP-quality season. At Coors Field, he has played half of a season (81 games) and hit even better. He has hit .365/.430/.611 with 16 homers and 57 RBI.

That batting average and on-base percentage are the highest of any stadium he has more than 25 plate appearances at and his slugging percentage is the second-highest of any stadium on that list (Miller Park/American Family Field is first). Outside of his home ballpark in San Francisco (which has had numerous names), Coors Field is the place he has the most home runs and RBI.

We also discuss some stuff regarding the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres and their hiring of Bob Melvin as their manager.

For the Colorado Rockies, we discuss a little bit about their dream lineup for the 2022 season and we discuss the San Diego Padres and their recent move.

The San Diego Padres hired Bob Melvin as their new manager. Melvin was the manager of the Oakland Athletics for part of the last 11 seasons but Oakland let him interview with the Padres (after Oakland exercised his option for the 2022 season earlier this year).

Melvin, 60, is the first Padres manager to be hired with previous major league managerial experience since Jack McKeon, who last managed the Padres in 1990. McKeon was the general manager of the Padres at the time when he decided to fire Larry Bowa and appoint himself as GM. McKeon resigned as manager during the 1990 season and was fired as GM after the 1992 season.

If you exclude McKeon hiring himself (in essence), the last Padres manager with previous managerial experience was the man Larry Bowa replaced: Steve Boros. Boros managed the Oakland A’s from 1983 through May 1984. Boros managed the Padres in the 1986 season.

Since McKeon, the Padres have had these people as managers

• Greg Riddoch, 1990-1992
• Jim Riggleman, 1992-1994 (later managed the Cubs, Mariners, Nationals, and Reds)
• Bruce Bochy, 1995-2006 (later managed the Giants and won three World Series)
• Bud Black, 2007-2015 (obviously, he later became the Rockies manager and is still managing the team to this day)
• Dave Roberts, 2015 (for one game and later, he left to manage the Dodgers and win the World Series with them in 2020)
• Pat Murphy, 2015
• Andy Green, 2016-2019
• Jayce Tingler, 2020-2021

We also preface “award season” as it will be starting next week and who are the front runners for the NL MVP and NL Cy Young Award races.

You can check out the podcast above or wherever you download your podcasts.