How the Los Angeles Angels have become the Colorado Rockies of the American League

The Colorado Rockies have long been an organization that is been one that is poorly run. Rumblings of that claim have been around for the better part of a decade but become very apparent in the last few years. One team that has become increasingly similar to the Colorado Rockies in many ways is the Los Angeles Angels.

There’s a reason why neither team has been a serious playoff contender or threat in over a decade, despite making the playoffs a combined three times since 2010.

The Los Angeles Angeles Angels and Colorado Rockies have too many similarities in how poorly run they are.

Both the Los Angeles Angels and the Colorado Rockies have many things in common.

One thing that is going well for both teams is their managers. Colorado manager Bud Black and Angels manager Joe Maddon both coached together on the Angels from 2000 through 2005, when Maddon left the Angels to become the manager of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. One year later, Black got his owner managerial gig with the Padres.

Since then, Maddon has managed over 2,500 MLB games with the Rays, Cubs, and Angels, Black over 2,000 with the Padres and Rockies, and both still are great friends.

Black, who Maddon calls “Pepe” and “Mr. Freeze,” doesn’t have quite the winning pedigree that Maddon has as a manager (Maddon has made it to the postseason in eight of his 16 seasons as a full-time MLB manager including a World Series title with the Cubs in 2016 and Black has made it to the postseason just twice in 14 seasons as a manager) but Maddon has had a lot more talent on his teams than Black.

But after those two, things start to fall apart for each franchise.

For both the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Angels, they have had a hard time being a postseason caliber team.

For the Los Angeles Angels (especially being a big-market team), they have been remarkably awful in the last decade. They made it to the ALDS in 2014 where they were quickly dispatched in three games by the Kansas City Royals. The last time they made the postseason before that was in 2009. Since 2010, the Colorado Rockies made the playoffs as a Wild Card team in 2017 and 2018 but they won one (1) postseason game: the 2018 Wild Card Game. The Angels and Colorado Rockies have a massive depth and secondary talent problem.

The Angels have Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Anthony Rendon. Who else do they have that’s a good MLB player for more than a season? That’s the thing. They really don’t have one.

The Rockies had Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, and Charlie Blackmon but after those three, their offense was awful and now, their offense is even worse. The team also hasn’t been a playoff contender for three years now.

Both teams tried to address issues by spending big on free agent contracts … and nearly all of them flopped.

For the Angels, it was Albert Pujols, C.J. Wilson, Josh Hamilton, Sean Burnett, Ryan Madson, Joe Blanton, Scott Downs, Zack Cozart, and many others. For the Rockies, it was Mike Dunn, Wade Davis, Jake McGee, Bryan Shaw, Ian Desmond, Daniel Murphy, and Chris Iannetta.

On Saturday, we reported how the Colorado Rockies have promoted Sterling Monfort to the director of professional scouting. Monfort is the youngest son of Rockies owner, Dick Monfort. Monfort does have experience in the department but he has been with the Rockies since 2013 and, usually, people aren’t promoted to that level of a position until they have had much more experience.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Angels reportedly demoted their bench coach, Mike Gallego, to their defensive coach. So who will be their new bench coach? Ray Montgomery. Montgomery, 52, was their director of player personnel in 2021. While he wasn’t for the Angels, most teams’ “director of player personnel” is an assistant GM.

For example, the Rockies director of player personnel entering the 2021 season was Jon Weil. Sterling Monfort, with his promotion, will assume some of Weil’s duties.

Prior to being with the Angels, he was the VP of the Brewers where he spent six seasons in his role, serving as “a lead evaluator across the entire spectrum of baseball operations, including professional, international and amateur scouting.”

Montgomery did play a few years in the majors but demoting a coach like Gallego, who has 15 years of time as a coach in the majors, including parts of five seasons with the Rockies, for Montgomery, who has no major league or minor league coaching experience is unheard of.

They haven’t been able to name their coaching staff because, reportedly, the Angels want to hire MLB outfielder Adam Eaton as their first base coach but since he played in the majors in 2021, they can’t hire him because of the lockout.

Both teams continue to make baffling moves when both teams have/used to have a good nucleus of position players around them. But as long as baffling moves continue for both franchises, they will continue to be the punching bags of the NL and AL West.