3 replacements for Bud Black if the Rockies fire him

The 2023 season will without a doubt go down as the worst season in franchise history for the Colorado Rockies.

Earlier this week, the Rockies suffered their 100th loss of the season for the first time in franchise history.

This year has been a challenging one for the Rockies, injuries have decimated this team, they've had a lot of young players come up to the major league roster and to be honest, the fact of the matter is, they just haven't been a good baseball team.

When a team has the kind of season the Rockies did, change has to come. Whether that change comes from the front office, a change on the roster or even on the coaching staff. Something has to change.

Since taking over manager duties in 2017, Bud Black has only made the playoffs twice in 2017 and 2018. Since then, they have yet to even have a season above .500. With the playoffs set to begin this week, the Rockies will now go five straight years without a post season appearance.

Over the last two years, the city of Denver has been nothing but a winner as both the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets have won championships during this stretch. The future of football in Colorado is looking bright as both the Denver Broncos and Colorado University football are starting to look like teams who are on the rise. Both teams have created a change of scenery by acquiring head coaches Sean Payton and Deion Sanders and the culture in those locker rooms is quickly changing.

Right now, the Rockies record sits at 58-103 with one more game remaining which will be played later this afternoon. Despite having the worst season in franchise history, the Rockies still rank high in fan attendance as ESPN has them listed at 14 in all of baseball with an average attendance of 32,079 just ahead of the Rangers, Brewers, Twins, Diamondbacks, Orioles, Rays and Marlins who are postseason-bound.

Lets face it, being in a city that has this kind of continuous support and surrounded by other great winning teams should create pressure on the Rockies to win. The Monfort family owes it to the city of Denver by putting together a winning product on the baseball field.

While their are many directions the Rockies organization could go in to try and change this team to create a winning culture, I have to think the one move they might make this offseason is releasing Bud Black.

If the Rockies organization decides to move on from Black within the next couple of weeks, there are a few potential managers who could take over and make an immediate impact on this organization.

1. Gabe Kapler

With three games left in the season on Friday, the San Francisco Giants made a shocking move by announcing they were parting ways with Gabe Kapler.

Kapler, 48 has been an MLB manager for five years now, two with the Philadelphia Phillies and three with the San Francisco Giants. He has an overall record of 456-411 with a win percentage of .526.

In his first stint as a manager with the Phillies, it did not go so well for a team that signed the 2015 N.L. MVP Bryce Harper in 2019. The Phillies had a record 81-81 that screamed mediocrity wi a roster that featured big names like Aaron Nola, Jake Arrieta, Rhys Hoskins and Andrew McCutchen. A change was needed in Philadelphia and that was to move on from Kapler.

With experience comes maturity. In his first year with the Giants, Kapler and the Giants were an okay team, finishing 29-31 in a shortened 60-game season due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, in 2021, Kapler shocked the world when he led the Giants to an N.L. West title that year with a 107-55 record, just passing the Los Angeles Dodgers by one game. The Giants would end up being eliminated from the postseason after a disappointing game five loss to the Dodgers in the NLDS that year.

Kapler, has proven that he can win and can win in this division with a team that does not feature any big names. The decision to possibly acquire him as a manager if Black is gone should be a no-brainer for the Rockies.

3. Clayton McCullough

In today's sports, it has become a copy cat industry as teams will look to mimic another team's formula and replicate it as their own. The decision to bring on current Los Angeles Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough could be an excellent move by the Rockies front office.

The Athletic currently has McCullough ranked as the top managerial prospect available this offseason. Last year, he finished as a runner-up for both the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals job.

The opportunity to take from a division rival could mean everything for the Rockies. McCullough knows what it's like to be in a winning culture and would be able to bring that type of experience over to a Rockies team that hardly has any winning experience. He has spent most of his coaching career in the minor leagues as a manager for the Blue Jays from 2007-2014. In 2021, he was hired by Dave Roberts and the Dodgers to be the first base coach.

Each of the three years he has been with the Dodgers, they have been in the playoffs and have won two division titles. When it comes to creating a winning culture and changing scenery, Roberts has been the poster boy for that image for almost the last decade as he turned the Dodgers into a power house organization with a World Series victory in 2020.

I do believe that if you get a young coach like McCullough in the Rockies clubhouse, you could see some of that Dodgers type of culture created in the Colorado clubhouse and this team could potentially evolve into something special.