The Colorado Rockies needed a scapegoat for their 7-33 start, and they chose the man who’s been managing the team since 2017.
Bud Black got a vote of confidence from his general manager Saturday night. Then his Colorado Rockies team lost 21-0. Even after his team won their 7th game of the season Sunday afternoon, Black lost his job.
The Rockies announce they have relieved Bud Black of duties as manager. Third base coach Warren Schaeffer has been named interim manager, hitting coach Clint Hurdle has been named bench coach. pic.twitter.com/Yb8XVpcW1A
— MLB (@MLB) May 11, 2025
Black has been a near-constant presence in National League West dugouts since 2007, when he replaced Bruce Bochy as manager of the San Diego Padres. The San Francisco Giants interviewed Black for the job before going with Bochy, so the Padres grabbed Black, who managed their team until the middle of the 2015 season. After Black was fired, he spent a year in the front office of the Los Angeles Angels, then took over for the Rockies.
While Black is well-respected throughout the league, winning Manager of the Year in 2010, he hasn’t had much playoff success. His best season came in 2018, when the Rockies tied the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the NL West, lost the tie-breaker game to the Dodgers, then won the wild-card game over the Chicago Cubs in 13 innings. Then the Rockies got swept by the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS, scoring two runs over three games.
In 2017, the Rockies lost the wild-card game to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 11-8, in part because a Rockies reliever game up a two-run triple to Archie Bradley, the only relief pitcher in major league history to hit a triple in a playoff game.
The rest of Black’s postseason experience is limited to 2007, when San Diego finished 89-74, then lost the wild-card game to, who else, the Colorado Rockies. The Padres took an 8-6 lead in the top of the 13th inning, but Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman blew the save on a Matt Holliday triple and a controversial game-winning sacrifice fly where Holliday scraped his face on the dirt sliding home and never actually touched home plate. Say what you will about Black’s managing, but he certainly delivers exciting wild-card games.
Black’s best season in San Diego came in 2010, when they finished 90-72, but lost a 6.5-game lead to the Giants after a disastrous September. Black still won Manager of the Year.
For the last few seasons, Black had to work under the constraints of a remarkably incompetent ownership group in Denver. The Monfort brothers, Dick and Charlie, have been the primary owners of the Rockies since 2005, and Dick has been the club’s chairman and CEO since 2011, a span of time that featured just that one postseason victory, that 2018 wild-card game.
Perhaps thanks to some disastrous free agent signings — Ian Desmond in 2016, Kris Bryant in 2022, and spending $106M on a “super bullpen” before the 2018 season — and the loss of their local cable deal, the Rockies have slashed payroll recently, while averaging 99 losses the last three seasons. When they traded Nolan Arenado, the team sent $50M to the St. Louis Cardinals for a package of five players headlined by a man named Austin Gomber. Black really didn’t have a chance.
The Giants have always liked Black, dating back to when they drafted him out of high school in the third round of the 1977 draft. They signed him to a four-year free agent deal before the 1990 season, which didn’t work out great as he went 22-28 his first two seasons, leading the league in losses in 1991 and in home runs allowed in 1992. Black was much better in the Giants’ 1993 season, starting off 8-2 with a 3.56 ERA, but an elbow ended his season in August.
Still, Black had good enough experiences with the Giants that he chose to retire when the team didn’t bring him back after the Cleveland Indians released him in 1995, since he only wanted to pitch in Cleveland or SF. He was a managerial candidate after 2002 and after 2006, so it wouldn’t be shocking if the Giants were interested in bringing him into the organization in some capacity in the future, though at age 67, his managing days may be over.
Black probably didn’t deserve to be fired, nor do the fans in Denver deserve this team. Things look bleak at Coors Field, where enthusiasm has waned to the point that this author was able to buy a ticket for just $1.98 for a game last September. Warren Schaeffer gets the dubious honor of taking over the 7-33 Rockies, with former manager Clint Hurdle lurking as the dual bench and hitting coach. Bud Black, you may be better off fired.